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[Alan lewis]

Hi
This is my 1st posting on the bird forum. Main reason for joining forum is
As other members trying to better photos. And sharing my misgivings
Which happen a lot
Equipment = D300 canon digital camera
ES 80 GA ED /45 Opticron Scope with a telephoto adapter HDF
I am very new to digiscoping so if I get things wrong please forgive me.

The camera is about 1 ½ years old so I can take average photos. I have been
Using a 80-400 zoom lens up to now and getting quite good photos at a range of about 30M but could never get as close as a scope.
The details when using a scope is fantastic

So I looked in to getting a mid range scope with in mind taking some close up photos.
What could be easier just point and shoot.

The weekend after getting the above I couldn’t wait to try camera and scope.

The Saturday morning came and I popped over to the Cotswold water park some Gadwalls,Wigon, Shovelers and best of all a little Egret was on view so I started shooting
The scope book recommends that the best ISO setting should be 400 and that the shutter speed should be as quick as possible.

Main problem I found that being at 9am in the morning the light was not at its best so the camera was always over exposed when set at 400. I could only get the Camera set just under exposed when the camera was set to ISO 100.(I have read that its easier to edit when under exposed than over exposed)

I also found that the images was out of focus would this be down to me not using my glasses

After downloading onto the G5 Mac I was very disappointed in my morning thinking I had some good pictures to show the Wife
Ok it’s my 1st attempt and things should get better

Can any one help and point me in the right direction am I doing something wrong
Can I only take photos at midday or only on a week day ?

Thank you all for reading I promise to get better with your help
Alan

[KCFoggin]

Hi Alan and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdForum :t:

I have digiscoped with a shutter speed of 1/30 with 100 iso with more than passable results.

Best bet to decide if you should be using your glasses would be to focus your scope on a static subject w/o your glasses and once focused, put your glasses on and see what it looks like. That should tell you whether you need them or not. Next, how much zoom power are you using with your camera and your scope? I seldom go above 20x with my scope unless I am trying to get a record shot. Same with my camera. My aperture setting is usually always between 2.9 - 3.2.

Lastly, all I can tell you is to practice, practice and more practice and patience, patience and more patience and you will see a difference. ;)

[Andy Bright]

Hi Alan, welcome to birdforum, we hope you enjoy the site.
Unfortunately your set-up is prone to various problems... none more so than the tiny amount of light getting into your camera via the 35mm photo adapter. Using your camera with a photo adapter will result in a number of the metering functions you get with a standard lens being disabled.. so exposure will be trial and error to some extent, a case of adjusting the ev+/- controls after reviewing the photo on the camera monitor.

ISO 400 is quite optimistic with this set-up, the scope will be around f14 aperture value. ISO800 is more likely to be the case in getting any sort of sensible shutter speed. I'm not totally familiar with the Canons when connected to a scope, or what metering functions will still be available, hopefully someone can offer some first hand advise.

I will move this thread into the photograsphy section in the hope you get some more replies.

cheers,
Andy

[postcardcv]

Hi Alan and welcome to BF

I'd guess that they recommend using ISO 400 as this will help keep the shutter speeds high, often the biggest probelm with this kind of set up is the poor light gathering. This can be a real problem as the set up is very prone to camera shake so fast shutter speeds are essential. If the light is good enough to allow you to shot at lower ISO then that can only be a good thing.

You mention that the focus wasn't good on the photos, have you adjusted the diopter on your camera (page 36 in the instructions). Hopefully this will help you to get good focus even if you're not wearing your glasses.

Personally I've never got on well using this kind of set up (I've tried with three different scopes and cameras). I've found that my best results with an slr come from using long lenses. However for digiscoping, I've always found a compact digital camera is quicker, easier and more effective to use. Also as this system uses the scopes eyepeice you get more magnification, which is one of the big advantages of digiscoping.