First attempts with the F30

[Stuart R]

Hi

First attempts today with a new F30 and SRB swing out - scope is 85TL on Manfrotto carbon 055 - Hoya filter on scope - taken inside hide at Musselburgh with no wind. Focussed with scope, swung in camera, then setup on 2 sec delay.

Weather was very bright - all at 400 ISO and f5.6 or thereabouts and mostly using the 2 sec delay setup

A bit fiddly to setup, but not to bad after that. A little disappointed with lack of sharpness and DOF.

Comments please, and advice to improve on sharpness etc.

Cheers

Stuart R

[assayer]

Stuart,

Did you use a cable release? Hope my SRB-Griturn unit comes next week, I'm looking forward to giving it and the F-30 a workout.

Dick

[border reiver]

Hi Stuart
I think it takes a while to get used to the set up etc. Any reason why iso so high given bright conditions? Just got one myself last week I'm going to try some of the settings recommended by John-Henry in posts under Fuji F30 mixed thoughts. Have been thinking about the SRB-Griturn swing out. Don't know a great deal about digiscoping but from reading others experience the key message is to practice practice practice. There are certainly great images posted on this forum taken with the F30, my results so far have been a bit disappointing going to try again over weekend. You're lucky being so near a great birding spot, was through a few weeks ago. Are you using the zoom eyepiece?

John

[Stuart R]

Hi Stuart
I think it takes a while to get used to the set up etc. Any reason why iso so high given bright conditions? Just got one myself last week I'm going to try some of the settings recommended by John-Henry in posts under Fuji F30 mixed thoughts. Have been thinking about the SRB-Griturn swing out. Don't know a great deal about digiscoping but from reading others experience the key message is to practice practice practice. There are certainly great images posted on this forum taken with the F30, my results so far have been a bit disappointing going to try again over weekend. You're lucky being so near a great birding spot, was through a few weeks ago. Are you using the zoom eyepiece?

John

Hi to you both


I set it to 400 ISO to help with the speed. The camara was set on AP and with the ISO at 400 and around f5.6, the speeds were anywhere between 1/250 to 1/500. All the rest of the settings as per John Henry( the Master!).

I can't use the cable release as I have had to reverse the setup of the SRB. I have very poor vision in my right eye and use my left eye for the scope and all SLR cameras. In other words, I have turned it "upside-down" and now the cable release bar is too short. I have asked the guys at SRB for a longer one ( see pic)
Only have the X30 fixed eyepeice!

Will have another go tomorrow but rather busy in the pm watching Scotland beat England! ( I wish!!!!)

Cheers

Stuart

[border reiver]

Set up looks good Stuart, maybe not having the cable release is a factor. Many of the hand held shots I've taken are quite blurry which I'm putting down to to slight movement when pressing shutter.
Look forward to seeing more results, and hopefully result tomorrow will be a close one.
John

[Feathered one]

Stuart

As you had the camera on 2 second delay, there should not have been any movement in the camera to cause the out of focus pictures.

Indeed the depth of field does look shallow, I would have thought that you may have possibly been on full zoom on the camera, or very near, which will give the shallow depth of field, especially on the 3rd picture.

I also can't make out why, if on ISO 400 and aperture of around 5.6, the shutter speed is not faster, especially with the good light.

One other point, that has been said before, having swung the camera into place, try focusing the scope while looking at the LCD screen, you may need to have a magnifyer attached over the LCD screen to get best focus.

Edit Just had a look on your gallery, great pictures with the D70/80, what are your reasons for going down the Digiscope road.

Malc

[john-henry]

Hi to you both


I set it to 400 ISO to help with the speed. The camara was set on AP and with the ISO at 400 and around f5.6, the speeds were anywhere between 1/250 to 1/500. All the rest of the settings as per John Henry( the Master!).

I can't use the cable release as I have had to reverse the setup of the SRB. I have very poor vision in my right eye and use my left eye for the scope and all SLR cameras. In other words, I have turned it "upside-down" and now the cable release bar is too short. I have asked the guys at SRB for a longer one ( see pic)
Only have the X30 fixed eyepeice!

