What's the latest? (1 Viewer)

Is it a fair assumption that the world and his dog are trying digiscoping, and few (comparitively speaking) are videoscoping? I've asked around in it does seem very quiet on the vs front.

I'm not sure I have the patience for waiting until the flitties stop flitting and pose for the "big scoping outfit". However, a perm record of them flitting seems a nice option.

I've managed to find a digicam with 30x optical zoom. Is there an optimum figure for videoscoping? - i understand (thought there are no ruled) anywhere from 20x-80x is suitable for stills.

Does anyone know of a higher spec optical zoom camera? secondly, (and probably showing my ignorance here) as well or instead of Eagle Eye type lenses, are there converters for non-still cameras?

any information or suggestions accepted, how one would go on with vignetting of course may be a completely different thing.

Steve

Hi steve

What digicam have you found that has a 30x optical zoom and what mp does it have for stills. Is it tape or dvd? I video as well as trying to digiscope and find that a bigger lens on the cam is better than through a scope, for one reason it is easier to manouvre than having a foot long telescope on the end. There are adapters for attaching the cam to a scope but the weight bearing down on the eyepiece or objective of the cam is too much and may cause problems. Although I have not tried it I think one of those sliding plates that are available may be the best way forward if you want to use your scope. But if you have a 30x optical with even a 2x telephoto that is roughly eqiuvalent to 60x I believe.

I find that if you go past the optical into digital zoom whilst the videograbs or stills may look fine when small, they will not stand upto much enlargement. It all boils down to what kind of record you want to keep. Whether it is dvd or stills on a cd it looks good when you play them back through a big tele using you dvd player.

Robert

I also wonder why videoscoping has such a low profile here. It's a great way of getting record shots, you get a stab at the sound of the bird too and a video cam with 2x lens is easier to manage in the field than a digiscoping rig. Plus a video camera seems to work with far lower light levels. You obviously never get the picture quality you get with a stills camera but I find the combination quicker to use than sketching and with less of the subjectivity of that too.

Maybe it's the scoping bit - I've never seen anyone using a videocam with a scope on bird trips. My 10x Panasonic plus a 2x teleconverter has about the same reach as my 8x bins. You're looking to nearly triple that which puts you in the low power scope area - without needing a scope. Any more than that and you'll never be able to keep the bird in shot handheld. Talking of handholding, if you're going to deshake your video afterwards or take stills, it's nice to switch to progressive mode and push the shutter speed way up - from 1/50 to something like 1/350. You get much sharper stills and deshaking works much better too. The downside is you lose a bit of motion smoothness on a TV.

I got some video of the Herefordshire bee-eaters a month or so back taken in pouring rain and dreadful light. Attenborough it isn't, but it serves as a good record of the trip and shows the way they perched and moved reasonably well, even though I couldn't get close with the lenses I had at all.

camcorders

hi,i use a 10x optical zoom,dv tape panasonic with cheap jessops 2x add on lense.i found the white balance would shift while panning with the 2x on so had to switch to manual and also found manual focussing better if conditions allow for panning shots.now bought new nv gs35 camcorder with 30x lense optical which i hope will not need add on lense for normal use.my wish for the future would be 3ccd camcorder with 30x optical and zoom microphone,auto and easy to apply manual controls for under £500....Mark

When I got my digiscoping adaptor, I bought the 37mm LCE one to fit my A95 with lensmate. A little later I bought a Kenko x2 Converter with 37mm thread which takes my A95 to X6 optical. The Lens also came weith a 28mm to 37mm adapter.
A little later ( Jan 2005 ) I bought a Sony DCR PC109E mini DV 10x camcorder ( Excuse was daughters wedding ) with a 28mm thread. So my camcorder can take the x2 converter giving me x20 and I can, and do connect the camcorder to my LCE digiscoping adapter and use it on my Opticron ES80 GA ED, so far without problems. The camcorder has a cordless remote which is very useful for zoomin in/out and start/end recording.

The Camcorder can take 1meg stills which don't look too bad on the computer, but when zoomed in look rather "blocky".