problems (1 Viewer)

birdbloke said:

just started digiscoping,have taken some good shots but recently most shots lately come out blurred and if the bird turns its head you can see where it started and where it finished. not sure where im going wrong. my scoppe is a optricon hr66ed and camera is coolpix 4500.The Settings are:
white balance -Auto
Metering - Matrix
Continuous shots 6 at a time
BSS -Off
Image adjustment-Normal
Saturation control -normal
Image Quality -FINE
Image Size - 2272x1704
User Setting 1
Image Sharpening -Auto
Lens-Normal
Exposure Options-AE Lock Off
Focas Options AF AREA MODE -Auto
Zoom Options-Digital Tele ON
Auto Bracketing Off
Noise Reduction Off
I did Try To Upload some pics to show you all but i dont know how to resize them
Any Help Would be great
Thanks

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dbradnum said:

If you're seeing motion blur as a result of the bird moving (i.e. not the camera moving), then the shutter speed isn't high enough. Always keep the aperture as wide as possible when digiscoping to let the maximum amount of light through - at this time of year with only a 66mm objective on the scope, realistically you are going to struggle to get enough light some of the time, especially when zoomed in to get shots of more distant subjects. Aperture priority on the Coolpix (small A shows on screen) is usually the right mode, and then regularly twirling the top right dial clockwise will increase the aperture as far as possible for the current conditions.

Possible workarounds are to raise the ISO level to 200 or 400 (which will result in grainier photos) and zoom in to a lesser extent (which will result in the target bird being smaller in the image). If the shutter speed is still low, then you can also always resort to taking loads of shots of the target bird, in the knowledge that most will go in the bin, but one or two might work out. I've not infrequently got decent sharp record shots at 1/60 this way.

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dbradnum said:

Your numbers on the left are the speed of the camera shutter - they are fractions of a second, and as you say, this is the time it takes to actually take the shot. You want this time to be as short as possible, giving the bird less time to move! (So if it's showing 1/x , then you want the x to be as large as possible).

The F number is a measure of the aperture (how much light is being let through the camera). You want this to be as low as possible, which means allowing more light through. The lowest possible F stop will depend on how much the Coolpix is zoomed in: with no zoom, you can get as low as F2, whereas at full zoom, the best possible is F5.1. (Makes sense, since if you're zoomed in, then you can't get as much light through - just like a scope).

If you make the F stop lower, then more light goes through the camera, and you'll see the shutter speed get faster. Note that (unless the light is fantastic) you shouldn't generally be taking shots at more than F5.1 - if you are, then you're missing the opportunity to get a faster shutter speed.

Hope this helps!

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