Amateur digiscoper

[Draco]

I have posted these in the Dragonfly forum, but hope to get more feedback from this group. I have only been digiscoping for about a month and don't get out as much as I would like to. The more advice that I can get from these few shots will help me, as I don't have a photographers eye.

Camera - Nikon Coolpix 4300
Adapter - 2 Plus LE
Scope - Nikon RA II / 15x - 45x eyepiece

[Draco]

Profile

[Draco]

Different type

[Tony_InDevon]

Draco these are beautiful. I am beginning to wonder if when I upgraded my photographic kit a few months ago, if the money would have been better spent of digiscoping kit.

[Draco]

Digiscoping can be VERY frustrating! I hope that it gets easier with time. I have thrown away over 30 shots without keeping a single one, after a couple of hours of trying!

It's a good thing that I like a challenge!

Mark

[digi-birder]

Fabulous shots, Draco.

Keep going - it does get easier with practice. I, too, was determined not to give in. Mind you, a new camera was my saviour.

You will get lots of poor shots. That's a fact of photography in general, not just digiscoping.

[Gordon]

Draco,
can you be more specific about the Adapter - 2 Plus LE - who makes it?

regards
Gordon

[Tannin]

30 bad shots in a couple of hours? Mate - that ain't nuffin! Aside from your time and trouble, digital shots cost essentially zero cents each. Be profligate with them!

In a typical day's birding, I'll take somewhere between 500 and 1000 shots. Why not? Sooner or later, if you take enough shots, you will get the one that reaches out from the screen and grabs you by the short and curlies.

Does it get easier with practice? Well, yes and no. Some of the guys with more experience will no doubt have their own comments to make, but for me, after a couple of months, I can say that I've got a lot better at some things, and still have great difficulty with other things. Yes, it gets easier, but it's still hard. I bet that if you asked a real pro like Andy Bright or Laurence Poh, they would say "yes, it gets easier, but it is still hard".

I think that's the thrill: I keep squeezing the shutter release just one more time, knowing that sooner or later, I'm going to hit the jackpot and get a really great picture. I expect to get quite a few decent ones on a day trip now, and perhaps two or three really good ones. About every third day out, I get a ripper. That's .. er ... about one ripper picture per 2000 shots expended. (And I love every minute of it. ;) If it was easy, would it still be this rewarding? I doubt it.)

-----

Here is something you can easily do though. (Forgive me if you know this stuff already.) A little bit of very easy in-computer processing can improve the look of your shots quite a lot, and get you closer to that pin-sharp look that the pros get.

I downloaded one of your pictures just now, and used my favourite graphics viewer to reprocess it a little. I used PMView (www.pmview.com) but there are lots of others. All I did was re-size it to 640 x 480 (i.e., small enough to be posted in the gallery here), and then added a little sharpening - that's a two-click process. And here is the result.

(Added: Woops! I forgot to say what nice dragonfly pictures these are! They remind me, here in Australia in the depths of another cold and miserable Ballarat winter, that there is such a thing as summer and that it will return before too long. Roll on summer and keep shooting!)

[Tannin]

And here is the same image again, but sharpened more. A little over-sharpened, in my opinion, but that is a matter of individual taste. I like to sharpen till I can see that the image has been sharpened, and then back it off a little. My rule is as sharp as I can get it but without having that tell-tale artificial "digitally sharpened" look.

Cheers-- Tony

[eric s]

I had tried to post this last night, but birdforum disappeared on me. Oh, well… I've reedited it to take into account the comments of others.

The first one has good detail in the wings, but the head is either slightly out of focus... or something. I like this pose, though. I don't normally take this myself, and maybe I should!

The second is over exposed on the tail. I like the pose, with the wings forward. I don’t think I’ve seen one do that before. It also seems a little soft.

You got very close on the third one. Was this done by cropping the image or did you get closer? It to seems a little out of focus, but not as much as the others.

Maybe the sharpness is just an aspect of digiscoping? I photograph dragonflies with my 10D and 100-400L and I get sharper pictures than these. Here is an example:

http://www.marx7.org/~esmith/web_posts/dragonfly1.jpg

Are my standards just too high for what digiscoping can produce?

Others talked about doing post-processing sharpening. This is a must with any camera. It also looks like you have a fair bit of digital noise in the picture. Were you using a high ISO? There is a great piece of software called “neat image” which will remove it. I have to shoot at ISO800 all the time to get a decent shutter speed. This produces a fair amount of noise… that I then remove with neat image. Check it out:

www.neatimage.com

Unless you shoot in RAW, you can probably survive with just the demo (free for non-commercial use) version. I think the “pro” version has better patch processing settings (I seem to remember) so I might upgrade to that soon. Oh, a quick look at that image I linked to… I don’t think I used neat image on it. So don’t use it as an example. Look at their web site.

The big difference between Tannin’s first and second version (to me) is that the noise is more noticeable. I find it distracting, actually. As for the dragonfly… there is a slight sharpening halo around the head that isn’t visible in the original but gets worse with more sharpening. That is the price of sharpening.

Eric

[Draco]

Thanks digi-birder,

I appreciate the encouragement and compliment!

Gordon,

The LE adapter is just what attaches the camera to the scope. It does not have any optics. They have two models for different size scope eyepieces. My Coolpix 4300 required an additional $9.99 Nikon adapter to couple the two. The folks that sell them are more than happy to help you figure out what you need. They are a U.S. company, so you may have a better Europen option available. Here is the Web site:
http://www.lensadapter.com/

Tannin,

Thanks for the kind words, encouragement and improving that shot! I had no idea that shapening to that extent was possible!