Will have another go tomorrow but rather busy in the pm watching Scotland beat England! ( I wish!!!!)

Cheers

Stuart

Hi Stuart,
I think your problem is a bit of vibration caused by the camera being very precariously balanced on the bar, perhaps you can rig up another bar from here to support the other end of your camera eg. a piece of flat metal with a nut and bolt at the bar end and a spacer on the other end to touch the bottom of the camera, this would certainly reduce vibrations caused by pressing the shutter with your finger (or the cable release when you get that sorted). The other thing that should help is to use Top3 when shooting, hopefully this should give time for vibration to settle and you should get a sharp one out of the three taken.

Very flattering the master bit, I wish it were true but like everyone else I'm learning all the time too!

Regards

John

PS. I hope Terry from SRB reads this, I think the adapter could be improved by using two adjustable bars, at right angles to each other, enabling the camera to be mounted with more of its body being supported.

[Stuart R]

Hi Stuart,
I think your problem is a bit of vibration caused by the camera being very precariously balanced on the bar, perhaps you can rig up another bar from here to support the other end of your camera eg. a piece of flat metal with a nut and bolt at the bar end and a spacer on the other end to touch the bottom of the camera, this would certainly reduce vibrations caused by pressing the shutter with your finger (or the cable release when you get that sorted). The other thing that should help is to use Top3 when shooting, hopefully this should give time for vibration to settle and you should get a sharp one out of the three taken.

Very flattering the master bit, I wish it were true but like everyone else I'm learning all the time too!

Regards



John

PS. I hope Terry from SRB reads this, I think the adapter could be improved by using two adjustable bars, at right angles to each other, enabling the camera to be mounted with more of its body being supported.

Hi John/Malc & John Henry

John (BR) _ Shame about the game - fair doo's, we were stuffed

Malc - Yes , I was mostly at almost full "zoom" so I will cut back on that. Why digiscope??. Well the usual. We all want more distance and I can't afford a Sigma 500!!

JH - I think your right about the vibration thing. The swing out arrangement is great but as soon as I used the setup, I thought the camera was a bit like a human diver at the end of a springboard! This is the only part of the mount that was disappointing. I'm no DIY expert but I'll see if I can fix something up to stabilise the mount.As you say, maybe SRB will come up with something. Will try "Top 3" and see if this helps. Thanks for your help

Cheers

Stuart

And by the way, and this hurts - Congrats to England!!

[border reiver]

Stuart
Shame about the result winning 2 years on the trot espescially at Twickers was a bit of a tall order!
I hadn't realised you used the 2 second delay, a feature I used this weekend with some success.
I think it's useful to find out what works for people, no doubting the cameras ability, but obviously scopes the eyepiece used and adaptors are all factors that can effect results. Because I'm holding my camera to the eyepiece I use a fair bit of zoom, camera lens probably is not dead centre.
Had a look in your gallery after Malc mentioned it have to say some excellent pictures there. I quite fancy the D80 more for general photography initially until I save enough for a big lens for bird/wildlife pics.
I'd appreciate thoughts on pics I've posted. Missed a few Nuthatch shots saw it in scope by time I got camera in position the bird was gone!! Hopefully a bit of tweaking on the SRB will convince me that this is the way to go.

John

[Feathered one]

John

You are nearly there, the first 3 pictures to me are lacking contrast, either you were taking the pics into the light, or else you were on a very high magnification on the scope, I beleive you have the 25-75 nikon zoom, correct me if I am wrong. The last picture has much more contrast.

I did buy the 25-75 MC11 zoom for the Nikon ED82 last week, didn't buy it for sole use with digiscoping, as I have the 30x DS eyepiece, which is very good with the Fuji 30.

I nipped out to the local marsh this morning, having made another sleeve adaptor for the zoom eyepiece, just to see what the zoom was like for digiscoping.

