Andy, I always take a couple of spare batteries just in case. However I've only had to change battery once during a session. Maybe something to do with the settings. I use single focus with continuous drive and just snap away.
All the best
Gary
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Sony W300 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter ostling41
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Andy, I always take a couple of spare batteries just in case. However I've only had to change battery once during a session. Maybe something to do with the settings. I use single focus with continuous drive and just snap away.
All the best
Gary
Andy ,
It sounds like it's the battery. I have this problem with batteries over 1 year old. Also you could try setting your AF to manual. Continuous AF also drains the battery. Neil.
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to post some of our very first shots! We just got our Zeiss 85 T*FL, DCA and Sony W300. We tookour rig out today for it's inaugural run.
We still have a lot of learning to do. We are not only digiscoping newbies, but fieldscope newbies as well. Camera to scope alignment is still a little tough with the DCA. Learning the scope mechanics, etc and we don't have a cable release bracket (yet). We ordered a bracket from SRB-Griturn and hopefully it will be here soon.
After a couple of years of using a Canon Rebel DSLR......and going to a compact camera took a bit of getting used to. So far, we really like it in spite of it's small stature. Menus are easy enough to get around and we will probably go into the more detailed manual soon. The only pain that we find is that the battery and the memory stick are on the bottom. However, with a full charge and fresh stick; It should yield many pics before having to change either.
All were cropped except the cormorant pic and not too much post processing was done. We still even have to learn some basic post processing. Learning curve, but fun!
If anyone can assist with some settings that we should be looking at, much appreciated!! :t:
William
I just wanted to post some of our very first shots! We just got our Zeiss 85 T*FL, DCA and Sony W300. We tookour rig out today for it's inaugural run.
We still have a lot of learning to do. We are not only digiscoping newbies, but fieldscope newbies as well. Camera to scope alignment is still a little tough with the DCA. Learning the scope mechanics, etc and we don't have a cable release bracket (yet). We ordered a bracket from SRB-Griturn and hopefully it will be here soon.
After a couple of years of using a Canon Rebel DSLR......and going to a compact camera took a bit of getting used to. So far, we really like it in spite of it's small stature. Menus are easy enough to get around and we will probably go into the more detailed manual soon. The only pain that we find is that the battery and the memory stick are on the bottom. However, with a full charge and fresh stick; It should yield many pics before having to change either.
All were cropped except the cormorant pic and not too much post processing was done. We still even have to learn some basic post processing. Learning curve, but fun!
If anyone can assist with some settings that we should be looking at, much appreciated!! :t:
William
Attachments
Jason Bugay Reyes
Well-known member
Yes nice results !
Thanks Horukuru! We can't wait to get out again.
Good day to everyone. I thought I would drop a few more in for the W300/Zeiss 85 combo. These shots were from last night. I think I saw spots in my eyes for 5 minutes, it was so bright. I can see why they say take it when it's about 60% or so.
Looking for suggestions on settings for improvements? This was taken in the Automatic, SCN mode, Twilight backlight. I think that was the closest to a night mode I could find quickly in the dark.
There is a little bit of light blue fringing in the top right quadrant of the full size moon pic.
I would imagine I might get better results going over to a more user defined settings?
Thanks for looking,
William
Looking for suggestions on settings for improvements? This was taken in the Automatic, SCN mode, Twilight backlight. I think that was the closest to a night mode I could find quickly in the dark.
There is a little bit of light blue fringing in the top right quadrant of the full size moon pic.
I would imagine I might get better results going over to a more user defined settings?
Thanks for looking,
William
Attachments
RJM
Don't Worry, Be Happy!
The Moon is pretty bright so you could probably shoot it full Auto for best exposure. The blue fringing can be caused by the scope, the eyepiece, the camera lens, being slightly off focus or any combination of these. Pretty good still pic though.
Best way to get more detail on the Moon would be to shoot video then stack individual frames in a free program like Registax.
cheers,
Rick
Best way to get more detail on the Moon would be to shoot video then stack individual frames in a free program like Registax.
cheers,
Rick
Hi William, nice moon shot. I dont have the W300 myself but use an older Sony model called the P200 which i should imagine is fairly similar in set up. I take the majority of my pics in P (program) mode with the settings at ISO 100, spot focus, centre weighted exposure & -0.3 ev. I would also take the moon like this but probably drop the ev to -0.7, I dont bother with scene modes. As Rick said the moon is very bright & you want to try & retain as much detail as you can. You can always brighten it with software. Heres one I took last year on pretty much the same settings but with a Canon A640.
Attachments
Hi Rob,
Wow. Much better. Which program did you use to clean it up with? From what I can tell, the light blue fringing is gone and the detail seems to "pop" out a bit more.
Great pic yourself! Thanks for giving me a baseline to go by. At least with the parameters you suggested, I have a starting point.
Have you been able to nab any planets while the scope was pointed upward?
William
Hi William
I use a free download from Google called Picasa to edit my photos. All I did with yours was change it to black & white which got rid of the brown cast to the image & then sharpened it as well as increased the contrast via the highlight & shadow features. As for snapping any planets I havent given it a go as yet but if you were keen to try theres a very active astro scope/digiscoping subforum on here thats a mine of information. I dont think that spotting scopes have enough magnification to do the Planets justice.
Rob.
I use a free download from Google called Picasa to edit my photos. All I did with yours was change it to black & white which got rid of the brown cast to the image & then sharpened it as well as increased the contrast via the highlight & shadow features. As for snapping any planets I havent given it a go as yet but if you were keen to try theres a very active astro scope/digiscoping subforum on here thats a mine of information. I dont think that spotting scopes have enough magnification to do the Planets justice.
