Best camera for Digiscoping?

[josh jones]

I currently have a Nikon Coolpix 4500, have had it a couple of years and its absolutely battered. I have obtained some pleasing images in more recent times, such as the Woodchat Shrike at Portland last month (enclosed), or the enclosed Oyc...

Just wandering if anyone could suggest a good replacement (or in fact, a better camera)? I'm thinking of investing again.

Cheers, wrexile

[Neil]

You got some nice results with the 4500. If you want a digicam with all the functionality that you had with the 4500 plus a bit then you will be disappointed , unless you can still find the Nikon 8400 or Olympus 7070wz. The lack of rotatable screens and remote control on most of the new cameras make them a compromise in my opinion. The new Nikon P series look promising or the newer Sony's, Olympus and Fujis. The screens and speed of the new cameras will be a big improvement over the 4500 though.
Have a read through the previous emails in this forum and you'll get most of the models being used. Neil.

[Paul Hackett]

Hi Wrexile

Take a look at the Fuji F10 or F11 beware they take XD card so extra buying

Sony wise, look at the Sony W7, or W5, i am trying out the Sony N1 at the moment as reccommended to me by Stephen Ingraham the Zeiss optics expert in the U.S. again, sony memory cards so change of memory format, but good battery life

These cameras will need a meccano kit of some kind to attach them as they all have telescopic external zooms, search the forum for a universal adapter ( Baader type adapter seems to be popular at around £30 ? i seem to remember?) others may suggest a different adpater

Cable release a little difficult to fix as most of these universal adapters use the screw thread located under the camera to attach to each other, Jessops or eagleeye for these if you know it will work, one solution is to use a velcro type cable release with a metal stud which has a thread in the core, kindly supplied by Deja Vu on this forum, if you contact him and give him the dimensions, he will make for you at a very reasonable price, he has made them for me and others on this forum

Finally LCD eye shade, either a home made job or look on the eagleeye website, check your LCD screen dimensions on one of the camera review sites dpreview is good

hope this helps?

Rgds

Paul

[christineredgate]

The 4500 is still available.Scan through the dealer adverts.

[josh jones]

Hi Wrexile

Take a look at the Fuji F10 or F11 beware they take XD card so extra buying

Sony wise, look at the Sony W7, or W5, i am trying out the Sony N1 at the moment as reccommended to me by Stephen Ingraham the Zeiss optics expert in the U.S. again, sony memory cards so change of memory format, but good battery life

These cameras will need a meccano kit of some kind to attach them as they all have telescopic external zooms, search the forum for a universal adapter ( Baader type adapter seems to be popular at around £30 ? i seem to remember?) others may suggest a different adpater

Cable release a little difficult to fix as most of these universal adapters use the screw thread located under the camera to attach to each other, Jessops or eagleeye for these if you know it will work, one solution is to use a velcro type cable release with a metal stud which has a thread in the core, kindly supplied by Deja Vu on this forum, if you contact him and give him the dimensions, he will make for you at a very reasonable price, he has made them for me and others on this forum

Finally LCD eye shade, either a home made job or look on the eagleeye website, check your LCD screen dimensions on one of the camera review sites dpreview is good

hope this helps?

Rgds

Paul

Cheers for this Paul - much help. I will look in to the Fuji and Sony ones. Which camera do you use?

[josh jones]

The 4500 is still available.Scan through the dealer adverts.

As my current camera is still working, I don't think I'll be investing in another coolpix. I was looking for something different, perhaps to provide a range of options for photography.

[Paul Hackett]

Cheers for this Paul - much help. I will look in to the Fuji and Sony ones. Which camera do you use?

Main camera has been and still is, the Contax U4R which has been discontinued ( i have 3 of these!) i also have the Contax SL300Rt* Kyocera 400 and Kyocera 300, these cameras are the most user friendly camera i have found for digiscoping, they can be bought second hand, i also have 2 coolpix 4500's and a Coolpix 995

I have been using the Sony N1 ( 8 mill pixels) on and off over the last couple of months and received yesterday a Fuji F30 for testing

Best thing is to take scope and kit to a shop and try, for some people its not that easy, try and get to the Birdfair at Rutland in August, plenty of kit to try out there, all under one roof.

IMHO its the only way, then you are basing the decision to buy from your own observations and not other people's comments

I have seen too many emails in my intray over the years from people who bought their kit on reccommendation, and then realised their kit didnt do what they expected it to do, and asking me what can they do now?

Also before you buy, ensure you have costed all the new bits you may need, extra battery, does the camera take a battery pack? different format of memory card etc

Hope this helps?

ATB

Paul

[digitalbirdy]

I love my F10, but would not recommend it in preference to the later F11 (and probably F30 too). Not because of the photo quality, but because the later cams have extra manual controls. Shutter and F stop priority, - which will allow optimum settings to be chosen for those 'perfect' photos.

[Mike Penfold]

Comments from anyone who has digiscoped with the Nikon P4, Canon SD700IS, or
Fuji F30 would be appreciated.