I found it much harder than the 30x DS to get decent pictures, having said that, I did get some keepers. At higher magnification the contrast did fall off quite a bit, that is what I base my views on regarding your first 3 pics. Of course I now have the means to get close in when just observing the birds, a great addition.

And of course higher magnification needs more and more stability in the tripod/head/adapter, there was a fair bit of breeze today.

Keep at it and I am sure you will get better and better pictures. I am certainly still learning, and will often go out just to test different settings/ equipment.

Malc

Malc

[border reiver]

John

You are nearly there, the first 3 pictures to me are lacking contrast, either you were taking the pics into the light, or else you were on a very high magnification on the scope, I beleive you have the 25-75 nikon zoom, correct me if I am wrong. The last picture has much more contrast.



Malc

Thanks Malc the Robin was deliberate into the light just to see how it would look, I liked the effect of the dew on the spider webbing on the fence. First 2 not sure where light was coming from, if was quite misty. I have the x30 mc type eyepice had a tryout of the zoom but conditions were not ideal. Had a bash at an adaptor based on the one you made. Only a piece of grey tubing which had a collar that fitted the wider part of my eyepiece, don't think my camera lens is close enough to eyepiece. 2 second delay has helped reduce any image shake, but I'll need to find a way of getting the birds to keep still, the wigeon were cooperative!!! :D
John

[Stuart R]

Thanks Malc the Robin was deliberate into the light just to see how it would look, I liked the effect of the dew on the spider webbing on the fence. First 2 not sure where light was coming from, if was quite misty. I have the x30 mc type eyepice had a tryout of the zoom but conditions were not ideal. Had a bash at an adaptor based on the one you made. Only a piece of grey tubing which had a collar that fitted the wider part of my eyepiece, don't think my camera lens is close enough to eyepiece. 2 second delay has helped reduce any image shake, but I'll need to find a way of getting the birds to keep still, the wigeon were cooperative!!! :D
John

Hi John

Your doing a lot better than me. Out on Sunday which was very cold and dull in my part of not so bonny Scotland. Camera set at 800 ISO (Yes the light was that poor!). Slightly better shots than before, but not much. Using "Top 3" as suggested by JH has helped. So used Top3+2 sec delay. The Lapwings sat nice and still (think they were half frozen) but the Pintail, which is a lifer for me, was not quite so helpful. Shame the image is so poor as this is the first time (I think) that a Pintail has been seen at my local water.

SRB have just emailed to say they have sent a longer shutter release rod so will hope to try this out next weekend

Cheers

Stuart

[john-henry]

Hi John

Your doing a lot better than me. Out on Sunday which was very cold and dull in my part of not so bonny Scotland. Camera set at 800 ISO (Yes the light was that poor!). Slightly better shots than before, but not much. Using "Top 3" as suggested by JH has helped. So used Top3+2 sec delay. The Lapwings sat nice and still (think they were half frozen) but the Pintail, which is a lifer for me, was not quite so helpful. Shame the image is so poor as this is the first time (I think) that a Pintail has been seen at my local water.

SRB have just emailed to say they have sent a longer shutter release rod so will hope to try this out next weekend

Cheers

Stuart

Hi Stuart,
I've got to disagree with you, they're a lot better than before.

Considering the available light and the distance they seem to have been taken at I think you've done a grand job. Focus is good which is the main thing and truth being told you just aren't going to get great pics in light like that, especially a bird bobbing around on the water.

