bluedubius
Rick
Greetings,
I'm back after an extended absence and now resuming my videoscoping efforts. Not having a lot of spare money, I've been trying to make do on the modest equipment I already own. Last spring I was lucky to find a Cooper's Hawk nest in a local cemetery that was in a good spot to try for some video. The combo which gave me the most encouraging results was an old Canon Optura 200MC minidv camcorder coupled by a step ring to a 32mm Orion eyepiece and a Meade ETX-90 scope (the eyepiece and scope I normally use for digiscoping). Here is a sample of the efforts. http://media.putfile.com/Oak-Hill-Coopers-Hawk77. Could probably get rid of the vinetting by using another eyepiece or maybe a different video camera. Remember this was just a first effort sortof quick and easy attempt. The camera has a 10X optical zoom. I had the camcorder zoomed all the way out to wide angle. This yielded about 39X for the setup. I tried zooming on up, but the vinetting was worse until you reached the highest zoom. Surprisingly the bird was still reasonably sharp even at this ungodly power, but vibrations and thermal noise were evident. I have some more things in mind to try when I get time.
Rick
I'm back after an extended absence and now resuming my videoscoping efforts. Not having a lot of spare money, I've been trying to make do on the modest equipment I already own. Last spring I was lucky to find a Cooper's Hawk nest in a local cemetery that was in a good spot to try for some video. The combo which gave me the most encouraging results was an old Canon Optura 200MC minidv camcorder coupled by a step ring to a 32mm Orion eyepiece and a Meade ETX-90 scope (the eyepiece and scope I normally use for digiscoping). Here is a sample of the efforts. http://media.putfile.com/Oak-Hill-Coopers-Hawk77. Could probably get rid of the vinetting by using another eyepiece or maybe a different video camera. Remember this was just a first effort sortof quick and easy attempt. The camera has a 10X optical zoom. I had the camcorder zoomed all the way out to wide angle. This yielded about 39X for the setup. I tried zooming on up, but the vinetting was worse until you reached the highest zoom. Surprisingly the bird was still reasonably sharp even at this ungodly power, but vibrations and thermal noise were evident. I have some more things in mind to try when I get time.
Rick
