• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Need help Canon EOS 350d on Hawke Endurance ed (1 Viewer)

Joe.S

Well-known member
Crap results: Canon EOS 350d on Hawke Endurance ed

I can't for the life of me take a decent picture!

Granted the Canon EOS 350d is an old camera- and only 5mp. But still, it normally takes brilliant pictures and I was expecting much better results.

I'm really struggling to get the focus right. Staring into the view finder is hard work and the results are more luck than judgement. I've taken loads of photos but not a single one has stopped me dead. They are all a bit duff.

The adapters are from Hawke.

The best results are below.

The goldfinch is out of focus.
The chaffinch is getting there, but not great (it looks like your looking through the bottom of a whiskey glass).
The back of the sparrow looks okay but at 5mp it's going to be very pixelated cropped down.

I would really appreciate any thoughts or help.
 

Attachments

  • camerascope.jpg
    camerascope.jpg
    88.5 KB · Views: 113
  • chaffinch.jpg
    chaffinch.jpg
    94.8 KB · Views: 144
  • Goldfinch.jpg
    Goldfinch.jpg
    47.3 KB · Views: 126
  • sparrow.jpg
    sparrow.jpg
    74.4 KB · Views: 106
Last edited:
Hi , I,ve got the same camera and an Opticron ES80 scope . The eyepiece is a x23 . with recommended adapter. Good results are not easy but making sure the tripod is rock steady is a must .It,s been a while since I,ve used it as results were always poor . I can,t remember off hand what the settings on the camera was now , in manual mode and a wide aperture , with bright sunlight was a must . I now use a Sigma 50-500 lens on the camera , much easier . I hope someone else can come up with a better solution , and I might give it another go . Good luck .
 
Eyepiece projection isn't a good way to digiscope and will usually produce poor results compared to other methods. The eyepiece is projecting all of its faults onto the camera plane and that is what you see here. The human eye doesn't see these faults when looking through an eyepiece, they only really show up when you take photos with this method. It takes a special flat plane projection eyepiece to get rid of the aberrations, soft edges etc and these aren't widely available for spotting scopes. For the human eye the eyepiece only really needs to be sharp in the center and you can see this in the photos. Photographing through the eyepiece with a low power lens on the camera would maybe improve things slightly. Using a small point and shoot camera would probably improve things even more. If the eyepiece is a zoom then there's a lot of glass inside it and that doesn't help with projecting a clean, distortion free image. A low power fixed length eyepiece may project better results but even that isn't a guarantee.

Paul.
 
Thanks, Henry: it's sounds like it might be a chocolate teapot set-up.

Bit dissapointed because I've bought the right adapters but I get better results from holding my phone (samsung s3 mini) over the eyepiece.
 
Thanks, Paul. Wish I'd know this before I bought the adapters.

Will tinker a bit more.

(the images in your gallery don't look like mine ;)).
 
Last edited:
I tried using the same camera on my Opticron Imagic 80 scope and like you I always found the results very hit and miss in the end I took the step of buying the digyscope kit offered by Opticron and found I got much better results.
What type of Hawke scope do you have as it appears that with digyscoping from what I have read it does appear that you do need ED glass both in the eye piece and objective lens, my imagic scope didn't have this so I was never that happy with the shots as they always had a slight blue tinge.
So like Henry I went and got a Sigma 50-500 lens and this worked great on my 350D.
Again as Henry has said you need the set up to be rock steady and ideally using a cable release, I often also used the self timer to aid with shake from me even pressing the cable release and maybe pulling on the camera and hence scope. Good light conditions are a must, and upping the exposure settings more than you would with a normal lens in the conditions you find your self in help.

All the best

Tim.
 
Looks like you have ED glass so the glass is Ok, but looking at the set up it might be worth trying attaching the camera directly to the body of the scope minus the eye piece I notice Hawke do such a adapter.
This will mean you are taking shots through as little glass as possible, its a bit like taking shots through a window the glass can result in less than Sharpe image being produced.
But with your current set up I would ensure that the zoom is turned to its widest and try to resist using the zoom its best to crop the image rather than using the zoom.
If all else fails a second hand 50-500 are quite a good buy I think mine was third hand and make for a good all purpose lens.
All the best
Tim.
 
Looks like you have ED glass so the glass is Ok, but looking at the set up it might be worth trying attaching the camera directly to the body of the scope minus the eye piece I notice Hawke do such a adapter.

I've looked but I can't see any adapters other than the one I have? Please could you post a link or a product code.

If all else fails a second hand 50-500 are quite a good buy I think mine was third hand and make for a good all purpose lens.
All the best
Tim.

Are the photo's on your blog taken with the 50-500?
 
Hi
The shots on my blog have been taken on various lenses currently I am using the Tamron 150-600 which I am still getting to grips with if I am being honest.
I have attached a few shots I have though taken with the Sigma 50-500.

I will have a look into the SLR fittings with the endurance scope.

Tim.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_8793.JPG
    IMG_8793.JPG
    60.7 KB · Views: 95
  • IMG_9789.JPG
    IMG_9789.JPG
    44.9 KB · Views: 88
  • IMG_8681.JPG
    IMG_8681.JPG
    147.7 KB · Views: 109
  • IMG_2066.jpg
    IMG_2066.jpg
    121.3 KB · Views: 83
Thanks Tim- I got involved looking at the birds instead of the photo quality :t: Certainly better than I'm getting digiscoping!

Will have a mooch around LCE for second hand prices.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 9 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top