My First Digiscoped Bird

[Fido]

I think it's a mockingbird... (new birder) |8(|

I hope this is the right place to put this posting. I just got a new scope and camera. I'm having a hard time getting it to

1. focus
2. not vingette
3. not have chromatic fringes (?)

I've tried all sorts of ways to focus, (scope then camera, camera at infinity, then scope), I can't seem to figure out which way works best.

Is the only solution to vingetting to zoom the camera lens more? I've tried moving the camera closer and farther without much luck... but I may be doing it wrong?

Is the color fringes something I can expect to eliminate? I bought a Kowa 601, 20-60x zoom, and a Canon SD800is. I'm a bit disappointed with the color. Are there techniques to make it better, or is this the best I can expect from this setup?

Sorry for the long post. I'm excited to get going! thanks!

[charlierocky]

Hi Fido, Just let me explain first that I am new to digiscoping myself and so will not pretend to know the answers to your questions. What I can say is, if thats your first attempt then keep going because it looks promising to me! One of the things that I have picked up from this forum is that lower magnification, fixed eyepieces are better for digiscoping. On this advice I purchased a 30x eyepiece for my Nikon 82A scope and so far used nothing else.

[Fido]

that's a nice hawk you got there. Is that with your Nikon?

Is using a fixed 20x eyepiece then zooming 2x with your camera the same (quality?) as using a 20-60x zoom set at 40x? If so... then it seems stupid for me to be using a 20-60x zoom??

[horukuru]

very good image charlierocky !

is that drops of water on the head of the falcon ?

[charlierocky]

that's a nice hawk you got there. Is that with your Nikon?

Is using a fixed 20x eyepiece then zooming 2x with your camera the same (quality?) as using a 20-60x zoom set at 40x? If so... then it seems stupid for me to be using a 20-60x zoom??

Hello Again Fido, I am reluctant to go into to much detail and giving the wrong impression that I am some sort of expert and giving you a 'bum steer'. Having said that I will say what I think is the answer to your question, you keep an open mind and we will see if we can flush a more experienced digiscoper to enter the thread and set the record straight.
Ok, it would appear from what I have read that most digi camera's have to be zoomed in on the scope to eliminate vignetting ( that black ring around the picture ). If you are also using a zoom eyepiece as well you are asking to much from the optics and the auto focusing to get a crisp picture. With a fixed eyepiece you just zoom in the camera until vignetting has gone and then focus the scope on the target and let the auto focus do the rest.
At the moment I am still hand holding my camera to my scope, so I just look straight through my scopes eyepiece, focus on the subject and then put my digi camera on full optical zoom and then offer it to the scope, half press the shutter release to auto focus and then take the picture. Sounds long winded but you soon get grips with the technique and speed things up. The leeway you have with your camera focusing is between the point where vignetting is eliminated and full optical zoom. I have never heard of anyone that digiscopes into digital zoom.
My setup at the moment is the Nikon ED 82a scope with the 30X MC eyepiece. This is mounted on the Manfrotto 701RC2 fluid head and the Manfrotto 055MVF carbon tripod. The camera is the Nikon 5600 hand held, but come tomorrow I should receive my Nikon P5100 with associated brackets to fix directly to my scope.

[charlierocky]

very good image charlierocky !

is that drops of water on the head of the falcon ?

Yes Horukuru.

[Neil]

The Kowa uses non-Fluorite glass so you will get "purple fringing" against the sky. Less so though when you have a blue sky, for obvious reasons. You also will have trouble picking up good colors against the grey sky. Practice on stationary objects in your back yard at eye level until you have sorted out the way your camera interacts with your eyepiece. I don't know this Canon model but looking at the lens it should work for digiscoping if you have reasonable Eye Relief in the eyepiece (18 mm plus is nice, 15 mm is marginal ).
Set the scope up on a table focused on something in your lounge room. Place the camera on books at the right height for the center of the eyepiece. Try different zoom postions and distances from the scope. Use Spot Focus,Spot Exposure and Macro.
Let us know what you find and we can offer more support.
You will get better images from this setup so don't give up.
Neil.

[jourdaj]

Fido,

Its a nice image! Congratulations! The white background is a bit saturated, but you can get rid of the purple fringing on the bird by using a photo-editing software package like Photoshop. I went into \Image\Adjust\Hue_Saturation, selected the 'blue' channel, and 'desaturated' by sliding the tool to the left. It removed the blue and gave the bird a more natural color.
Here is the before and after picture: Good luck!

