Digiscoping with the Nikon D90 DSLR (1 Viewer)

good result feathered one and how did you connect your camera with the eyepiece ?

Hiya Horukuru

Just my adaptor I made MK3 ? see here http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=122833
The lens on the camera is not connected to the scope eyepiece in any way. I have not been able to try the D90 out properly as the weather is just so dark and gloomy at the moment, but I am using some of the time to read the manual for it. Its giving me a headache !!

Malc

Neil would it be possible for you to say what settings you have on the D90 for digiscoping, in the 'custom settings'

I am particularly interested in the following

A1 to A7
And B1 to B3

Malc

Feathered one said:

Neil would it be possible for you to say what settings you have on the D90 for digiscoping, in the 'custom settings'

I am particularly interested in the following

A1 to A7
And B1 to B3

Malc

Click to expand...

Malc,
This are the way I've got them set up at the moment but some I haven't tested fully yet. I haven't given the 3D (11 focus points ) AF a good workout yet , but I've found it useless on the D3 for tracking birds in flight against busy backgrounds . The ducks will be back soon and I will test it more fully.
Neil.

A1 Dynamic Area
A2 Centre Focus Point - Normal
A3 On
A4 Auto
A5 OFF
A6 AE/AF lock On
A7 Face Priority

B1 1/3 steps
B2 OFF
B3 Center Weighted Area 8 mm

Thanks Neil, will now have to wait for the weather to brighten up, to give it a try.

Malc

Here are a few more with the D90. Some digiscoped. Neil.

Nikon D90 Nikon 20/2.8D plus Swarovski STS80HD scope and Sw 30x eyepiece and DCA adapter

Nikon D90 plus Nikon 300/4 AFS lens

Hong Kong,
China.
November 2008

Hello Neil,

Just a quick question. I noticed you recently bought 2 great camera's the Nikon D90 as well as the Nikom P6000 and tested both thoroughly for digiscoping. Which one do you prefer for this matter? I am an old Nikon adept (still own an old FTN with a 50 mm 1.4 lens) and planning to buy a Nikon for digiscoping purposes. But with all these great pictures with both camera's I got confused. Is the D90 the better option?

Grtz, Johan

At last a sunny day and a few hours to spare for experimentation with the D90and 35mm f2.0 on a Nikon ED82 with 30X DS eyepiece.

And I have to say with this setup it is not as good as the P5100.
Using iso 800 and with the camera lens at f2.0 I am lucky to get 125th sec. I have tried all sorts of settings on the camera, and moved the camera nearer and further away from the scope eyepiece.
It seems the light reaching the camera is not great, perhaps it would be better with a 20mm lens?.

Good points are, much easier to focus using the D90 eyepiece, less noise and the frame rate.

So at the moment the P5100 is back on the scope adaptor, and the D90 my first Digital SLR, will be used for my close ups of flowers and general photography, with perhaps later a 300 f4 and telecon. The D90 is giving me some superb pictures of flowers this afternoon, a superb camera.

Malc

Since you are all Nikon, you should skip the afocal projection method and use the positve projection method of the Nikon FSA-L1 adapter with the D90.

cheers,
Rick

the FSA-L1 will allow the D90 to work in a prime mode through your scope as it replaces the camera lens and the scopes eye piece,,

it will not work on your P5100 as you cannot remove the lens,,

it is an expensive adapter costing in the $300+ area,,

http://www.nikon.com/products/sportoptics/lineup/dsystem/fsa-l1/index.htm

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...&Q=&sb=ps&pn=1&ci=0&A=search&shs=Nikon Fsa-L1

Derry

I was out digiscoping today in bright sunlight all day with the D90 and the P6000. As there was no shade it was difficult to use the P6000 and most of the time I was shooting blind. I had to focus the scope first and then trust the AF of the P6000 as I had trouble seeing the result. And this is one of the best screens around. So I mostly used the D90 as it's screen was easier to see in the bright conditions and I mostly used the optical viewfinder. As I was mostly shooting white birds finding focus manually was tough for me and my success rate was low, except for the Little Egret images where he was coming back to perch on the same post so I just pre-focused using Liveview and fired off the shutter as he approached with the fish. I was shooting at 1/2000th second at iso 640 at f2.8 ( Nikon 20/2.8 D lens ). This was what made these moving shots possible. Neil

Nikon D90 plus Nikon 20/2.8 lens and Swarovski STS80HD scope and Sw 30x eyepiece and DCA adapter and balance bar

Hong Kong,
China.
November 2008

Neil said:

I can attach it two ways -
1. with stepdown rings on the 20/2.8 D from 62/58/52 and then on to the Swarovski DCA. I turn the scope on it's side to match up with the height of the camera lens and angle it (see photo in previous thread. I switch off the AF with this method. There is a bit of vignetting with this approach due to all the step rings.
2. I just slide the camera lens as close to the scope eyepiece as necessary to minimise vignetting (on the Manfrotto balance plate mounted onto the balance bar ).

The iso 800 noise is similar to the iso 400 on the Olympus E420 and iso 1600 on the D3, but I haven't done a definitive test yet.
Neil.

Click to expand...

___________

Neil, first, excellent photos with the new D90. I'll bet you're having a lot of fun with your new toy. I finally got myself a 50mm lens for my 20D, and with a universal bracket attempted my first DSLR digiscoped shot using your method #2, by sliding the camera as close as possible to the scope eyepiece. I use a black felt cloth to drape over the setup so as to keep out extraneous light (I have a Kowa DCA-1 adapter, similar to the Swaro one but did not use it). Sure beats the A590IS I've used in the past.

