Lessons 3 and 4 (1 Viewer)

Hi Folks,

Lesson number 3 in my digiscoping journey was a simple one but worth learning: Things do not always go according to plan. There are no pics to go with this lesson because I didn't take any. I got set up and saw plenty of birds, (willow tits being about the nicest) but they were all too fast for me or obscured by foliage etc. Ah well, that's how it goes I guess.

Lesson number four was more successful. I set up and waited for the birds to show and the most obvious and cooperative of these was a robin. I got 25 or so reasonably decent shots. I am pleased with them, not because they are great shots, it's a robin after all and not the most difficult of species to photograph. No, I am pleased because they are better than the yellow wagtail which was, in turn, better than the kestrels so I am making progress.
The pics are in the gallery, (hope the links work)

http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php?photo=11674
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php?photo=11673

They are still a little soft which has me asking, Is this the most I can expect from my set-up? (Kowa 822 + CP990) Or can I do more in terms of sharpness and detail with different settings or maybe conditions?

That'll be lesson number 5 perhaps.

Thank you for your assistance/advice etc. and for allowing me to share my journey with you all.

Woody

Hi Woody

How have you got your focusing set-up?IE Macro,infinity etc.Try setting the focussing to Macro & using the Red area focus brackets try to focus on the eye of the bird.

Regards Steve.

Hi Steve

The camera was set on infinity, I tried a couple on macro and got very very underexposed pics, unuseable. I had it on aperture priority (I think at f.4) but without looking it up I couldn't tell you what else was going on.

This is something I have always found with photgraphy of any sort. I understand the principles of aperture, exposure, shutter speed, film speed, depth of field etc. but when I try to put it all into practice I find there is just not the time to work it all out before the subject does a vanishing act. I guess that's part of the art of photography and why I'll never make a great photographer!

I'm not sure yet how the multi area focus thingy works. Any tips on using it would be appreciated.

Thanks for replying.

Woody

Improving by the day, Woody! The biggest problem with the robin pictures is thatthey are against the light. That makes it terribly difficult to get good results. I'm not sure if you can get good results with lighting like that. I know that I am still struggling with the same problem, despite having shelled out the $$$ for the HD Swarovski,. CA is not a problem for me - at least not under any lighting conditions that are good enough to shoot under in the first place - but getting the exposure right for those against-the-light shots is darn-near impossible. I suspect that digital photography suffers here by comparison with old-fashioned film: I don't think it has the same dynamic range. No matter - the other advantages are (in my view)) compelling. These days, I tend to figure out where I want to go, and then walk with the sun behind me - i.e., start from somewhere on the sunny side of the patch of bus I'm exploring, and keep the sun on my back, or at least to one side. That way, the majority of the birds I see are well-lit. For beaches and lakes, I pick my time of day.

BTW, I've taken to using spot metering and focus. Easier to control, especially when (as always) you are in a hurry. Quite often, where the lighting is tricky, I'll vary the framing of the shot a little this way and that, so as to get a good spread of over and under exposures - all in the hope that one of them will be just right. And, every now and then, one is!

Keep working away at it. The more you shoot, the better you get. (Give me another 10,000 years and I'll be as good as Andy!)