I have been experimenting with different camera settings, trying to get a clearer picture of my "night swimmer". If I increase the shutter speed there isn't enough light and all I see is black. Increasing or decreasing the frame rate doesn't get it either. I have optimization settings for clarity, motion, or combination and those don't help either. However, tweaking the settings has gotten rid of the waving "fins" and in
this video they are pretty clearly wings — at least to my eyes. Try playing the .mov in full screen mode.
My night swimmer is here nearly every evening. If it is a nighthawk/lbullbat as I suspect that is good as we are having lots of mosquitos infected with West Nile virus in the area and a single nighthawk will eat several hundred in an evenings hunt.
I talked to a friend who has done a lot of wildlife photography and he told me a clear image was probably going to require a sensitive camera with a fast strobe to freeze the action at night. Well beyond the capability of my video cam.
