My first attempts! (1 Viewer)

kittykat23uk · May 20, 2007

Hi all,

I picked up a nice little second hand Kowa TS-611 scope with a new 20x wide eyepiece yesterday. I have posted three shots taken with my C5050 hand held through the scope in my gallery. I would very much appreciate any hints tips comments etc!

http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=55291

Incidentally, I was planning to connect the scope to the camera by way of a large F-adapter, but I have found that my camera has to be right up against the eyepiece of the scope for it to work. Therefore the F-adapter is of no use to me.

On the same note, what other options are there for lining up the camera with the eyepiece? Scope is an angled body version.

Many thanks,

Jo

IanF · May 20, 2007

Very good results with this scope. My first scope ws a Lowa 611 and I used to try digiscoping with the Olympus C2000 but never got results anyhtng like as good as this.

I made my own adapter initially but eventually bought one from London Camera Exchange - LCE adapter

SRB are well worth a look as well as they make adapters for Kowa and most other brands.

foxwood · May 20, 2007

Hi Jo

Sorry I can't offer you any useful advice on improving your pics but from what you've produced so far I'd say you're going the right away about things :t: Keep 'em coming!

I'm hoping to get into digiscoping some time soon and I hope my first efforts are as good as yours!

Mike

postcardcv · May 20, 2007

looking good Jo - two things that will help you is practice (the more you digiscope the better you'll get at it) and an adapter - I digiscoped handheld for over a year and was pleased with the results, however I was amazed at the difference an adapter made.

One thing that can be handy is to under expose your images a bit - this will help to stop blowing the pale plumage and will also help to keep your shutter speeds up.

YellowBudgie · May 21, 2007

kittykat23uk said:
Hi all,

I picked up a nice little second hand Kowa TS-611 scope with a new 20x wide eyepiece yesterday. I have posted three shots taken with my C5050 hand held through the scope in my gallery. I would very much appreciate any hints tips comments etc!

http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=55291

Incidentally, I was planning to connect the scope to the camera by way of a large F-adapter, but I have found that my camera has to be right up against the eyepiece of the scope for it to work. Therefore the F-adapter is of no use to me.

On the same note, what other options are there for lining up the camera with the eyepiece? Scope is an angled body version.

Many thanks,

Jo

Hi Jo,

Those are great first shots. If you want to clear your photos of noise (the pixelation look) there are software packages out there that can improve the noise in your photo after. I removed the noise from your photo with Imagenomic's Noiseware. You can find lower cost software using a search engine with "freeware photo noise reduction" or "shareware photo noise reduction".

As you learn your setup you will learn what causes and reduces noise in the photos you take. Too little lighting, high ISO, too much zoom on the camera may cause more noise in your photos.

Happy Digiscoping

kittykat23uk · May 21, 2007

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I will need to see about the adapter, I tried an F-Adapter but that doesn't work as the camera has to be right up against the eyepiece (inside the rim of the screw up eyecup) for it to work. Does anyone know of a clamping type adapter that could work with an angled scope?:h?:

On the noise reduction, great job! Is there a filter in photoshop that could achieve the same?

NoSpringChicken · May 21, 2007

Hi Jo,

The photos look very good. Photoshop should have a 'Noise' filter with the option 'Reduce Noise'. I would save the photo as a copy and play about with the filter settings to see what happens.

It is possible to use a clamp type adapter with an angled scope but if you look at the SRB site it might be possible to find a combination which works with your set up. Your camera should have a thread for a filter adapter at the base of the lens but I don't know what size it is. If it is either 41mm or 46.5mm you should be able to use one of these with a suitable size accessory thread (eg. 37mm):
http://www.ekmpowershop2.com/ekmps/shops/srbgriturn/index.asp?function=DISPLAYCAT&catid=73

It might then be possible to connect it to one of these with a matching thread (eg. 37mm):
http://www.ekmpowershop2.com/ekmps/shops/srbgriturn/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=375

It looks as if it should work but it would be a good idea to contact SRB and see what they say. Other people on this forum with much more knowledge than me might have an opinion on this, too.

Ron

SteveClifton · May 21, 2007

Have you looked through the Digiscoping adapters section of this forum? Recently there was a thread entitled 'Nikon ED 50 + CP 8400' which might be helpful in finding a general adapter for your scope.

I personally have a Baader adapter-bought it cheaply (£30) when I first started digiscoping about 18 months ago to see how I got on, and still use it exclusively. It works so well I don't see the point in spending big money on a 'fancy' model.
Cheers, Steve.

kittykat23uk · May 21, 2007

SteveClifton said:
I personally have a Baader adapter-bought it cheaply (£30) when I first started digiscoping about 18 months ago to see how I got on, and still use it exclusively. It works so well I don't see the point in spending big money on a 'fancy' model.
Cheers, Steve.

