Focusing on distant birds (1 Viewer)

Any tips on how to get good focus on distant birds?
It's not too bad with closer birds are they tend to fill the screen so you get a better idea of if in focus or not, but distant birds tend to be very small in the screen and it's difficult to see if they are in focus or not (as with the attached bird).

I have a x2 viewer thing, but find it even worse when that's attached as the screen looks like a honeycombe :-(

Any helpful hints, i'm using macro and letting it autofocus. I'm sure it could have done better.

TIA

You could try zooming up into digital zoom to fine tune the focus, then zoom back down to take the shot... it's still not easy as at that magnification the subject will be bouncing around all over the place while you're twiddling with the scope's focus.
regards,
Andy

I run into this a lot with..not birds or scopes..my viedeocamera. The autofocus is quite annoying and I had to get the manual out to focus by hand. In the viewer the image is quite easily focused if you have tripod.

I see videocameras developing in the direction that you can get pretty good still pictures of birds with them. Mine is not digital, so it takes a lot of work to get a still from a tape.

Many thanks, i'll give it a try next time. It's just annoying when your snapping away thinking it might be in focus only to get home and it's not :-(

Guess it'll come with practice.

Cheers

Jeff

Isn't it something to do with getting one of the red focus dots on the eye of the bird?,

jeff said:

Any tips on how to get good focus on distant birds?
It's not too bad with closer birds are they tend to fill the screen so you get a better idea of if in focus or not, but distant birds tend to be very small in the screen and it's difficult to see if they are in focus or not (as with the attached bird).

I have a x2 viewer thing, but find it even worse when that's attached as the screen looks like a honeycombe :-(

Any helpful hints, i'm using macro and letting it autofocus. I'm sure it could have done better.

TIA

Click to expand...

I'm not convinced that the issue with the photo attached is the focus point. It looks like there is atmospheric interference, or "heat waves" which result from shooting through a lengthy layer of air. This is a perennial problem in long-distance bird photography. The best solution is not to take distant shots when the weather is at all warm.

As for focusing, I confess that it's using a blasted LCD screen for composing that is the most off-putting aspect of digiscoping for me. I feel like I'm watching the bird on a poor-quality tiny television, rather than looking at it directly. That said, I use the "macro" setting, set up the focus system so that I can vary the main autofocus point manually, and then after I gain autofocus through partially depressing the shutter I twiddle the scope's focus ring a little to fine tune things. And I shoot on "continuous" so that maybe one of the several shots is in clear focus. Of course, I'm a pretty poor excuse for a digiscoper in any case :C

How distant are we talking?
I'm new to digiscoping, and have been quite surprised at the distance I've been able to get relatively decent photos.. not sharp sharp, but pretty clear and not blurred. Then again, I dont know what is a normal distance to try for.. but it seems not too many of the birds I see are as close as I'd like them. rather they are mostly quite far away. I have acheived some decent photos of birds that I couldnt see with the naked eye, only finding them in the scope.

I agree about the lcd screen.. that is a pain, very hard to see! I also have the 2x shade, but I find you have to focus the honeycomb? Is that correct?
I do it the same way you described, Doug.
Bev

* Remove camera
* Aquire bird with scope at min zoom
* Zoom scope up to maximum
* Focus (at max zoom you have very little depth of field, so getting the focus exactly right is fast and easy: if it ain't just so it's clearly out)
* Zoom back to min zoom. (Now you have heaps more depth of field and even if you were a fraction out you are safely within the sweet zone because of the greater depth of field)
* Replace camera
* Shoot

Result: perfect focus. Every time.

Takes about 5-7 seconds with practice. (That's using a CP4500, Swarovski scope and traditional Swarovski adaptor (not the new swing-up style, the barrel one similar to the LCE). A swingstyle one would cut that by maybe two seconds.

Five seconds? Can you afford five seconds? Well, think of it this way: if you buggerise about trying to focus using the LCD screen, it will take you at least five seconds, and there is no guarantee that you wind up with an in-focus picture.

If, after doing all that, you are still getting out of focus shots, it's probably because the bird is so far away that it's too small to get the camera's auto focus interested. In that case, you are not going to get a decent shot anyway. You need to be closer.

Also, you need to get the focus indicator of the camera (on the CP4500 there are five of them: centre, top, bottom, left, right) bang on the bird, or on something that is the same distance from you as the bird. You can set the camera to allow you to select the focus point with the joystick. Usually, in the centre is best, but it depends on the shot.

Remember that the camera needs features to focus on (sharp edges, lines, something fot it to get a "grip" on. Sometimes (not in this case) you have to select another object to focus on because the bird is too plain. Woodwsallows, for example, have such soft feathers that the camera can't get any traction on them. It's often best to make the camera focus on something that is sharp: usually the bill, or the edge of the bird (against the empty sky). This is where the joystick focal point selection comes in handy.