[Fido]

Thanks CharlieRocky,

I'm focusing the way you say. I've found that macro focusing works best for my camera/scope setup. (at least I think) The camera's LCD doesn't show focus that great, it always looks a bit soft, even when it isn't that bad viewed on a computer screen.

I may return my camera, eyepiece, and adapter. See the attached picture.

I like the picture, but I think that it is soft mainly because of the slow shutter speed -- 1/8 second. The camera does not have (?) any indication of the shutter speed (in the camera, it does record it to the file), so I didn't know that the fuzziness was due to bird movement.

I think a fixed eyepiece would be the way to go, too. Since I played around with the distance between camera and eyepiece and found a very very narrow range of distances that works (basically also for my eyes). With a fixed eyepiece, the relief is better, and so is the field of view, right? More field of view means higher resolution images?

Question: is it hard to find birds with your 30x eyepiece? I find it fairly hard to track moving birds with the 20x. Does it get much easier with practice? Finally, what if the bird is too close? Is 30x too much zoom sometimes?


Thanks jourdaj,

your edit looks great.... How did you do it exactly? Wouldn't desaturating the blue channel make the whole picture more yellow?

I tried a technique of using the sponge tool to desaturate just the edges. And that works but is time consuming.

[Fido]

CharlieRocky,

WHoa, I just read your post again, and you use "full optical zoom"? Doesn't that cost you a lot of light making it into your camera? At full optical zoom, I think my camera is at best f5.6 (as opposed to f2.8 at wide angle setting). Doesn't this mean that your shutter speed will have to go down (slower) and you'll get more motion blur?

Would it be better to only use as much zoom as is needed to eliminate vingetting? Or, and I just thought of this, if speed is of the essence, you (we) can throw away some pixels and open up our lenses to let more light in, then just crop out the vingetting later? Vingetting is just a trade off between light level and resolution??

Am I making sense?

[GarnockFocus]

Is the only solution to vingetting to zoom the camera lens more? I've tried moving the camera closer and farther without much luck... but I may be doing it wrong?

After using many different scopes and always having to deal with vignetting I found the image was so much sharper with no zoom in either camera or scope and I would crop out the image on the computer. I recently changed scopes and bought the standard 20x wide fixed eyepiece and I now have full screen images, no vignetting at all without using any camera zoom, can your scope take a different eyepiece? if it can try thern out before you buy, I also tried the 27x wide and it was vignetting and not as bright.


I've tried all sorts of ways to focus, (scope then camera, camera at infinity, then scope), I can't seem to figure out which way works best.


From my own experiences, Focus, I have always found it easier and better the focus the subject in the scope then a half press on my Fuji F30 focuses the image in the eyepiece 99.9% of the time. A sturdy tripod is essential for digiscoping, especially if you do it hand-held (I do).


Is the color fringes something I can expect to eliminate? I bought a Kowa 601, 20-60x zoom, and a Canon SD800is. I'm a bit disappointed with the color. Are there techniques to make it better, or is this the best I can expect from this setup?


Chromatic fringes, they can be reduced sometimes if your camera has exposure compensation, if its very bright on a white subject I drop it a few marks and then lighten the image back up on the computer, also scopes with ED lens are far less likely to suffer. I tried digiscoping with a friends TS611 and it was very bad for CA on a bright day at the harbour, I had a chance a few weeks later to digiscope the same subjects with the 611 and my 613, a Grey Heron was fine in the 613 but was purple fringed in the 611!

See attached a few test shots, 20-60 zoom vs 20x wide on TS613ED with Fuji F30, no zoom.

I hope some of this helps you out.

[Fido]

digiscoper62,

I'm not sure I understand which picture is which. Can you explain again?

Anyway, I'm going to go home and try with and without camera zoom and see if I like one better than the other.

Also, I've done the photoshop desaturate blue trick (and also the creation of a new layer to desaturate), and it works well enough for me that I won't be tempted to spend the big $$ to upgrade my scope just yet. (is it really 'cheating'? will it work on blue birds??)

thanks!

[NoSpringChicken]

Fido, here is a variation on digiscoper62's method which you could try as well.

Zoom in on the purple fringing.
Open Hue/Saturation.
Select 'Magenta' from the drop down menu.
Set 'Saturation' and 'Lightness' to -50.
Use the Eyedropper to click on the purple fringing.