500 to 1000 shots per day? I need to buy more memory cards.;)

Thanks guys,
Mark

[Draco]

Wow, Eric,

I think that you are too far ahead of me. Fantasic shot that you provided!

Depth of field seems to be one of my problems. The tail and head are examples in the first shot and one of the things that I hoped would be mentioned here.

I didn't use the full magnification of the scope on the first two.

From what I have read, digiscoping does not produce the highest quality pictures. I am just a beginner, so I'm the one that's supposed to be asking the questions.;) I'm also wondering if I have to use so much zoom to eliminate vignetting that the zoom is effecting the quality.

I have to check on the ISO. I'm not even sure that I have an option on my camera. I'm a computer guy, so I'm naturally bad at reading manuals (computer manuals are usually wrong). And, again, this is all new to me. I should probably take a digital camera course!

Thank you for your input and I'll take a look at that program.

Mark

[eric s]

DOF decreases with magnification. So you could try using a lower X power to increase it.

What picture editor are you using? Most can display the EXIF data, which the camera stores into the picture. This will include the ISO setting (and lots of other things.) It's possible that your camera has some noise even at low ISO.

do realize that my picture was not digiscoped. It was using a Canon 10D digital SLR and a very expensive 100-400L "professional quality" lens. I spent $1,499 on my camera, which is a lot of money. But one of the things I got for that money is that it produces very noise free images at low ISO values. I have very high standards, so I knew I'd be bothered by the quality of lesser cameras. It might be that your camera will have noise.

Don't worry too much, though, as neat image can do amazing things. Look over your pictures and pick the ones you like best, then use neat image on those first, then load the processed images into your edit and do the rest. If you edit them first, you'll alter the noise profile (which neat image learns and uses to remove the noise) so neat image won't work as well if you do it later in the process.

It also isn't fair to compare the sharpness of my image with yours. I was using an auto-focus camera, while you were focusing by hand. AF can mess up, but if it doesn't it will produce very sharp images. You are limited to the display on the back of your 4300, which isn't the best thing to focus by. You might consider getting an Xtend-a-View pro, which should make focusing easier. They are made by:
http://www.eagleeyeuk.com/

I've never used one, but some good digiscopers like it. Check out Andy Bright's review:
http://www.digiscoped.com/optionalextras.html
(about 1/2 way down the page.)

I'm probably going to get into digiscoping to extend my reach. I hate it when the Glossy Ibis is 150 feet away and I have no way to get closer. Sigh.

Eric

[Gordon]

Thanks for the info Draco - I'll look into it.

I too forgot to say well done with the photo's - I got carried away when I saw someone else using a CoolPix 4300!!!

Thanks again
Gordon

[Draco]

Gordon,

Thanks and no problem with the adapter info. Good to hear that I'm not the only one with a Coolpix 4300! Maybe we can start a club now.;)

Eric,

I didn't even know about the photo editors until you and Tannin enlightened me. This is a fantastic tool, but is it "cheating"? I tried Neat Image and want to compare it to PMView. It is just amazing to see what I thought were average shots improve so much. My poorest shot of the three turned into this. The mind boggles with the new hobby that I've found and all that I have to learn. Are using these tools accepted as "fair" in the contests that are run here? Can the sharpening be detected by a good eye (which I lack)? How did I do with my first sharpening?

[digi-birder]

Originally posted by Draco
Are using these tools accepted as "fair" in the contests that are run here? Can the sharpening be detected by a good eye (which I lack)? How did I do with my first sharpening?

Draco,

All's fair in love and the BF photo comp!

There are certain rules to follow if you want to enter the photo competition. To quote rule 11 for the August comp: "Only minor image adjustment is permitted, such as cropping, sharpening, contrast, and levels. The photo must not be otherwise greatly manipulated ie. objects should not be added / removed in order to enhance the shot."

Some photos cannot be sharpened in the computer. Some of my early shots were spoiled by camera shake and could not be made to look any better no matter what I did. If you can edit some of them to look sharper rather than delete them, then why not?

The sharpened one you've just posted looks great.

Here's one of mine (http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php?photo=7960&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1) that had to have a bit of sharpening done to take away the softness.

[Draco]

Exceptional Diane!

I just got the feeling that I was creating something with my computer, rather than "getting a good shot". The more that I think about it the process is just improving some detail, but I was curious if it was widely used and accepted.

Funny - mentioning to one of my female friends and asking how she felt about altering the photos this way, her comment was "What, don't you think Playboy uses an airbrush?"3:-)

A big thanks to all for this enlightening day!

Mark

[eric s]

Don't worry about improving the image in an editor. Realize that cameras don't capture the scene as your eye does. You will (almost) always have to do something to it in post processing to get it right.

And did you think when people took pictures with film they didn't alter the images in post processing? Amazing tricks are pulled in dark rooms to take a picture and improve it. Everyone (from Ansel Adams on down) does it. It's just easier in the digital dark room.

Also, the output of almost every camera will require some sharpening. Sure, some have sharpening options in camera, but your PC can almost always do a better job so I just leave the camera set to the default and improve it after the fact.

Your new version of that dragonfly looks great. Notice how the details of the wings leap out at you? How clear they are? It looks much better. The usual sign that you have sharpened too much is when objects start to get a little halo around them. I would say that (at least for the body of the dragon fly) you sharpened too much. But the wings look great! So you either accept it the way it is, or do selective sharpening by selecting parts of the picture (the wings) and sharpen them more than the rest of the picture.

Eric

[Paulyoly]

are you using a shutter release cable? If not then that will help get sharper images.