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Nikon P300 for Digiscoping (1 Viewer)

Does the "Ausie colour mate" plastic tube even out the thickness of the EP ?

Cheers,

not quite

the tube fits the internal dimension of the FSB-8 perfectly

but it requires further work and plenty duct tape to match it to the tapered form of the 30X eyepiece

so I have given it

--an inner sleeve of cut-down plastic to step it down to the rubber eyering

--an outer sleeve to step it up to the basering of the eyepiece
 
not quite

the tube fits the internal dimension of the FSB-8 perfectly

but it requires further work and plenty duct tape to match it to the tapered form of the 30X eyepiece

so I have given it

--an inner sleeve of cut-down plastic to step it down to the rubber eyering

--an outer sleeve to step it up to the basering of the eyepiece

Thanks Ed.
 
I was reminded that the P300 will do a good job with most eyepieces so I pulled it out again on Wednesday and shot it on the Kowa. Fast AF and fast frame rate with well implemented HD video make this a good choice.
In the last photo you can see the Great Egret in the far left. The Grey Heron was just to the left of it.

Nikon P300 and Kowa lens scope with Kowa 25x LER eyepiece and Swarovski UCA adapter
 

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Steve,

My friend was using the P300 with FSB-8 adapter and it fits on his 20-60x and 30x eyepiece on Kowa 883 scope same like yours ;)

Can the FSB-8 adapter be pushed over the above mentioned Kowa eyepieces without first having to screw-off the rubber ring of the eyepiece and if yes does it really fit snuggly?

Roland
 
I had the P300 on the Swarovski scope today and had one lonely Sandplover up close enough for stills and video here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7892550@N03/6115351937/in/photostream

Neil

Nikon P300 plus Swarovski STS80HD scope and Sw 25-50 zoom (50x) and Swarovski UCA adapter and Gitzo Traveller tripod and Manfrotto 701 head

Mai Po Nature Reserve,
Hong Kong,
China
Sep 2011
 

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Yes have to removed the rubber eyecup

But once the rubber eyecup has been removed the FSB-8 does not fit tightly around the Kowa eyepiece or does it?

I am asking because at the moment I am using Nikon's FSB-6 adapter with a P5100 on my Kowa, and the FSB-6 which should have the same inside diameter as the FSB-8 (both are built by Nikon for their own scopes and eyepieces), cannot properly be mounted to a Kowa eyepiece without adapter.
 
But once the rubber eyecup has been removed the FSB-8 does not fit tightly around the Kowa eyepiece or does it?

I am asking because at the moment I am using Nikon's FSB-6 adapter with a P5100 on my Kowa, and the FSB-6 which should have the same inside diameter as the FSB-8 (both are built by Nikon for their own scopes and eyepieces), cannot properly be mounted to a Kowa eyepiece without adapter.

It does fit I remembered when I tested it with my friend last time.
 
More experience wiht the P300

Anyone who read this thread back in May will probably be surprised to learn that after getting rid of my P300 after a few days experience with it, I went out and bought another one... After my initial disappointment I decided that there was not anything out there at the same price that would do all the things I wanted, so when I saw it for £215 in Dixons at Heathrow, I bought it for the second time. In the same shop the Canon S95 was still well over £300.

I made a slightly more sturdy adaptor, but still zero cost (pictures attached), from a cup that I found to have the right diameter for the (new style) 20-60 swarovski zoom that I use on the old-style AT80HD.

I have to say I am still not in love with the camera, but I growing to like it. It does a job for me. The camera now that seems to fit my spec the closest is the recently announced Canon S100, but I would find it hard to justify the cost of that, which at launch seems likely to be double the Nikon here in the UK.

The main issue, as discussed before, is image quality. One of the criticisms of the Fuji F30/F31 (my old camera) when it came out was the “over processed” look of the pictures. But the P300 is *so* much worse when you look at the pictures at full res. It looks like heat-haze on every pixel. Since there is no raw mode, this effect is impossible to remove other than by down-sizing images. I can certainly do this, but then I have reduced my camera to one with a quarter of the pixels and I lose any advantage that I might have accrued of being able to crop more aggressively for those birds that are just too far away.

Using 20x on the scope’s zoom I have vignetting from 4.3mm up to about 12mm (full zoom is just under 18mm). Using the camera at full zoom gives noticeably poorer image quality. However I also get more vignetting as I zoom the scope meaning I have to zoom in further with the camera. This is a consequence of my home-made adaptor that places the camera at a fixed distance from the eyepiece. When the camera is hand-held I can reduce vignetting to zero in the mid-zoom range of the camera by moving it physically away from the eyepiece.

I will follow up this post with a few pics.

Cheers, Ian
 

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P300 Examples

As promised, here are some images.

Setup: Swarovski AT80HD with new 20-60xS eyepiece; homemade tube adaptor; Nikon P300 @ 160 ISO

All images have all been cropped to 2400x1800 and then scaled down to 1200x900 for forum, so the ugly de-noising / compression effects mentioned above are barely visible.