The purple should disappear and the desaturated portion will be darkened to match the rest of the image a bit better.

Ron

[Xyzu]

Fido, if you select the area that has chromatic fringing with the selection tool then do the photoshop desaturate blue trick, it should not desaturate the bird. However there is only one blue bird that lives near me (kingfisher) and I never seem to be able to get a picture of one. ;)

[GarnockFocus]

digiscoper62,

I'm not sure I understand which picture is which. Can you explain again?

Anyway, I'm going to go home and try with and without camera zoom and see if I like one better than the other.

Also, I've done the photoshop desaturate blue trick (and also the creation of a new layer to desaturate), and it works well enough for me that I won't be tempted to spend the big $$ to upgrade my scope just yet. (is it really 'cheating'? will it work on blue birds??)

thanks!

It shows two eyepieces in same scope, a 20-60x zoom and a 20x wide.
It shows vignetting (black circle) in the 20-60 zoom
Then full screen no vignetting with the 20x wide.
I also think the colours are far better in the 20x wide.

Sorry for not being clear in the first post.

cheers

[GarnockFocus]

Fido, if you select the area that has chromatic fringing with the selection tool then do the photoshop desaturate blue trick, it should not desaturate the bird. However there is only one blue bird that lives near me (kingfisher) and I never seem to be able to get a picture of one. ;)

I have just started to learn this after digiscoping for a couple a years :-)
It works a treat, thanks for all the info guys, it really can save shot I would have deleted :t:

[GarnockFocus]

However there is only one blue bird that lives near me (kingfisher) and I never seem to be able to get a picture of one. ;)

Ours are anti-social as well, it thought for a while it was just me ;-)

:-O

[Fido]

It shows two eyepieces in same scope, a 20-60x zoom and a 20x wide.
It shows vignetting (black circle) in the 20-60 zoom
Then full screen no vignetting with the 20x wide.
I also think the colours are far better in the 20x wide.

Sorry for not being clear in the first post.

cheers


Oh! Wow, the wide angle is THAT much wider? When I read the specs it doesn't sound all that impressive...

So, again, it seems like 20x wide is much better for digiscoping because you can always use your camera's optical zoom to get to 3x - 4x (or 60x - 80x equivalent) zoom?

I guess then the only benefit to a 20x 60x zoom eyepiece is when you aren't digiscoping (real live images are still far better than photos). ;)

hmm, but i can save $100 with the wide-angle... decisions decisions

[GarnockFocus]

Oh! Wow, the wide angle is THAT much wider? When I read the specs it doesn't sound all that impressive...

So, again, it seems like 20x wide is much better for digiscoping because you can always use your camera's optical zoom to get to 3x - 4x (or 60x - 80x equivalent) zoom?

I guess then the only benefit to a 20x 60x zoom eyepiece is when you aren't digiscoping (real live images are still far better than photos). ;)

hmm, but i can save $100 with the wide-angle... decisions decisions

I now find with the 20x wide that when I use zoom it works well most of the time, although some kind of bracket might be better to stop any blur. Personally I take most Digiscoped images with no zoom turned on, but if I have time I take couple with 1.5x zoom on camera (I have found going over 1.5x on the Fuji F30 hand-held too shaky) :-) I take the zoom with me in case I can't ID something far away, I have not used it yet ;-)

cheers

[Xyzu]

I now find with the 20x wide that when I use zoom it works well most of the time, although some kind of bracket might be better to stop any blur. Personally I take most Digiscoped images with no zoom turned on, but if I have time I take couple with 1.5x zoom on camera (I have found going over 1.5x on the Fuji F30 hand-held too shaky) :-) I take the zoom with me in case I can't ID something far away, I have not used it yet ;-)


Since I have only a 20x - 60x EP I have to use it, however I use it at its widest setting, use about 1.2x optical zoom then crop on the computer and this does me fine (although, I really want a 30x wide ;)).

[NoSpringChicken]

However there is only one blue bird that lives near me (kingfisher) and I never seem to be able to get a picture of one. ;)

Do you mean these? The little blighters keep getting in the way of my camera! They're a flaming nuisance.;)

Ron

[GarnockFocus]

LOL, what a brilliant "nuisance" to have ;-)

[Xyzu]

Do you mean these? The little blighters keep getting in the way of my camera! They're a flaming nuisance.;)

Ron

Hey!
That's where they've been going *lol*