Hello everybody
I am new to this site, also new to digiscoping, not for birding in the first place but for other wildlife, and I am already impressed by all the information on Birdforum.net.
Hope the other wildlife interest is not a reason to send me away .
I’ve been reading some discussions about the best way of focusing your digital camera + spotting scope combination. Having bought recently the Coolpix 4500 and a Nikon Sky&Earth 80A, I did some testing to try all the valuable tips on this site. I have to acknowledge that focusing is difficult, extremely difficult.
At last, I managed to get a bit familiar with the camera, and the results are getting from horrible, via bad, to promising. Only promising, until now.
My settings are as follows: manual focusing at infinity, single AF, ISO 200, final focusing I do on the scope, I use the self timer. The tripod is stable and OK. Did some tests at a place with almost no wind. Nobody walking around the set-up.
Picture is included (ISO 400, 1/85, f=5.1). Object at approx 100-125 meters.
Today, I continued the tests, and tried to focus from a room (to have no disturbing factors, and to have a better view on the LCD screen) to an object at approx 80 meters. Using two reading glasses, in the end I was absolutely sure that I was in focus. Someone with young eyes checked for me, and we agreed that the picture in the LCD was razor sharp. We even used a magnifying glass.
Then we saw what’s happening: when taking the picture, the LCD goes blank for about a second, and then the picture returns on the LCD, but it is slightly blurred, colors are flattened out, and that’s exactly what I get on the screen of my computer monitor. Is the depth-of-view in the LCD different from the picture as it is recorded? Is the self timer the culprit? We have done quite some tests, but the quite significant quality and sharpness degradation occurs every time.
I hope this has nothing to do with the faulty Coolpix cameras I read some discouraging messages about....
Just tried again a test with 800 ASA, and image sharpening at high. I am still suspicious about the colors, but the picture at 27x magnification of the scope, and 4x optical (I admit, this is squeezing the thing to the max), same object at about 80 meters, is almost as sharp as it can be. It was not a bird, by the way.
Does anyone have further advice?
Thanks in advance, this is a great source of information.
Regards
Willem
I am new to this site, also new to digiscoping, not for birding in the first place but for other wildlife, and I am already impressed by all the information on Birdforum.net.
Hope the other wildlife interest is not a reason to send me away .
I’ve been reading some discussions about the best way of focusing your digital camera + spotting scope combination. Having bought recently the Coolpix 4500 and a Nikon Sky&Earth 80A, I did some testing to try all the valuable tips on this site. I have to acknowledge that focusing is difficult, extremely difficult.
At last, I managed to get a bit familiar with the camera, and the results are getting from horrible, via bad, to promising. Only promising, until now.
My settings are as follows: manual focusing at infinity, single AF, ISO 200, final focusing I do on the scope, I use the self timer. The tripod is stable and OK. Did some tests at a place with almost no wind. Nobody walking around the set-up.
Picture is included (ISO 400, 1/85, f=5.1). Object at approx 100-125 meters.
Today, I continued the tests, and tried to focus from a room (to have no disturbing factors, and to have a better view on the LCD screen) to an object at approx 80 meters. Using two reading glasses, in the end I was absolutely sure that I was in focus. Someone with young eyes checked for me, and we agreed that the picture in the LCD was razor sharp. We even used a magnifying glass.
Then we saw what’s happening: when taking the picture, the LCD goes blank for about a second, and then the picture returns on the LCD, but it is slightly blurred, colors are flattened out, and that’s exactly what I get on the screen of my computer monitor. Is the depth-of-view in the LCD different from the picture as it is recorded? Is the self timer the culprit? We have done quite some tests, but the quite significant quality and sharpness degradation occurs every time.
I hope this has nothing to do with the faulty Coolpix cameras I read some discouraging messages about....
Just tried again a test with 800 ASA, and image sharpening at high. I am still suspicious about the colors, but the picture at 27x magnification of the scope, and 4x optical (I admit, this is squeezing the thing to the max), same object at about 80 meters, is almost as sharp as it can be. It was not a bird, by the way.
Does anyone have further advice?
Thanks in advance, this is a great source of information.
Regards
Willem