Thanks for the tips,

I use a fixed eyepiece (no zoom)

I'd have loved to have got closer, but a river was in the way :-(

I guess the bird was about 100m away? (but i'm really bad at judging distances!)

I'll have to read in the manual re: focus indicators.

Cheers

Jeff

Watch out if you use older variable eyepieces, most don't hold their focus too well... unlike camera lenses.

Great post, Tannin! Most informative for us newbies. I had to send my adapter back so I'm grounded for now but I will try your procedure as soon as I 'm back up and running.
I did try didgiscoping a couple of times before having to send the adapter back and I had problems with focus and with finding the more distant birds in the LCD. Following your recommendations will probably solve that problem too.

Thanks Snowyowl. Hope you get your kit back soon. You will experience considerable frustration with my method: the frustration of getting nicely set up just at the very moment the bird moves. Add in the terrible shutter delay of the CP4500 and you might invent some entirely new bad words.

But it's worth it: if you do get the bird in shot, you have an excellent chance of getting good shots, and that's a powerful payoff.

Just the same, I am planning to migrate over to a less frustrating setup .... but I don't know what! I'm thinking Canon 20D and a lens in the 400 to 600mm class, and this thing has got so far into my blood that I don't really care what it costs anymore. (OK, I won't sell my house. Well, not without some careful thought first anyway.) (On the other hand, I am open to offers for other things. Anyone want to buy one slightly used mother in good condition?)

But I haven't worked out what the best combination of equipment is going to be yet. It seems that any DSLR combination that's anywhere near reasonable in terms of the practicalities (weight, cost, auto-focus, IS) won't deliver me anything like the reach of the digiscoping rig. Perhaps the answer is to carry three cameras: the #1 Coolpix for digiscoping, my spare Coolpix for landscapes and macro work (I already do this), and a DSLR wioth a 300 or 400mm lens for in-between: in particular small passerines that are too fast-moving to get with the scope bar masses of paitence and gobs of luck, but let you get quite close to them. Essentially, something as big as I can still hand-hold.

Dunno.

Meanwhile, I'm carrying on with the Coolpix and Swarovski.

PS: Jeff - fixed E/P - I didn't think of that!

PPS: Andy - quite so. The zoom - focus - zoom method works great with the ATS80HD, but may not work at all with other gear. You probably have to try it out with each scope individually.

The honeycomb screen with the 2x viewer can be a bit of a problem - if you're using it to focus, you may have to focus the scope back and forth several times watching the screen carefully.

Eventually you get the feel of where the sharpest (or least unsharp) point is.

(The same applies to an SLR camera with a slow lens where the screen is a bit dark).

I think most digiscopers would agree that, even in clear atmospheric conditions, distant birds are more difficult to get high quality images than close ones.

Grey Herons are probably the worst! They're quite shy, anyway, but because they're large they fill the screen from quite a distance so you think you're going to get 'The' shot only to find that when you get it back on the computer screen it's no better than any other distant shot. The 'soft' grey plumage can look a bit smudgy as well which doesn't help to make it 'look' sharp.

I've had a SLR with a 300 mm lens for years often using it with a X2 converter but it is just too slow. Newer lenses are probably faster. My equipment is old and worn out (like me!) which is one of the main reasons I've gone to the 4500 + my scope. It would have cost a fortune to replace my SLRs and lens collection.

Andy Bright said:

Watch out if you use older variable eyepieces, most don't hold their focus too well... unlike camera lenses.

Click to expand...

Is there actually any truly parfocal zoom eyepieces? I think I have to refocus with all the zooms that I have tried (Zeiss, old Swaro, Leica, Kowa, Nikon) if I change magnification. I have looked through the new Swaro too, but I can't honestly remember how it behaved in this respect. Even if it works only at the 60x and 20x powers, it would IMHO be a feature worth promoting.

Ilkka

iporali said:

Is there actually any truly parfocal zoom eyepieces? I think I have to refocus with all the zooms that I have tried (Zeiss, old Swaro, Leica, Kowa, Nikon) if I change magnification.

Ilkka

Click to expand...

That's what I thought but covered myself in case the new Swaro zoom didn't need refocusing after a big change in magnification... i can't remember either. I've seen instruction manuals where it says zoom up to 60x, focus and everything will be fine at other zoom positions... HA!!

I am new to this forum but I have been digiscoping for about 12 months. I have a Kowa TSN 823 with a 32x eyepiece and the CP 4500. I use an adaptor from LCE which I can quickly slip on the 32x e/p and take shots once the scope is precisely focused. I have to put the 4500 on max zoom to avoid vignetting. I am going to buy a less high focus e/p and Kowa have just released a 21WA which should be great for the job. 21x4mag (on the CP) makes only 84 mag overall against the 128x I'm trying to achieve now. This should solve many of the problems of lack of light, difficulty of focus and birds appearing too big!

