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Digiscoping with the Nikon V1 (1 Viewer)

JPY29,800. The production version will be black anodized. Looks like it just fits snugley over the lens with no connection to the body. Not sure if I would want the lens to bear the entire weight/tork of the camera.

Rick,
The camera/lens combo seems quite robust and for light use it should be ok to go straight from the filter thread to a DA/DCA type adapter. As a precaution you could always support camera with the arm of a Manfrotto video head under it.
I like the idea of the adapter though.
Neil
 
I found a Ritz Camera store in Chicago today and picked up the Nikon 10/2.8 for the V1. I'm hoping it will be a sharp "pancake" type lens for digiscoping with a wide range of eyepieces.
 
One of my birding fried who owned a swarworski scope (I think it is a atb80) would like to do digiscoping with a Nikon J1 or V1. Which adaptor should he get?
 
One of my birding fried who owned a swarworski scope (I think it is a atb80) would like to do digiscoping with a Nikon J1 or V1. Which adaptor should he get?

The Swarovski DCA adapter will do the trick. He will also need a 52/40.5 mm converter for the camera lens to match with the DCA.
Neil
 
Some Nikon 1 V1 samples

I've been testing the V1 this week. Very impressed with its speed, simplicity of operation and battery life. I shot nearly 800 frames today on a full charge and it's still showing 59% left. Auto focus reliability is also excellent.

I'm still getting used to the camera but image quality seems better than the compact cameras I've tried previously. On-axis sharpness is good and illumination across the frame is very good. Noise is acceptable at ISO 800.

The only thing I find frustrating so far is that operation with the remote control is unsatisfactory - single shot only and doesn't seem to focus well (at all?). The V1 is not easy to use with gloves either, but that's hardly surprising.

These pictures were taken using a Kowa 823 with 21x eyepiece. The 10-30mm lens was mainly set at between 23 and 30mm as the birds were quite distant. Light levels were quite low. The egret was shot at ISO800, the redshank and black headed gull 400. I can't wait to try this camera with the FT1 adapter and some long focal length lenses.
 

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Hi Malcolm

Great first shots!

You say the birds were fairly distant - what sort of range were these taken at?

Thanks very much! I'm not good at judging distance. The redshank was closest, maybe 25m, the egret a little further, perhaps 30m or so. I was tucked in low against a river wall in a creek at the edge of the estuary. As the tide came in so the birds gradually came nearer, but the light faded at the same time!

This is another image from the sequence when the redshank was closest, but this one isn't cropped. If I understand the conversion correctly the focal length is approx 1470mm (21x70(25.9mm)) so perhaps that will give you a better feel for the distance.
 

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I've been testing the V1 this week. Very impressed with its speed, simplicity of operation and battery life. I shot nearly 800 frames today on a full charge and it's still showing 59% left. Auto focus reliability is also excellent.

I'm still getting used to the camera but image quality seems better than the compact cameras I've tried previously. On-axis sharpness is good and illumination across the frame is very good. Noise is acceptable at ISO 800.

The only thing I find frustrating so far is that operation with the remote control is unsatisfactory - single shot only and doesn't seem to focus well (at all?). The V1 is not easy to use with gloves either, but that's hardly surprising.

These pictures were taken using a Kowa 823 with 21x eyepiece. The 10-30mm lens was mainly set at between 23 and 30mm as the birds were quite distant. Light levels were quite low. The egret was shot at ISO800, the redshank and black headed gull 400. I can't wait to try this camera with the FT1 adapter and some long focal length lenses.

They look ok.
I could never understand why Nikon do more with their Self-timer. You could try the Interval Timer ( although I'm not sure about the AF between shots ) and you can take up to 999 images. I've given up on the Self-timer and just blast away at 10 fps.
Neil
 
They look ok.
Neil

I agree, they're okay but nothing more. At the moment I'm just pleased to be able to capture images of birds at all. But from a pure photography perspective most of the images aren't sharp enough for critical use; just about acceptable for the web perhaps, but not publishable.

