video equipment for birding? (1 Viewer)

Im moving forward with my photography and now that I am working with our local Land Trust, I wanted to do a project on one of our key species - the Osprey. I used to have a Sony Handicam that died some time back - it was decent, even with low light situations. Now, I am seeking info on what folks think are good options for video recording of birds and other wildlife. What should a newbie look for in a camera? I don't want videotape - I would rather something digital. I heard about DVD ones and Hard drive cameras - which is better? What sort of recording time do they have (is one better than the other for recording time and retrieval)? What sort of post processing software would I need? I don't plan on this being a professional thing - but something that can be shared with other Land Trust members or interested townsfolk and ultimately for my own records to be shown on big screen/widescreen tv. I do have a Swarvski birding scope and would be interested in this same digicam being able to hook up to it if possible. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Look further down the threads in this section and you will see a reply I posted earlier to "Yet another camcorder advice thread". This may help to answer your question regarding videoscoping. My main problem with videoscoping is keeping the rig steady in the wind. I have had good results in calm conditions at high magnifications but a light wind will play havoc with the stability of the image. Even if you use a camcorder coupled with a 2x converter you will have similar problems but obviously not as pronounced. Best of luck!

Sandpiper said:

Look further down the threads in this section and you will see a reply I posted earlier to "Yet another camcorder advice thread". This may help to answer your question regarding videoscoping. My main problem with videoscoping is keeping the rig steady in the wind. I have had good results in calm conditions at high magnifications but a light wind will play havoc with the stability of the image. Even if you use a camcorder coupled with a 2x converter you will have similar problems but obviously not as pronounced. Best of luck!

Click to expand...

Hi Sandpiper

I do appreciate the advice given. I had read most of the Videoscoping threads before posting. I am totally baffled as to where to begin as far as shopping for a videocamera. As mentioned, my first and only one was a Sony Handicam that used tapes. I am not terribly well educated when it comes to current technology so I really hope someone can point me in some direction as to where to begin. I am not sure what I should be looking for considering what I am hoping to accomplish. There's just way too many brands and abilities that have me reeling with confusion.

High Definition maybe?

Sunshine68 said:

Hi Sandpiper

I do appreciate the advice given. I had read most of the Videoscoping threads before posting. I am totally baffled as to where to begin as far as shopping for a videocamera. As mentioned, my first and only one was a Sony Handicam that used tapes. I am not terribly well educated when it comes to current technology so I really hope someone can point me in some direction as to where to begin. I am not sure what I should be looking for considering what I am hoping to accomplish. There's just way too many brands and abilities that have me reeling with confusion.

Click to expand...

I don't know anything about digiscoping but from a camcorder point of view:

I'm currently looking at a new camcorder myself possibly to use for bird capturing as well as general holiday footage. For me the most important thing is the quality of the playback and whether I can get a good still picture from a single frame. I don't worry if it has tapes because if you link it to a PC the tape is irrelevant. I have heard that recording straight to a camcorder which has a CD as it's media causes some of the quality to be lost (this was about a year ago so not sure if it has improved). Not sure about hard drives.

Hi-definition video cameras are the new technology and the video is much better than anything else especially with hi-def TVs these days. Also, the stills you can take off them are much, much better. I would go for Sony. It is still newish technology and I have been waiting for it to progress a bit but I think Sony's latest is probably good enough for me now (due to come out in March, I think).

If you want to play around with the footage once you have it, then you need a PC with firewire, a firewire cable and Windows with MovieMaker. I think MovieMaker comes free with Windows XP. Then it's just a case of learning the software. Surf the net for MovieMaker - I think there are quite a few tutorials/help/examples.

Hope this helps.

annlondon said:

If you want to play around with the footage once you have it, then you need a PC with firewire, a firewire cable and Windows with MovieMaker. I think MovieMaker comes free with Windows XP. Then it's just a case of learning the software. Surf the net for MovieMaker - I think there are quite a few tutorials/help/examples.

Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

This helps a great deal! I am partial to Sony equipment anyway so I suppose I have to do some research. I am leary of using tape recording machinery only because I don't find videotapes locally anymore. I am certain I could mail order but I always feel if something goes wrong and I need something immediate, I need to be able to get a replacement right away (can you tell I sometimes am not terribly patient?).

I have read pros and cons regarding recording to a hard drive yet it seems technology is getting better and better with each year that goes by. I feel so bad my $1000 Canon Digital is now classified a dinosaur and it's only 3 years old. But that's a whole other topic.

Are you looking to videoscope or to use a hi-zoom camera directly? You get much better signal quality at long range using a decent birding scope that a hi-zoom camera (25-30x) but you need to match the videocam to the scope. In particular, large CCD cameras which tend to run large diameter lenses don't work well with a birding scope. You have the same sort of vignetting issues as with digiscoping.