Mike

[paulsullivan]

Comments from anyone who has digiscoped with the Nikon P4, Canon SD700IS, or
Fuji F30 would be appreciated.

Mike
I have recently moved from cp4500 to Nikon p4(8mp) and am pleased with the results i am getting, also can digisope small movies with this camera, i have made my own adapter though, one of my latest pics is

cheers
Paul

[garry1366]

As my current camera is still working, I don't think I'll be investing in another coolpix. I was looking for something different, perhaps to provide a range of options for photography.
Hi Josh,
If your looking for more options why not consider a mega zoom point and shoot like the Canon S2 or the Panasonic FZ30 to use alongside your Coolpix?

Plus points are much easier to get a chance of flying birds or active/close passerines, no need to lug a scope and tripod around (useful on the coast in the autumn) small size and fairly cheap whilst delivering (almost) DSLR like results.

Here's a couple of shots from an S2 for example of the quality. I'd probably recomend the FZ30 though after using the S2 for 6 months. If your interested and want more details about plus/minus points of each model let me know.

G.

[Forcreeks]

For those interested in digiscoping with the new Fuji F30, I just posted some extreme low light samples at full res and at 25% res in a thread I started above this one. I give some critique information on it as well. I would not say it's the one perfect digiscoping camera, but it does take a reasonably sharp shot, and has many state of the art features, but not including full manual exposure control or manual focus. The "final 3" continuous shooting mode is extremely useful as you wait for a bird to do just the right thing for a shot, and want to capture that exact moment. It will even aid in capturing a lightning bolt flash, which I did do. I'm not convinced it's the top of line in lenses, but it's certainly not bad, and it may be a little contrasty blowing out whites without much ev manual reduction. On a hummingbird I had to set it down about 2/3 stop e.v. to prevent the white upper breast from bleaching out, and this was in "good" cloudy light, not direct sun. the specs claim a 1/2000 maximum shutter but I haven't been able to get it to shoot faster than 1/1000, so I suspect it's only on some of the automated shooting modes at 1/2000 sec. I'll continue to post more shots from it to my regular Gallery.
Here's one from F30 just added to Gallery; I used the continuous final-3 mode to capture this brief moment of brightness:

http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/100179/sort/1/cat/500/page/1

Here's another using the same rapid capture mode "final 3"
Anna's Hummingbird preening (http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/100186/sort/1/cat/500/page/1)

[revs45]

Comments from anyone who has digiscoped with the Nikon P4, Canon SD700IS, or
Fuji F30 would be appreciated.

Mike

i've just begun digiscoping with a coolpix P4 / Fieldscope III ED combo and am liking the results.

[Highway Man]

Here's a couple of shots from an S2 for example of the quality. I'd probably recomend the FZ30 though after using the S2 for 6 months. If your interested and want more details about plus/minus points of each model let me know.

G.

Looking at those photos Garry I hope you hung on to your S2. The FZ30 suffers terribly from noise at low ISO (even worse than the FZ20). I had the FZ20 and was very disappointed with it, noise, lots of CA etc. In the end I ended up selling it on Ebay and buying a Nikon D50 and a second hand Sigma 50-500, I haven't looked back since. The beauty of this combination is that you can stick in a holster style bag and it won't impede your birding. I still occasionally use my Kyocera 400 and even less my 995, but I wouldn’t know what to turn to if either of those ever pack up.

Mark

[Marcus Conway - ebirder]

For those interested in digiscoping with the new Fuji F30, I just posted some extreme low light samples at full res and at 25% res in a thread I started above this one. I give some critique information on it as well. I would not say it's the one perfect digiscoping camera, but it does take a reasonably sharp shot, and has many state of the art features, but not including full manual exposure control or manual focus. The "final 3" continuous shooting mode is extremely useful as you wait for a bird to do just the right thing for a shot, and want to capture that exact moment. It will even aid in capturing a lightning bolt flash, which I did do. I'm not convinced it's the top of line in lenses, but it's certainly not bad, and it may be a little contrasty blowing out whites without much ev manual reduction. On a hummingbird I had to set it down about 2/3 stop e.v. to prevent the white upper breast from bleaching out, and this was in "good" cloudy light, not direct sun. the specs claim a 1/2000 maximum shutter but I haven't been able to get it to shoot faster than 1/1000, so I suspect it's only on some of the automated shooting modes at 1/2000 sec. I'll continue to post more shots from it to my regular Gallery.
Here's one from F30 just added to Gallery; I used the continuous final-3 mode to capture this brief moment of brightness:

http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/100179/sort/1/cat/500/page/1

Here's another using the same rapid capture mode "final 3"
Anna's Hummingbird preening (http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/100186/sort/1/cat/500/page/1)

What adapter do you use forcreeks?

[Cudyll Bach]

I visited the SRB Link Here (http://www.srbfilm.co.uk/home.html) stand at the Bird Fair yesterday, they are developing a system that allows you to connect a digital SLR to directly to your scope so you don't have to use a lens on your camera.

[Robert L Jarvis]

Iain, that would surely just be a photo adapter to make your scope into a long telephoto, of which I have had one for years and they are nigh on useless.