Keep going like you are and I'm sure you'll be pleased with your results when the weather improves. In the meantime with dull, grey skies try a few shots in Chrome instead of Standard colour, it gives a bit more contrast and saturation and can help lift it a little.

regards

John

[border reiver]

Stuart, I'm with JH I think these shots are quite an improvement, I particularly like the lapwings which given the light conditions show a good contrast, compared to my first 2 which were shot at iso 800 on a dull misty day. I was lucky with the Wigeon (Leighton Moss) as it was a very bright day yesterday. I did take in excess of 200 shots over the weekend and have kept 70 the best of which I posted above.
Quite a few look good on the camera screen, but once downloaded onto PC are not as first impression suggested. I think Malc's suggestion re the magnifier could ensure we get more keepers. Obviously we're all on some type of learning curve with the F30 and Digiscoping but its certainly helpful to find what works for others.
John

[Feathered one]

A few of the pictures taken yesterday morning, trying out the Nikon MC11 25-75 zoom on the Nikon ED82, which I mentioned in an earlier post.

All are cropped and some sharpening applied. F30 camera used.

The zoom as expected gave a lot less depth of field, compared to the 30X DS eyepiece, even with 800 iso f8 on the camera, as can be seen in the picture of the Brent Goose, eye in focus, body not quite.

Can anyone identify the first picture, a Bar or Black tailed Godwit, or even not a godwit at all :brains: Haven't got much better at identification, just spend more time photographing the birds !! ;)

John
I really couldn't be without the LCD magnifier/sunshade, even though the F30 has one of the highest pixel counts on the Lcd, it is almost impossible to see the focus properly without.
If the camera had an optical viewfinder, I am sure that there would be more keepers due to the ability to see focus better.

Malc

[border reiver]

Malc
I'd say it looks more like a bar-tailed godwit due to slight up curve of bill. I think your oyster catcher is stunning, any reason why eye of brent goose is more in focus than body. I tried taking some shots of birds on a table focus on scope was good. Put camera to it picture result that seed in foreground was in focus and the bird was not! :eek!
Have you knocked up a new adapter for the new eyepiece?

Stuart
I noticed that J-H had recommended a monitor shade and magnifier on another thread. Available from 7dayshop website, a bellows type screen shade for a 2.5" screen, there is also a clip-in magnifier lens to go with it. I'm going to get one, certainly bright conditions Sunday made viewing monitor tricky at times!

John

[Feathered one]

[QUOTE=border reiver]Malc
I'd say it looks more like a bar-tailed godwit due to slight up curve of bill. I think your oyster catcher is stunning, any reason why eye of brent goose is more in focus than body. I tried taking some shots of birds on a table focus on scope was good. Put camera to it picture result that seed in foreground was in focus and the bird was not! :eek!
Have you knocked up a new adapter for the new eyepiece?
.................................................. .................................................. ....
John

Had another look in the bird book, and as you say, the Bar tailed does show a slightly curved up beak, so thanks for that.

The Oyster catchers and Godwits where hauled up on the marsh as it was high tide, having a snooze. Great how they still have one eye open, on the lookout for danger. And the way they face into the wind, which meant as I was downwind, all I could get was there backs. Makes for a different picture though.

Looking at the original picture of the Brent goose, as well as the eye in focus, so is the vegetation nearer the camera, but not the body, had a look at the speed the picture was taken, 1/220 sec, so may have been slight movement in the body of the goose that blurred it.

And yes I did make a new adaptor for the MC!! 25-75 zoom eyepiece. Same size tube as before, but cut slots, on two sides, for finger and thumb to turn zoom ring, the packing part inside the tube had to be a different diameter to slide over the eyepiece.

A couple of advantages with a tube adaptor, are that no light flare can get into the tube, and you can turn the camera on the tube, to take vertical shots, or indeed if the tripod is not upright, instead of having to adjust the legs you can just rotate the camera or tube till you get a level view.

I am sure you will see the advantage of the shade/magnifier you have ordered, when you take delivery of it. :-O

Malc

[assayer]

Stuart,

Finally, my SBR-Griturn Adaptor came today and I had a chance to try it out. Tried eight quick shots, using my Leica APO-77 Scope with 20-60X eyepiece @ 30X and Fujifilm F30 w/cable-release, on the first birds I saw from the frontyard. Both were about 75-100 feet from me. Fitting the first was a European Starling and the second an American Robin.