Interesting, I had assumed that would only work with a straight bodied scope. does it work for angled scopes too then?

SteveClifton · May 22, 2007

Yes, it works on either straight or angled scopes. I have even used it on my bins!

YellowBudgie · May 22, 2007

I'm using the Noiseware plugin for Photoshop. It gives you a large number of noise reduction options and in my opinion does a better job than photoshop. Noiseware is expensive for just noise reduction but it all depends on what your looking for. I'm using CS2 maybe CS3 does a better noise reduction job.

If your happy with the noise reduction in Photoshop you will be good to go.

When I was using a monocular to extend the cameras range I used to use photoshop to reduce none or as little noise as possible on the bird by making a selection around the bird. I would add more noise reduction to the background by doing a inverse selection.

See ya,

kittykat23uk · May 27, 2007

A few more shots with my new setup:

Let me know what you think!

Jo

Ju_Cooper · May 27, 2007

Hi Jo,

Nice pictures, especially the action shots!

The noise reduction in CS3 is similar if not the same as in CS2. I am not that happy with it, but that might just reflect my inexperience with all the options. NeatImage is a reasonably inexpensive option which is easy to use and can also use pre-made profiles for your camera (there are some on their website for the Oly 5050). It is available as a photoshop plugin.

I have taken the liberty of using NeatImage on one of your shots and doing a colour correction (attached) so you can see the difference.

Julian

kittykat23uk · May 27, 2007

Wow! What a difference! I don't suppose you have a link to a download for the plugin?

ETA: the action shots were taken using RAW and high speed sequential shooting.

Ju_Cooper · May 27, 2007

http://www.neatimage.com/index.html

The demo version is limited in size of image. I use the plugin with the Home+ edition.

kittykat23uk · Jun 2, 2007

Hi all,

a few more digiscoping pics have now been added to my gallery. I've been using Neat Image to tidy them up (thanks for the tip Ju_Cooper). Let me know what you think!

http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=55291

more pics on my photobucket account:

http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l260/kittykat23uk/birds and wildlife/
Also any neat image users out there, please can you help? I'm using the photoshop plugin and every time I apply the filter it does something strange. The image I'm working on disappears and so do all the open toolbars/pallets in photoshop. I can still save the filtered image but then have to exit photoshop and restart to get all of my pallets back. Has anyone else experienced this?

erniehatt · Jun 3, 2007

I use the neat image plugin and find it works OK that said, be carefull using it as like in camera noise filters they can loose fine detail in the feathers as shown in the dove above, from what I can see the noise in your images so far it's not excessive. I looked at this image of yours, as you will see I have removed the background noise without touching the bird or feeder, I would rather see some noise in the bird and keep the feather detail, providing it is not excessive. I did this by using the blur tool, in the tool box of photoshop CS2, it is very useful but you must take care. That is all noise filters do they blur the image to hide the noise, it would be good if you could do it on a selection. Ernie

kittykat23uk · Jun 11, 2007

Hi everyone. I've taken a few more pics at Strumpshaw fen and will upload them over the coming days. One question I have for all of you digiscopers is, with a 20 x eyepiece, how do you manage to capture anything that is more than a few metres away from you? My camera still seems to produce quite a bit of vignetting in the field, but that isn't my main difficulty, it's getting a bird to fill the frame. For example, I think I got some nice shots of a common tern, but to get it to fill the frame in camera I have to zoom in on the recorded picture up to about 3x. Not too much of a problem as this also eliminates all of the vignetting. But obviously I'm dumping a lot of pixels. Do you all use the zoom capabilities on your cameras, or use zoom eyepieces, or cropping or a combination or just work within your own limitations? Zooming with the camera wont work with mine, so I guess I am a bit stuck and have to work within the limitations of my scope's range.

erniehatt · Jun 12, 2007

Personally I never had a lot of success using a zoom eyepiece the only positions I could work without vignetting was 20, 50 and 60X, so I now use fixed focus eyepieces of 20, 25, 30, and 40mm, it gives you a much larger working range . Is there a particular reason you can't use the zoom on the camera. Most people you will find use up to 2/3 of the zoom range, it is believed that at the highest zoom there is some loss of quality. Ernie

kittykat23uk · Jun 12, 2007

I'm afraid so, my camera's lens is set up in such a way that when I even try to zoom a little bit it vignets like anything. So I have to have it fixed on Macro.

ETA: I have a new set on Flickr for all my digiscoped pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8773601@N03/sets/72157600329110119/

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