Filmmaker, research biologist, and adventurer Dan O'Neill is known for his incredible photography and documentary films using camera trap technology to study endangered wildlife across the globe. His research takes O'Neill from the snowy heights of Kyrgyzstan to remote swathes of the Amazon rainforest and beyond. Perhaps best known for his work with big cats and the Snow Leopard Trust, O'Neill depends on SmallHD's Indie 7 monitor to support his filmmaking in some of the world's most diverse natural environments.
O'Neill's first collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust is documented in the four-part BBC Earth series Ghosts in the Snow. O'Neill and a very small team travels through Kyrgyzstan aiming to demonstrate and learn more about snow leopard conservation. With a background mixed in wildlife filmmaking and biology, the researcher brings a unique, artistic eye to the process. He describes, My specialism is using high-end video camera traps to record animals in a way that you probably have never seen before. But to do that, you must have really good tech. The researcher turned to SmallHD with a very specific need: I wanted high quality monitors that I could plug into my camera trap systems.
A camera trap system consists of a scientifically organized grid of remote sensing cameras, that operate using trigger sensors. Experts rely on camera traps to conduct research where human presence is a liability rather than an asset. The technology has revolutionized the understanding of really elusive and low abundance animals, particularly vulnerable species like snow leopards, O'Neill says. Instead of using PIR infrared movement sensors, which can be prone to false triggering, something that wastes precious battery life, he likes to set up two infrared laser triggers, creating a beam. When the beam is broken (by, for instance, a snow leopard) the camera is triggered.
O'Neill uses Cambush Cube with Sony RX camera for his camera traps. With anywhere from 5 to 30 cameras working at one time, it was crucial to have a monitor set up that would never slow him down, while still being appropriate for a two-man team and a rugged trip into the Himalayas. For him, the answer was SmallHD's Indie 7. The Sony RX camera has great focus setting, up to really minute detail, along all your exposure mapping and everything, he explains, but it only has a teeny tiny action camera LCD screen. Having a monitor that you can then plug into the camera and then properly visualize your image makes a huge difference.
SmallHD's Indie 7 is a 7-inch touchscreen monitor, built lightweight and powered by the familiar Page OS software. The daylight viewable screen provides 1000 nits of brightness, allowing O'Neill to accurately set his camera traps even at the brightest times of day. With a rugged, thin aluminum chassis, the monitor perfectly supports filmmaking in the harsh, high-intensity environments the researcher works in. After setting each camera system, he simply unplugs his Indie 7 monitor, and the Cambush Cubes are on their own for another three months.
For O'Neill, behavioral ecology moves beyond collecting data and into telling a compelling conservation story. Being able to interactively visualize wildlife in really high quality is critical for getting the perfect shots. You can miss something so easily, whether that's an animal in the rainforest, or trying to discern a snow leopard from the mountain backdrop in Kyrgyzstan. Your monitor is critical. One of the most amazing things about this monitor is that as soon as I return to the site, I switch the battery out and right away I can check all the footage from the camera trap. His delight and gratification while playing back footage of the elusive snow leopard on his Indie 7 is palpable in the BBC documentary series.
I learned so much about snow leopards working with Snow Leopard Trust I really fell in love, O'Neill admits. Even 30 years ago, we knew basically nothing about snow leopards and today they're still the least understood big cats in the world. But with these camera traps, we now have a window to see what their secret lives are like. Snow leopards are animals shrouded in mystery, with a small population today estimated as between 3,920 and 6,390. They are the highest altitude cats, living in the third pole, the central high Asian mountains. They're critically important to the mountains, not just as a vulnerable species, but as the iconic and beautiful icon of the landscape.
Snow leopards are also a flagship species. The fight to preserve the big cat has the potential for wide-reaching positive change. If you can protect certain areas for snow leopards, there's a whole plethora of other species the mountain ecosystems and communities that are helped by that conservation initiative. Snow leopards range across 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Mongolia, and Nepal. Despite vastly different political ideals, social structures, and religions, the conservation of this one animal can bring these nations together in some small way. This conservation story tells that this animal could be a key to peace, which is really, really beautiful.
O'Neill continues his work with the Snow Leopard Trust and last year officially joined the team as their first explorer in residence. His mission to bring awareness to wildlife preservation continues, SmallHD monitors in tow. I love being able to be at the sort of frontline of what's happening in tech or film. The fact is, Indie 7 is really useful in Snow Leopard camera trapping projects.
To follow Dan O'Neill's work and check out his latest adventure: https://www.instagram.com/danowild/
To learn more about SmallHD Indie 7: https://smallhd.com/pages/indie-7
To learn more about the Sn
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
Filmmaker, research biologist, and adventurer Dan O'Neill is known for his incredible photography and documentary films using camera trap technology to study endangered wildlife across the globe. His research takes O'Neill from the snowy heights of Kyrgyzstan to remote swathes of the Amazon rainforest and beyond. Perhaps best known for his work with big cats and the Snow Leopard Trust, O'Neill depends on SmallHD's Indie 7 monitor to support his filmmaking in some of the world's most diverse natural environments.
