1st digiscoping attempts - advice (1 Viewer)

Some of my first shots - I took about 100 pic's - these are the only ones that turned out even halfway decent. Most were too blury, dark, etc... I have done nothing to these except resize - perhpas I should resize even smaller for this forum?

Thank you to anyone who can offer advice or opinions on how to better do this next time!

Equipment: CP 4500, Nikon 82mm ED, Velbon tripod, shutter release

Hi Chris

Those aren't bad at all. Most of us throw away far more than we keep and the only answer really is practise, practise, practise.

For the too dark problem are you using aperture priority? If not, or are uncertain on any of the other otimum settings for the 4500, check out Andy Bright's recommended settings:-

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=3302

The bluring is almost certainly a problem focusing the scope. Try practising on a medium bird sized cardboard box with writing on it at about 25yds - it gives you something sharp edged to get the feel for what is in and out of focus.

Best of luck.

Chris,
Welcome to the challenging world of digiscoping. The first photo is possibly due to bird movement and slow shutter speed and the second is pretty good just a little dark. When you're shooting up into the tree you often need to dial in a +0.7 to handle the backlighting.
To make life easier go to your local park/nature reserve in the mid/late afternoon and sit somewhere near a pond or similar with the sun behind you,shining directly on the subject. This will give you nice lighting and raise the shutter speed a lot to freeze the subject. Find a subject that's not moving around fast feeding ( I hardly ever bother with these as they are too difficult) and take 100 photos of it at all zoom levels,vertical and horizontal (ducks make a good subject) and different exposures. With the CP4500 you should be in Macro Mode (yellow flower range) and Spot Metering and Spot Area Focus. I usually dial in -0.7 underexposure so that highlights don't blow out. Birds moving in trees are the hardest to handle and should be left until you are familiar with the equipment and it's 'quirks'.
good luck,Neil.

Hi Chris
First let me say I thing the pictures are truly excellent. The smaller more active birds are quite difficult and you appear to have successfully caught these two. I too use the Nikon ED 82mm scope and CP 4500 and I would be interested to know which eyepiece you are using. The lowest magnification non-zoom Nikon eyepiece is (for digiscoping) a whopping 30x which makes the problem of shake that more acute. Other scope manufacturers produce 20x eyepieces which gives them a definate advantage - what do you think. Taking many photos and selecting a few is, I think, quite normal and perhaps a little sharpening and adjusting with Photoshop would help.
Regards David :clap:

I'd say that they were both good photos, second one is real sharp.

As other have said one of the keys to digiscoping is to practice, it's definitely worth starting out taking photos of static objects just to get the technique right. Personally I'd rather shoot at slightly fast shutter speeds and end up with dark pictures. Faster shutter speeds will reduce problems of bird movement and shake. Dark images can be sorted out in photoshop, but if it's blurred then there not much you can do.

It's easiest to digiscope if the bird fills the frame so it's best to start with larger subjects as they tend to be easier to get in sharp focus. No matter how good you get at digiscoping, you'll still delete more photos than you keep.

Thank you for all your excellent advice and help. It's wonderful to have this forum with so many experienced people... Dahyde - Yes, I also use a 30x digiscoping eyepiece which I can imagine makes the problem of shake more problematic.

Thanks again,

Chris

Chris,

I had a quick play with your photos. On the first I used 'Focus Magic' set to fix the focus with a 2 pixel diameter, I think you will agree it has done quite a good job! On the second I just did a crop so the bird is not so lost. Hope you like them both.

Pete :~} :eat:

Wow! Looks great! Thanks for doing that - I'll put them in my folder!

Very nice and clear for some of your first pics.

Hi Chris,

Just another comment to add on the possible causes of blurring. If you have objects in the foreground, such as the leaf in the first picture, the autofocus can have a mind of its own and focus where its not wanted. The tip then is to switch to infinity and focus manually using the scope.

By the way I liked the framing of the second shot - you used the rule of thirds and kept the bird in focus.