Ian
 

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As promised, here are some images.

Setup: Swarovski AT80HD with new 20-60xS eyepiece; homemade tube adaptor; Nikon P300 @ 160 ISO

All images have all been cropped to 2400x1800 and then scaled down to 1200x900 for forum, so the ugly de-noising / compression effects mentioned above are barely visible.

Ian

Ian,
I understand your ambivalence about the P300 , but these photos show that it will do the job that most people would be happy with.
It doesn't like to be "over zoomed" as you pointed out, so I always shoot it at the 50x of the 25 -50 zoom and keep the lens below half zoom.
Neil.
 
P300 vignetting

Hi Neil,

How is the vignetting for P300 with a 25-50x Swarovski eyepiece? I think in your first post in this thread you mentioned it but i think you were referring to the 20-60x eyepiece?

And sorry for the off-topic but do you think the Panasonic G3 with a 20mm F1.7 pancake lens will be better in terms of vignetting than the Nikon P300?

Many thanks!

Adrian

I had the P300 on the Swarovski scope today and had one lonely Sandplover up close enough for stills and video here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7892550@N03/6115351937/in/photostream

Neil

Nikon P300 plus Swarovski STS80HD scope and Sw 25-50 zoom (50x) and Swarovski UCA adapter and Gitzo Traveller tripod and Manfrotto 701 head

Mai Po Nature Reserve,
Hong Kong,
China
Sep 2011
 
Hi Neil,

How is the vignetting for P300 with a 25-50x Swarovski eyepiece? I think in your first post in this thread you mentioned it but i think you were referring to the 20-60x eyepiece?

And sorry for the off-topic but do you think the Panasonic G3 with a 20mm F1.7 pancake lens will be better in terms of vignetting than the Nikon P300?

Many thanks!

Adrian

Adrian,
My original testing was with the 25-50x. Vignetting disappears around 50mm at 25x and 35mm at 50x. It works well with the Kowa zoom at 60x so would work ok with the Swarovski zoom at 60x.
From memory the 20/1.7 has some vignetting but can be cropped out but the Olympus 14-42 zoom lens would be better.
Have a good look at the new Nikon V1 and J1 though.
Neil.
 
thanks neil for the clarifications! Unfortunately, the G3 that is available here in the Philippines comes only with a Panny 14-42. There is no option to get the body only so I'll have to make do with the Panny 14-42 for now.

i am looking right now at your latest Nikon V1/J1 post / reviews. Amazing and very tempting! I have a question but I'll post it there.

Again, many thanks for the informative input!
 
I am doing quite a bit of late afternoon/early evening birding as I knock off from work at around 5pm and got to hang around till 7-8pm to pick up wify from her office.

However, most of the shots I took got to be high ISO and still the photo looked dark. Then I realized that the exposure for P300 could not go lower than 1/30s when one is shooting in continous mode.

After realising this limitation, I switched to single shooting mode and down the ISO even in such challenging shooting conditions.

I shot this blue-eared kingfisher at around 6:50pm at a forest stream. There was a heavy thunderstorm earlier and still drizzling at around 6:30pm. So it was pretty dark then but the bird was perching in the clear with no canopy overhead. The P300 could not auto-focus as subject in the LCD looked darkish. I tried to manual focus to the best that I could by zooming out to get as much light into the LCD, manual focus and then zoom back in to 50mm (35mm terms). The kingfisher was really very cooperative as the ISO was set at 200 and it kept still for me for a full FOUR seconds. Other camera settings are f/3.3 and -0.3EV.

I had sharpened/brightened the image slightly before posting. Your comments are welcomed.
 

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Letting shutter speed go slower than 1/8sec is generally not a good idea with a compact. Sensor noice increases, cancelling out any benefit to keeping a low ISO. And when shutter speed is slower than 1sec ALL digital cameras implement some type of aggressive Auto-Noise Reduction no matter what you have set in the menu.

As for focusing in dim light, try using MACRO mode. Digital zoom is a better technique for Manual focus too as the optical zoom may not be parfocal thru the entire zoom range.

That said, looks pretty good given the scenario. Maybe lower the Contrast a touch.
 
Letting shutter speed go slower than 1/8sec is generally not a good idea with a compact. Sensor noice increases, cancelling out any benefit to keeping a low ISO. And when shutter speed is slower than 1sec ALL digital cameras implement some type of aggressive Auto-Noise Reduction no matter what you have set in the menu.

As for focusing in dim light, try using MACRO mode. Digital zoom is a better technique for Manual focus too as the optical zoom may not be parfocal thru the entire zoom range.

That said, looks pretty good given the scenario. Maybe lower the Contrast a touch.

Thanks for the tip RJM. I will use manual mode next time when shooting in low light condition: set to 1/8s and the smallest f-stop possible. Will then up ISO accordingly to get a acceptably bright picture.
 
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