Digiscoping beginnings maybe

[oldbaldman]

I never thought I would be posting here, but never say never I guess.

Relatively new to birding but have no idea of digiscoping so need some help please as thinking of getting into taking digi pics.

Will be using a Swaro atsHD80 angled scope with 20 to 60 zoom and a 30 fixed lens.

Saw a chap taking digipics by just holding his digicam to the lens, and it worked for him. I have tried this but the pic comes out with a circle with a lot of dark background behind it, not what I am after.

I have no idea what I should look at or where to start, so any advice would be welcome. My current camera is a Canon ixus 4, 4 years old or so but a very good camera and has done me well for many years.

cheers

dave

[MalR]

I never thought I would be posting here, but never say never I guess.

Relatively new to birding but have no idea of digiscoping so need some help please as thinking of getting into taking digi pics.

Will be using a Swaro atsHD80 angled scope with 20 to 60 zoom and a 30 fixed lens.

Saw a chap taking digipics by just holding his digicam to the lens, and it worked for him. I have tried this but the pic comes out with a circle with a lot of dark background behind it, not what I am after.

I have no idea what I should look at or where to start, so any advice would be welcome. My current camera is a Canon ixus 4, 4 years old or so but a very good camera and has done me well for many years.

cheers

dave

Hi, Dave. Welcome to the wonderful world of digiscoping!!! It can be very frustrating when you're starting out, but like most things it gets easier with practice.

I have the same scope as you, and it is excellent for digiscoping. I use the zoom eyepiece, but very rarely beyond 20x magnification. My camera is a Sony Cybershot W7, which is getting on a bit now but delivers decent results. Because it has a lens thread I attach it to the scope using the Swarovski DCA adapter via a Sony adapter. I don't know your camera, but if it doesn't have a lens thread there are various types of camera adapter available. Just check out the relevant thread on the Forum. Some people also use a cable release to help minimise camera shake. I used to but I abandoned it as I found it too fiddly.

The circle effect you describe is known as vignetting. You will find that by zooming in the circle will disappear. With my camera, which has a 3x optical zoom, vignetting disappears at about 1.9x zoom. Generally speaking, the less you have to zoom the better in terms of image quality.

Don't be discouraged if your early efforts don't seem too promising. The "keepers" rate in digiscoping is never very high. With practice you'll discover what works for you. The main thing is, enjoy it!!

Cheers,

Malcolm

[Paul Jarvis]

Dave, Malcom has said pretty much everything there I would only suggest looking in the gallery to see what other cameras are being used with your scope and look at the results.

Paul

[oldbaldman]

cheers for that thought. I will go look and see. Like so many things these days when you start looking into a topic there is so much choice, too much choice I think.


dave