All are uncropped and using the same Photoshop workflow that I use with all my photos, minor adjustments to levels/curves/saturation/sharpening. Because of strong backlighting, the first Starling photo was adjusted for highlights/shadows.

I did get some sidelight artifacts as several others have experienced.

Dick

[horukuru]

Stuart,

Finally, my SBR-Griturn Adaptor came today and I had a chance to try it out. Tried eight quick shots, using my Leica APO-77 Scope with 20-60X eyepiece @ 30X and Fujifilm F30 w/cable-release, on the first birds I saw from the frontyard. Both were about 75-100 feet from me. Fitting the first was a European Starling and the second an American Robin.

All are uncropped and using the same Photoshop workflow that I use with all my photos, minor adjustments to levels/curves/saturation/sharpening. Because of strong backlighting, the first Starling photo was adjusted for highlights/shadows.

I did get some sidelight artifacts as several others have experienced.

Dick


nice pictures dick !

[Neil]

I'm a bit surprised too that the shutter speeds are not higher. I took the F31 and the SRB-Griturn for a test today with my homemade mod for shading the scope eyepiece from flare ( just some paper wrapped around and extending about 1.5 cms. ). I noticed sometimes that I had knocked the camera and it had moved slightly which caused shadowing down one side which dropped the shutter speed . The main reason for low shutter speeds though is is too much magnification with the camera zoom. This also has a big impact on image sharpness. I like at keep below half zoom in the camera and if I need more magnification I go up to a higher magnification eyepiece. But reduced image quality is most often affected by distance and quality of light (haze,humidity,dull light ).
The advantage of the swing out adapter is that it is easy to check focusing which I do a lot as it's difficult in bright light on the screen.
These are some photos I took today from various distances on a good light day for Hong Kong. Neil.
ps bluetail 10m,blue whistling thrush and spotted dove 15 m, and egret 50 ms
pps you can see some shadowing down the right side of the egret photo.

[Feathered one]

Hi Neil

Thanks for the pictures, lovely shots as always.

On that trip out, would you mind saying how many pictures you took, and how many would you say were of the quality of those you showed us. Just interested, and I am sure others would be too.

I don't have the SRB swing out adaptor myself, but I did think that if I did, to get over the problem of the camera not always lining up with the eyepiece, and also to stop the flare. I would attach a fixed short tube over the camera lens barrell, perhaps using a camera bracket like the one I made for my tube adaptor shown below.

The tube would be of a length and diameter, that when the camera is swung in front of the eyepiece, the tube would slide over the SRB adaptor, and be of a length that would stop the camera at exactly the right distance to stop lens/eypiece collision when zooming the camera.
I know it would be camera specific, and a problem for multi camera users.


Malc

[border reiver]

Dick, Neil
Excellent pictures, I've got some way to go to get pictures of your standard. I'm having fun trying though.
This picture was taken at 16:05 today, sunsetting, iso 1600 1/170 f5.6. Image is no way near as sharp as yours, but given fading light I think it shows the capability of the F30 in poor light.

Does anyone have suggestions as to how to improve image quality in poor light. Birds were about 120 feet away using a Nikon ED82 x30W eyepiece.

John

[Neil]

[QUOTE=Feathered one]Hi Neil

Thanks for the pictures, lovely shots as always.

On that trip out, would you mind saying how many pictures you took, and how many would you say were of the quality of those you showed us. Just interested, and I am sure others would be too.

Malc, because the F30/31 is fast you can have a lot of good images as well as a lot of "out of focus" images really quickly. I took about 1 gig of images with this camera yesterday and I had a lot of good images. Probably about 20%. My biggest problem is not focus ( I like to sit in shade to minimise disturbance and make it easier to see the screen ) but birds turning around or moving out of the frame. That's why I like the "first three" and "last three" feature of the F30.
With the 8400 I get a higher % of keepers (up to 40%) because I'm looking through the camera/scope like a DSLR which makes focusing much easier and anticipating action easier too.
Neil.