Has anyone used the new 21WA e/p from Kowa yet?

jeff said:

Any tips on how to get good focus on distant birds?
It's not too bad with closer birds are they tend to fill the screen so you get a better idea of if in focus or not, but distant birds tend to be very small in the screen and it's difficult to see if they are in focus or not (as with the attached bird).

Any helpful hints, i'm using macro and letting it autofocus. I'm sure it could have done better.

Click to expand...

I don't think you are fighting a focus issue. I think the issue is twofold. Overall magnification and atmospheric disturbance.

I'm going to guess that you were at full camera zoom and at at least a moderately high magnification. Later in the thread you mention that you estimate the distance to be about 100meters. Well, atmospheric effects can make themselves noticed as soon as 25 meters. 100 meters will seldom deliver a nice crisp shot.

As for focus, I've been toying with an idea that I haven't yet convinced myself is the case. But you might experiment a bit for yourself.

If you read the specs on the cameras, they will sometimes tell you the number of "steps" available with the autofocus. Apparently, these cameras do not focus continuously, but actually focus in discrete steps. Considering the very large DOF of a small sensor digicam, this makes perfect sense. But when we focus with our scopes, we severely decrease the image DOF. It seems to me that the best focus is often between these steps. I wonder if this is one of the hidden advantages of the macro mode autofocus. Perhaps the steps are smaller? So you might consider focusing as normal and then take a picture. Now adjust the scope focus a very tiny amount and reshoot. Adjust the other direction a tiny amount and shoot again.

It seems that going through this drill sometimes gives me a noticably sharper image and I'm beginning to think that some soft digiscoped images really are because the camera can only focus slightly before or slightly after the subject's plane of focus and that this accounts for some of the unpredictable nature of good focus while digiscoping.

I think most of the points of issue have been well covered here but I'll throw in my thoughts as well. The biggest problem here is the one of distance over water as Jay so well explained. One hundred metres is too far normally unless you have clear light, such as you might get on a crisp , winters day or just after rain, and usually only close to dawn or dusk (within 2 hours). Atmospherics play an enormous part in the quality of digiscope photos at 30 - 100x magnification. I took some photos of a hobby at 40 metres at midday last week and they were marginal due to heat shimmer. My black-shouldered kite photos at 50 metres all went in the bin. At the end of the day this is photography and the quality of the light and the glass are very important. Manual focusing may improve things a little but if you had taken that photo 5 mins after sunrise it would have looked a lot better. Neil.

No Vignetting with New Kowa WA Eyepiece

Tufted Duck said:

I am new to this forum but I have been digiscoping for about 12 months. I have a Kowa TSN 823 with a 32x eyepiece and the CP 4500. I use an adaptor from LCE which I can quickly slip on the 32x e/p and take shots once the scope is precisely focused. I have to put the 4500 on max zoom to avoid vignetting. I am going to buy a less high focus e/p and Kowa have just released a 21WA which should be great for the job. 21x4mag (on the CP) makes only 84 mag overall against the 128x I'm trying to achieve now. This should solve many of the problems of lack of light, difficulty of focus and birds appearing too big!

Has anyone used the new 21WA e/p from Kowa yet?

Click to expand...

Sorry that this doesn't really fit with this thread, but I'll try to give some helpful information anyway. I have not used the 21 WA but I have used the new 20WA (TSE21WD, 20 mm eye relief) on my Kowa 602. There is now NO vignetting even with a CP 4500 or Canon S50 at widest zoom! Previously, I had to zoom to about 2x to get rid of the vignetting with my old 20-60x eyepiece. I use Kowa's TSN-DA1 adapter, and had to make some adjustments to use the new e/p with the TSN-DA1. The WA comes with a nifty eyecup that twists in and out with several intermediate stops. Unfortunately the diameter of the e/p is so large that it will not fit into the adapter with the eyecup attached. (40 mm without eyecup, 50mm with). The eyecup has two pieces: a rubber cup and a plastic and metal sleeve that screws onto the e/p. I removed the eyecup assembly by unscrewing it and then the e/p fit inside the adapter. The bayonet mount was very tight, so I had to unscrew the tube part of the adapter in order to grip the e/p tight enough to twist it in completely. Then I separated the rubber piece from the rest of the eyecup and slid it between the adapter and the e/p, where it fit nicely. If you don't have or have never seen the TSN-DA1 this may not make a lot of sense, but the general point is the diameter of the WA eyepiece is quite a bit greater than the diameter of my old zoom, so there may be issues with other adapters. The new e/p seems sharper, but I haven't been able to give it a good test yet.