new canon A95 user seeks digiscoping tips (1 Viewer)

Hi,
I have a canon A95 for digiscoping. I am brand new at this. I'm eager to hear from other A95 users about recommended camera settings, how to control vignetting and more. I have all the questions you may have had when you started using this camera for digiscoping and am eager for as much information as possible from experienced users.
Many Thanks,
Nancy

waring said:

Hi,
I have a canon A95 for digiscoping. I am brand new at this. I'm eager to hear from other A95 users about recommended camera settings, how to control vignetting and more. I have all the questions you may have had when you started using this camera for digiscoping and am eager for as much information as possible from experienced users.
Many Thanks,
Nancy

Click to expand...

I have the A95 and a Swarovski ATS80HD scope for a few weeks now, and
been out with my setup a couple of times. I'm still figuring out the optimal settings but manual seems to give the best results.

- Manual white balance (either ´sunny' or 'cloudy'). In scenes with lots of green (very common while digiscoping) the automatic white balance tends to be on the cold side (under clouded conditions).
- Default exposure bias -0.3 or -0.7. Highlights are often washed out when using no correction.
- Manual focus, with center magnification on. I leave the camera on the scope at all times, and I focus the scope while looking at the LCD screen.
- I usually use 'P' mode, where the camera makes the decision which aperture and shutter speed to use. If the shutter speed (as indicated on screen) is too low, I turn up the ISO setting. Obviously ISO 50 is optimal, but you need plenty of light to use this.
- By default, I use the lowest magnification possible without vignetting. I have
the camera at 13.6 mm ('3 zoom clicks') and the scope zoom at 20x. When I
need deep tele, I prefer to zoom in using the camera zoom instead of the
scope zoom. I seem to be getting sharper results like this, but I'm not really sure yet.
- Continuous shooting mode when trying to capture moving subjects. This increases the chances that you will capture a peak moment.

This is all I can think of right now, I'm also curious what other A95 digiscopers
have found out.

digiscoping tips for Canon A95

Thank you. You are way ahead of me on the learning curve. Your info. is very helpful. I too hope other digiscopers with Canon A95s will weigh in.
Nancy

Erwin Driessens said:

I have the A95 and a Swarovski ATS80HD scope for a few weeks now, and
been out with my setup a couple of times. I'm still figuring out the optimal settings but manual seems to give the best results.

- Manual white balance (either ´sunny' or 'cloudy'). In scenes with lots of green (very common while digiscoping) the automatic white balance tends to be on the cold side (under clouded conditions).
- Default exposure bias -0.3 or -0.7. Highlights are often washed out when using no correction.
- Manual focus, with center magnification on. I leave the camera on the scope at all times, and I focus the scope while looking at the LCD screen.
- I usually use 'P' mode, where the camera makes the decision which aperture and shutter speed to use. If the shutter speed (as indicated on screen) is too low, I turn up the ISO setting. Obviously ISO 50 is optimal, but you need plenty of light to use this.
- By default, I use the lowest magnification possible without vignetting. I have
the camera at 13.6 mm ('3 zoom clicks') and the scope zoom at 20x. When I
need deep tele, I prefer to zoom in using the camera zoom instead of the
scope zoom. I seem to be getting sharper results like this, but I'm not really sure yet.
- Continuous shooting mode when trying to capture moving subjects. This increases the chances that you will capture a peak moment.

This is all I can think of right now, I'm also curious what other A95 digiscopers
have found out.

Click to expand...

Someone posted settings a while ago and sved them into the custom option. I copied them at the time and used them. If you do a search you should be able to find them!.

Just done a search and can't find that particular shread. But this one hase some useful info!.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=29726&page=1&pp=40&highlight=canon+powershot+setting

HTH

That'd be this 'un then..!

http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=292746&postcount=22

I have been using the settings on the link Keith suggested and so far have had quite good results.
You can have a look at my efforts here : http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=6071

Wow!

The linnet, the starling and the common sand are particularly good, Steve.

blythkeith said:

Wow!

The linnet, the starling and the common sand are particularly good, Steve.

Click to expand...

Thanks Keith |=)|

waring said:

Hi,
I have a canon A95 for digiscoping. I am brand new at this. I'm eager to hear from other A95 users about recommended camera settings, how to control vignetting and more. I have all the questions you may have had when you started using this camera for digiscoping and am eager for as much information as possible from experienced users.
Many Thanks,
Nancy

Click to expand...

Nancy,
I have been using the A95 for a couple of months now, I don't know if this makes me an experienced user but here are the settings that work for me and the way I set them up.

Turn the mode dial to AV.
Press the FUNC button and select AWB, Continuous Drive Mode, ISO 50, Effect off, Spot metering, Large (L), and Superfine (S).
Press the FUNC button again to exit these settings.

Press the MENU button and select Flexizone, Red-eye off, AF Point, MF-Point Zoom on, AF assist Beam off, Digital Zoom off, Review 3 secs, Reverse Display on.
Then the most important bit, Save settings to C, this will put all the settings made into C (custom) Mode, from now on use C Mode all the time.
Press MENU again to exit.

When you've sorted out the zoom needed to clear vignetting this setting can also be saved to C by simply going back to AV mode, zooming the camera to the required position and Savings Settings to C again.

What you have now is Aperture Priority Mode, auto focus and spot metering position linked together, i.e. focusing and metering are both done in the rectangle in the centre of the screen - which incidentally can be moved to 9 different positions in the screen to help composition or avoid small obstacles in front of the bird etc.

These settings I use for perhaps 95% of shots taken and find they work quite well, however for situations where there are branches, etc in the way of the bird I switch to Manual Focus. (If using MF I find that because the camera goes through Macro first the distance scale that appears with MF has to be reset, between 7 mtrs and infinity seems ok).

Hope this helps sort out your problem, we've all been there.

john-henry

this is what i have been looking for!!!

thanks folks, i now have something better to go off tomorrow.

i was getting a little frustrated by all the settings, im glad there are people out there who understand cameras more than me!

a95 settings

I myself have been using these settings. 100 iso manual focus set at infinaty just fine focus with the LCD . If the lighting is strong I`ll drop down to iso 50. All saved on the c setting.Awb on cloudy usually especialy in shade.For some reason the auto focus takes over but all you have to do is move the knob to any other setting and then back to c and manual focus will return.Setting it on vivid seems to give you nicer colers hence the reason it`s called vivid.It`s early in the morning and I`m only on my second cup of coffee so if you don`t understand what I`m trying to say it`s because I`m only working on 3 brain cells. At least untill I finish my 2 nd cup.