[Neil]

Does anyone have suggestions as to how to improve image quality in poor light. Birds were about 120 feet away using a Nikon ED82 x30W eyepiece.

John,
This image has potential. It's probable a little dark as you were using Spot Metering but the "spot" was probably between the birds not the main plover. I've played with your image a little in Photoshop (Shadows and Highlights ,Auto Colour and Unsharp Mask )and I would Crop it this way and it's very good for that distance and shows the advance or the Fuji's high iso capability. Neil.

[border reiver]

Neil,
really appreciate you taking the time to have a look and a play about with my picture,
yes I used spot metering. Still learning about some of the terminology, I noticed the F30 has the option for multi or average. So would I have got a better result if I'd used multi? The picture is much improved on my original I'll obviously need to learn how to crop images and use photoshop features to get the best out of the pictures I take. Your images always look nice and sharp, is this the result of good light and low iso?
John

[Neil]

John,
I think stick with Spot but make sure you're centred on the subject. I tried Matrix on my Nikon D2x today for little egrets and it was a waste of time , so I went to Centre Weighted and -1.0 comp. That worked for a big bird that fills the frame but for small birds I use Spot 70 % of the time and Manual Exposure 30% .
The way to increase your sharp percentage is to get closer. I do a lot of sitting around and waiting for birds to drift my way. When I first arrive that might move away but when they see I'm no threat they come back. Most of my shots are from 8 metres to 30 metres and I don't like to go over half zoom on the camera. On my Nikon 8400 I'm in the Green Macro zone at about 40% zoom. This is more important than which eyepiece you use I have found. I also pick the iso that going to help freeze the action . At least 1/125 but you can get by with 1/60th on a slow moving subject (eg. egret stalking prey ). If quality of light is bad I concentrate on closer subjects as you wont get good results over distance, particularly over water.
happy digiscoping, Neil.
ps I also take up to 50 frames or more of my subject until I know I've got the shot that I want. I usually take over 1000 images per day out.

[hughlewiswright]

It's taken a month and a half but I finally have a SRB Griturn swing out adapter to go with my F30 and Kowa TSN 834!

Went out this morning to have my first ever session with a fixed digiscoping set up, and I'm quite pleased with the results. Was sunny to start with (pied wag) but after that the clouds came over and light got quite dull. Pied Wag, Mipit and Grey Wag were within 10metres, Stonechat was more like 25 and the Ruff was about 70m. Images have been cropped, resized and lightened but otherwise not much tinkering! I'm quite pleased with the clarity of the Ruff given the dull light, the distance and the water, taking hand-held shots of birds at this distance always seem to come out dodgy.

Critical and technical comments very welcome!

Cheers
Hugh

[border reiver]

Hugh
I'd be delighted with these results. Just started out with the F30, on the whole I'm reasonably pleased with some of my results although I'd like some sharper results. Hand held set up at moment still trying to decide what adapter to buy or even attempt to make. Well done on your first attempts anyway.

John

[Benderloch]