For me digiscoping has been an interesting challenge and I think the V1 is the best camera I've used so far, but my rig is far from ideal - angled scope, inadequate support, everything somewhat unbalanced and optically slow. Most of these images were shot at less than 1/200 so it's not surprising that they're not great from a technical perspective. For the moment I'll keep working to improve my set up in the hope that, with more field experience, I can push up my technical standard.

Where I think the Nikon 1 camera might really shine is attached to long zoom lenses via the FT1 adapter, once available. If everything works as Nikon say it will, it offers the possibility of a fast, light weight body with a high crop factor attached to something like a Sigma 100-300mm F2.8 or, if you really want to push the boat out, the Nikon 200-400mm F4 - with a 1.4 converter that would give you a possible 1500mm F5.6! You'd have all the benefits of a normal camera system with the focal length advantage of a digiscoping rig.
 
Lapwing portraits

Taken today at a high tide roost. These are by far the best results I've achieved so far with the V1/Kowa 823. But, even in fairly good light with relatively static subjects, the vast majority of my images weren't sharp. I began by assuming the scope focus setting or the limitations of my rig might be to blame but I'm starting to think the autofocus system just isn't acquiring focus sufficiently accurately. Further testing clearly needed, but these images prove to me that it is worth persisting.
 

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Malcom, you seem to be shooting Aperture Priority and stopping down the lens to F7-8ish in these pics. Why?
 
Malcom, you seem to be shooting Aperture Priority and stopping down the lens to F7-8ish in these pics. Why?

As a photographer I usually use aperture priority or full manual - it's just the way I like to work. Is there another commonly preferred option for digiscoping?

When I first tried out the scope with the V1, I used my usual lens testing routine - I photographed a brick wall. It was far from a precise test, but when I reviewed the images it seemed that the central zone of acceptable sharpness was a little wider when I stopped down. Beyond F8 the central zone lost its 'bite', no doubt due to diffraction (or shake perhaps), but there seemed some benefit to image quality if I stopped down about one stop.

I have previously been recommended to shoot with the lens wide open when digiscoping, but relatively few lenses are designed to perform at their best at this setting, in fact many have poor resolution, low contrast and other aberrations at their widest setting. So I thought it worth experimenting to see whether stopping down would have any positive impact when digiscoping. Obviously it affects shutter speed but with a static subject it seemed worth a try.

I'm still trying to get my head around the interaction between camera lens, scope and eyepiece, so I'd be interested to hear your views.
 
Hi Malcolm

These shots were taken at 1/80-1/200s at F8 and ISO200.

The reason digiscopers generally shoot wide open is to minimise the shutter speed, which is extremely important at such high magnifications to minimise blur caused by equipment vibration and motion blur from the bird's movement.

This is generally much more of an issue then the relatively small sharpness gain from stopping down.

The V1 should be OK up to ISO800 (maybe 1600 at a pinch with decent denoising software) if the light is poor.

I would aim for at least 1/500s, faster if possible.

You may not have to go down to F8 either...

If necessary, do some controlled testing in the garden with a distant, detailed target to find the sweet spot for this camera.
 
Thanks for the advice - I'll certainly do as you suggest. I used the car as a hide today and managed to get everything pretty rigid which may have helped the sharpness a little, but I completely understand your point about shutter speed.

Attached a couple more images from the session today.
 

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Hi Malcolm

These shots were taken at 1/80-1/200s at F8 and ISO200.

The reason digiscopers generally shoot wide open is to minimise the shutter speed, which is extremely important at such high magnifications to minimise blur caused by equipment vibration and motion blur from the bird's movement.

Yes, though I hope you meant maximise the shutter speed!

Malcolm, when digiscoping the exit pupil size of the scope eyepiece determines your SYSTEM aperture ratio. In most cases, you can set the lens aperture to any value up to F8 and it won't effect the system aperture, which already quite slow, or exposure.

However, since you are using a relative low powered 21x eyepiece by stopping down the camera lens in this case you are actually shooting at an even slower system aperture of ~F8 instead of ~F6. Moreover there is no sharpness benefits to stopping down the camera lens since the eyepiece exit pupil is being projected thru the very center of the lens unlike normal photography where the whole lens surface is forming the image.

