Focusing on distant birds (1 Viewer)

Andy Bright said:

... 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!!

Click to expand...

This does work on my (new style) Swaro, Andy. Of course, I don't know if it applies to all of them, but it certainly does to mine. Works a treat. My assumption is that all the new style Swaro 20/60 EPs would be identical, but that is just an assumption.

Tony

I think I'll check out alternative eye pieces for my Leica. It's the same story, with my 20-60X zoom I have to go to about 2X on the camera to get rid of vignetting.
Question - does anyone on here use a LCD hood and if you do would you share your thoughts on them?

Try to use the mountain symbol for focussing (infinite) and make different shots within the range of visual sharpness (by slightly changing the scope sharpness). Most of the time one of the shots has the perfect sharpness you are looking for.

greetings

Roel

To explain a little more as to why distant birds are not as sharp when photographed digitally I have generated a couple of images that have been pixelated to the same pitch.
Focus is not always the real issue here, but the limit imposed by the size of pixels is, (this is the same with grain structure on film too).

You will see that the pixels are recording finer detail on the close bird, but on the one that is 3x further away fine detail is lost because each pixel records an average of the overall light colour value on it, this is particularly noticeable around the pupil where the curvature of the pupil edge is made up of jagged edges of square pixels. Poor focusing will add to the problem as indeed will atmospheric compression (heat haze, dust and Pollen between the camera and subject)

The further away the bird the fewer pixels it will cover, therefore there will less detail recorded.

Thank you for that very helpful dissertation on focussing on difficult subjects. Just what us novices need!