Here are two shots. The close-up was from approx 50ft distance with no sharpening. The other shot was taken at a distance of about 100 ft.

wings said:

___________

Neil, first, excellent photos with the new D90. I'll bet you're having a lot of fun with your new toy. I finally got myself a 50mm lens for my 20D, and with a universal bracket attempted my first DSLR digiscoped shot using your method #2, by sliding the camera as close as possible to the scope eyepiece. I use a black felt cloth to drape over the setup so as to keep out extraneous light (I have a Kowa DCA-1 adapter, similar to the Swaro one but did not use it). Sure beats the A590IS I've used in the past.

Here are two shots. The close-up was from approx 50ft distance with no sharpening. The other shot was taken at a distance of about 100 ft.

Click to expand...

Nice work from that distance. I'm glad your having fun. I'm still having focusing problems with the DSLR so I take a lot of shots and make small adjustments to the focus as I go . I heard that Canon had a focus bracketting function in one of their cameras. I wish I had it in the D90.
Neil.

Here are a few I've taken with the Nikon D90 + FSA-L1 adapter and ED82. The Little Egret was fairly close, ~21m. The Grey Heron and Kingfisher were further, ~56m.

cheers,
Rick

Wow Neil ! Great shots of that Egret. Truly amazing - congradulations !

Here are some more of a Kingfisher I got today from ~60m distance with the D90 + Nikon FSA-L1 dslr adapter and ED82. I waited in a hide ~20m from where I saw it last week but it refused to come closer during the 3hrs I was there. Took some video too hoping to catch one in flight but the bird continued to foil me. I think the flight stills I managed are still a little blurry even though shutter speed was 1/1000sec. I thought the shadow cast on the rock is kinda cool though.

cheers,
Rick

That's a great shot RJM !

Neil, how would you compare the Nikon D90 digiscoped images with (a) your Coolpix 5100 images and (b) your Canon A590IS images? Do you find that the D90's 920,000 pixel LCD screen helps, assuming you are using the Live View feature of the DSLR?

RJM said:

Here are some more of a Kingfisher I got today from ~60m distance with the D90 + Nikon FSA-L1 dslr adapter and ED82. I waited in a hide ~20m from where I saw it last week but it refused to come closer during the 3hrs I was there. Took some video too hoping to catch one in flight but the bird continued to foil me. I think the flight stills I managed are still a little blurry even though shutter speed was 1/1000sec. I thought the shadow cast on the rock is kinda cool though.

cheers,
Rick

Click to expand...

Hi Rick,

I've just got a FSA-L1 and D90 to use with my ED82 and would be really appreciate some details/tips about the camera setup you're using.

Thanks,
RM

Well, first let me say I like the camera to do as much of the work as possible, both shooting and post-processing. Getting good focus manually with the ED82 is hard enough and pixel peeping pics on a PC is not my idea of a fun night! So my style and methods may be "heresy" to those who prefer maximum control and like playing in Photoshop.

My end game is to have an image good enough to print directly from the camera/memory card, bypassing the need for a PC. If I can get a high "keeper ratio" I can quickly pick and choose my shots on the train ride home from my outing. Then I just pop into the local print kiosk to get my prints done while I have a few beers at the pub. I prefer prints as no monitor I have can really do the image justice.

That said, I have only had the D90 for a few weeks with only about 800 shots so far. My "keeper ratio" is only about 1:10 now, so I am having to take about 200 shots per outing to get anything worth printing. Way too many pics to easily sort through in camera! I am still tweaking the settings, particularly the Picture Controls and I only have the Nikon View NX and Capture NX2 demo to post process with. The D90 has much more dynamic range the my D40 and I am having to adjust my methods to compensate. I am thinking I may need several Custom Picture Controls to get more keepers.

Of course, with the FSA-L1 the camera Mode Dial is set to Aperture Priority. Metering is set to MATRIX (somtimes Center Weighted if I can get close enough for the bird to fill the view, HA!) Exposure Compensation and sometimes Active D-Lighting are adjusted depending on the Playback Histogram. I shoot Continuous H4.5fps and sometime Remote shutter release modes.

So here are my current D90 Menu settings:

Shooting Menu
Picture Control "BIRDS" - modified VIVID with Sharpening 7, Saturation -1, Hue 0 (Active D-Lighting is ON -Auto so Contrast and Brightness are not unavailable)
Image Quality - RAW (eventually Normal JPEG once I get the Pic Control tweeked)
White Balance -Auto
ISO Sensitivity settings - Auto ISO ON, Range 200-3200, Min shutter speed 1/250 (I raise/lower min shutter depending on light conditions and the movement of the bird. Ideally, I want to keep ISO ≤800 with a shutter of 1/500 for still birds, and 1/1600 for birds in flight)
Active D-Lighting -Auto (may change this if I can't get Contrast toned down in Picture Control)
Color Space - Adobe RGB (eventually sRGB to save having to convert later for prints)
Long exp NR - OFF
High ISO NR- High (only kicks in above ISO800)

The rest of the Shooting Menu is not important.

Custom Settings Menu (*changed from default)
a2-WIDE
a3-OFF
a5-ON
a7-NORM
c5-15m
d1-OFF
d2-ON
d3-ISO
d7-ON
d10- Usually OFF but depends on shutter speed
f3-ACCESS TOP ITEM MY MENU

My Menu
Set Picture Control
ISO Sensitivity Settings
ISO Sensitivity auto control
d10 Exposure delay mode
e4 Auto Bracketing set

That's it. Hope it helps!
Rick