For future reference, I have attached a system focal length/aperture chart for the V1 10-30mm on the Kowa 823 scope using a 21x eyepiece. Since I don't have the the V1 kit I have had to make some educated guesses regarding the zoom lens focal length and aperture. If you want to report back the exact values for aperture and focal length as the lens zooms I can update the chart with more precision.
 

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Yeah - maximise.

I like the Dunlin shot.

I'm considering getting a J1 in the January sales.

I saw a couple of J1's plus 10-30mm kit lens go on that famous auction site recently for around £370, so the price is already dropping.

It seems like a reasonable alternative to the V1.
 
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If you want to report back the exact values for aperture and focal length as the lens zooms I can update the chart with more precision.

Thanks to all for the information, much appreciated. I'll let you know the maximum aperture settings for the focal lengths.

If I want to get a little more magnification, would I be better to buy a longer lens - e.g. the 30-110mm - or use a higher magnification eyepiece? In other words which option would be most likely to produce the best quality, all things being equal.

By the way, I do realise that I can use higher ISO settings - I just wanted to see what the best image quality I could achieve was with this set up - normally I'll be shooting for the percentages a little more.
 
Back to the garden on Lamma Island for some close up digiscoping with the V1. The main problem is the fast speed fills up cards fast. You'll need at least a 16 gig card. I took 24 gigs in 6 hours yesterday. Only 4 today in 8 hours though.
Here are a few from yesterday and today.
Neil

Nikon V1 with 10/2.8 and 10-30/3.5-5.6 lenses
Swarovski ATS80HD and 25-50 zoom eyepiece
Kowa lens/scope and Kw 30x eyepiece
and Sw UCA adapter

Hong Kong,
China.
Nov 2011
 

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Yesterday I got the V1 with 10-30mm and 30-110mm lenses and today I've had a very quick try-out with the Kowa 823 plus 21x and 32x eyepieces. So, some similarities with Malcolm's set-up there. I found that all combinations produced some useable results, even the long zoom with the 32x, although pics taken with this combination would probably be much better reproduced by just taking a crop of one of the shorter combinations.

I have an idea for an adapter by modifying the Kowa DA1 (don't fancy using the lens threads) but all pics today were hand held. I think for static subjects, at the magnifications I was using, hand holding might actually be preferable.

Re. autofocus: I found that sometimes the camera gave confirmation of AF when the subject was slightly but fairly obviously out of focus. This was remedied by making sure the scope was focussed as well as possible on the subject, ie when viewed through the viewfinder or screen. This seemed to matter far more than it has done with other cameras I've digiscoped with.

Anyway, I'm quite impressed so far, but it's early days.

This one was at full zoom with the 10-30mm. Sorry, can't remember which ep.
Distance was 285m. Some minor adjustments in PS - cropping, reducing, sharpening etc.

David
 

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Yesterday I got the V1 with 10-30mm and 30-110mm lenses and today I've had a very quick try-out with the Kowa 823 plus 21x and 32x eyepieces. So, some similarities with Malcolm's set-up there. I found that all combinations produced some useable results, even the long zoom with the 32x, although pics taken with this combination would probably be much better reproduced by just taking a crop of one of the shorter combinations.

I have an idea for an adapter by modifying the Kowa DA1 (don't fancy using the lens threads) but all pics today were hand held. I think for static subjects, at the magnifications I was using, hand holding might actually be preferable.

Re. autofocus: I found that sometimes the camera gave confirmation of AF when the subject was slightly but fairly obviously out of focus. This was remedied by making sure the scope was focussed as well as possible on the subject, ie when viewed through the viewfinder or screen. This seemed to matter far more than it has done with other cameras I've digiscoped with.

Anyway, I'm quite impressed so far, but it's early days.

This one was at full zoom with the 10-30mm. Sorry, can't remember which ep.
Distance was 285m. Some minor adjustments in PS - cropping, reducing, sharpening etc.

David

David,
Not bad for full zoom at that distance.
For AF I found it better if I switched out of AF Auto to AF Single . Of course scope has to be focused well first but the screen is sharp enough for that. It helps to zoom lens for focusing and then back it off.
For the lens to adapter you could fit a UV filter and leave it on permanently. Knock the glass out if you feel a bit "handy" ( don't do it while it's on the lens though ).
Neil
 
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