Rob.
LOL. I just found it as I didn't know if you meant figuratively or literally! So after I read your one post, on a whim I googled it voila! I guess it's a matter of messing around with the filters from there. You did a great job with the pic. Thank you! In keeping somewhat with the thread, I do like the Sony W300. My only gripe is where they put the tripod thread. It is proving to be a little bit of a bastard in terms of fitting a cable release bracket. I bought the SRB-Griturn compact bracket and the base is too small (or is it the arm or both). I haven't decided whether to send it back or try to fashion some type of longer base out of plexiglass that I have lying around.
Yep, I have been mining some info from there and I think you can get an astro adapter for the Zeiss which allows you to use astro-eyepieces. I guess you can get around 100x or so (allegedly). It certainly could never duplicate a real telescope, but it has some promises of basic astro fun.
I think I remember reading a post or two about some ability to obtain smaller images of Saturn and being able to distinguish the rings. That would be neat to see.
The fun stuff ahead!
William
William,
About focus, Taking some bird pics I suspected the camera was picking up on something that the scope wasn't so I did an experiment. I placed a couple pins with 1/8" heads on the side of a tree at about 40' - then tried the various focus settings. Even though the scope focus was the same the results were very different. The best result was the infinity setting. On other settings with the monitor magnified I could see the camera searching. When I use infinity the feathers are dead on even shooting through branches.
Joe
About focus, Taking some bird pics I suspected the camera was picking up on something that the scope wasn't so I did an experiment. I placed a couple pins with 1/8" heads on the side of a tree at about 40' - then tried the various focus settings. Even though the scope focus was the same the results were very different. The best result was the infinity setting. On other settings with the monitor magnified I could see the camera searching. When I use infinity the feathers are dead on even shooting through branches.
Joe
Hi Josef. I was interested in your comments about focus with the W300. I have just ordered this camera and impatiently downloaded the manual to have a look while I'm waiting for it to come! I don't see any way to manually focus to infinity mentioned in the manual. Is is possible to do this manually and leave it set on infintiy when shooting or do you mean to use the landscape mode ( with the icon of mountains ) and let it autofocus?
Thanks
Willie
Thanks
Willie
RJM
Don't Worry, Be Happy!
I suspect "landscape" is what he means. But this method could also force the exposure program to use a smaller aperture to increase depth of field as indicated by his results of shooting through trees. This will generally lead to slower shutter speeds. FWIW, most digicam exposure programs default to an aperture priority with lens wide open as that is where the lens will be sharpest.
cheers,
Rick
cheers,
Rick
Neil-T
Moorlands Macro: Close up and personal....with bug
Just ordered mine from Dixons on line shop for £171.49 with free postage. I intend to do some digiscoping with it through my Kowa 823. Could anyone tell which eyepiece is best. I have the 21xWA, 31xWA and the 20-60 zoom. I only have a cheap swing out adapter at the moment which is a bit of a pain to set up, I was thinking of trying to make an homemade adapter for it, has anyone got any ideas which way to go for this. Thanks. Neil.
Infinity focus
Hi.
I have my camera now and having played around with it a bit, I see that there is a menu item which actually locks the focus to infinity. I assume that is what you were referring to Josef.
I would have ordered mine from Dixons too, Neil, having searched for the best price but in the end spent an extra £28 buying from LCE just because they had gone to quite a bit of trouble providing me with information and checking things out for me. I had spent a lot of time on the phone with them and they had been so helpful, I felt honour - bound to go with them.
Anyway, the adapter should arrive on Monday and I will be able to try it out with my scope then. I have to say the quality of the images shooting generally is very good, and noise is impressively low.
Willie
Hi.
I have my camera now and having played around with it a bit, I see that there is a menu item which actually locks the focus to infinity. I assume that is what you were referring to Josef.
I would have ordered mine from Dixons too, Neil, having searched for the best price but in the end spent an extra £28 buying from LCE just because they had gone to quite a bit of trouble providing me with information and checking things out for me. I had spent a lot of time on the phone with them and they had been so helpful, I felt honour - bound to go with them.
Anyway, the adapter should arrive on Monday and I will be able to try it out with my scope then. I have to say the quality of the images shooting generally is very good, and noise is impressively low.
Willie
Willie,
I've been out of state for a week for a grad party, I did take my digiscope along and will be downloading a bunch this week. All the pictures taken were with focus set on INFINITY and from looking at the images on computer I know this method will work. Before the trip I wrote to Forcreeks about my settings and he says he uses SPOT ON focus. My next field trip I'll be working with this method. I don't know which will give the best DOF. I do know Forcreeks has been using the equipment for some time now (w300 now and w200 before) so for starters that would be a good direction. If you look at his Lazuli I think you will agree. As he pointed out the spot has to lock on and with a moving bird in the bush this could cause problems. What I'm now thinking both Spot and Infinity are optional depending on the situation.
Joe
I've been out of state for a week for a grad party, I did take my digiscope along and will be downloading a bunch this week. All the pictures taken were with focus set on INFINITY and from looking at the images on computer I know this method will work. Before the trip I wrote to Forcreeks about my settings and he says he uses SPOT ON focus. My next field trip I'll be working with this method. I don't know which will give the best DOF. I do know Forcreeks has been using the equipment for some time now (w300 now and w200 before) so for starters that would be a good direction. If you look at his Lazuli I think you will agree. As he pointed out the spot has to lock on and with a moving bird in the bush this could cause problems. What I'm now thinking both Spot and Infinity are optional depending on the situation.
Joe