Well, I finally got my F30 and I've given the outfit a hard time this weekend and learnt a few lessons. Firstly, trying to take good pics of Shelduck at 180 yards with scope on x30 and camera fully zoomed is unlikely to produce good results. OK for a record shot, but the birds on the image just don't have enough pixels to make them look good when the image is cropped. Solution: improve my field skills/build a hide/go somewhere where there is a hide. As a last resort, go to a Wetland & Wildfowl Trust Reserve (Minsmere/Slimbridge) where the birds are tame and shoot them with the camera alone! My attempts to shoot Ringed Plover at about 100 yards were also unsuccessful, especially when dog walkers arrived and moved them even further away. I retired home in disgust and set up the outfit indoors and pointed it at my bird feeder about 7 yards away. After experimenting with various methods of focussing, I settled on the following sequence. I am long sighted so have to wear glasses to read the menus on the camera etc. but can view through the scope with naked eye no problem. For digiscoping, it seems that the best plan for me is to focus scope, swing camera into position (Swarovski DCB bracket on 80HD scope with 20-60 zoom eyepiece), zoom camera to max and re-focus, wearing glasses, on the LCD using a Jessops £1.99 slide viewer with front opaque element removed. Finally, zoom out to desired composition, set the 2 second timer and press the shutter. At last I got a pic of a greenfinch that one can see some feather detail on, despite poorish light (ISO 400, just over 100th of a sec at F4). Yes, I know I could have cranked the ISO up a lot, but I wanted as little noise as possible for this test. Does this sound all too familiar to you 'experts' out there? John-Henry says practise, practise practise and he's right!
One thing that has surprised me is that instead of having the front of the camera lens only 2-3 mm from the scope eyepiece glass, I seem to get better results with it about 10 mm away. Too close, and it is very difficult to get the camera positioned so as to avoid haloes or shadows at one side of the circular image. A tap or two on the zoom gets rid of the small amount of vignetting when the scope eyepiece is set at x20. It is better at x30.
I hope the rest of you digiscopers have had a good weekend and maybe have some observations on the above. :scribe:

[border reiver]

Well, I finally got my F30 and I've given the outfit a hard time this weekend and learnt a few lessons. Firstly, trying to take good pics of Shelduck at 180 yards with scope on x30 and camera fully zoomed is unlikely to produce good results. OK for a record shot, but the birds on the image just don't have enough pixels to make them look good when the image is cropped. Solution: improve my field skills/build a hide/go somewhere where there is a hide. As a last resort, go to a Wetland & Wildfowl Trust Reserve (Minsmere/Slimbridge) where the birds are tame and shoot them with the camera alone! My attempts to shoot Ringed Plover at about 100 yards were also unsuccessful, especially when dog walkers arrived and moved them even further away. I retired home in disgust and set up the outfit indoors and pointed it at my bird feeder about 7 yards away. After experimenting with various methods of focussing, I settled on the following sequence. I am long sighted so have to wear glasses to read the menus on the camera etc. but can view through the scope with naked eye no problem. For digiscoping, it seems that the best plan for me is to focus scope, swing camera into position (Swarovski DCB bracket on 80HD scope with 20-60 zoom eyepiece), zoom camera to max and re-focus, wearing glasses, on the LCD using a Jessops £1.99 slide viewer with front opaque element removed. Finally, zoom out to desired composition, set the 2 second timer and press the shutter. At last I got a pic of a greenfinch that one can see some feather detail on, despite poorish light (ISO 400, just over 100th of a sec at F4). Yes, I know I could have cranked the ISO up a lot, but I wanted as little noise as possible for this test. Does this sound all too familiar to you 'experts' out there? John-Henry says practise, practise practise and he's right!
One thing that has surprised me is that instead of having the front of the camera lens only 2-3 mm from the scope eyepiece glass, I seem to get better results with it about 10 mm away. Too close, and it is very difficult to get the camera positioned so as to avoid haloes or shadows at one side of the circular image. A tap or two on the zoom gets rid of the small amount of vignetting when the scope eyepiece is set at x20. It is better at x30.
I hope the rest of you digiscopers have had a good weekend and maybe have some observations on the above. :scribe:

Benderloch

I've had a few problems getting focus right. Bird is in focus through scope once camera is on scope still looks ok but once I've downloaded onto PC they are out of focus. The first two examples you gave are quite far away to get a decent result from the camera. Keep practising with settings etc I'm sure you'll get the results you want. I'm not quite there yet but my results have improved slightly since I first tried out the F30.

John :'D

[Neil]

Critical and technical comments very welcome!

Cheers
Hugh[/QUOTE]

Nice results Hugh with a good range of subjects. You started with one of the hardest birds to digiscope, the wagtail. You must be happy with your image of the Ruff at such a distance.
You may still have some "perceived sharpness" left on the table. Try another round of Unsharp Mask (60,1,2) . Maybe just selectively around the eye and head.
Neil.