What digicamera to choose? (1 Viewer)

Greetings from sunny Poland!

I am completely new to digiscoping and want to buy a camera to fit my old Kowa TSN-1 scope with 30xwide lenses. Few friends who digiscope use Nikon4500. Can you help me?

1. Is my scope good for digiscoping? Is it worth the effort? How will pictures in poor light look like?
2. Is Nikon4500 camera a good choice, or can you recommend another (more recent?) one?
3. I thought of buying a video camera straight away. Is it worthwhile? Can stills be turned into good pictures?

Any other experiences will be most welcome!

cheers,

Jurek

:h?:

A lovely photo of the redshank, Brian - aren't they great birds?

I was wondering if you had tried manipulating the image at all in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements? A quick play with "Levels" can add a lot more colour saturation which, I think, might show show just how very good the TSN1 / CP4500 can really be. Left to its own devices the CP4500 can sometimes provide an image a bit short on contrast when used through some scopes, and with the TSN1 not using ED glass, any help in this direction will help the colour saturation and apparent sharpness.

I won't post the revised image without your okay, first.

BrianB said:

Thanks Steve - I was pleased with it for a handheld attempt.

I have done very little to it in Photoshop - I would love to see what you have done with it.

Brian

Click to expand...

Well - you might think I've overdone it, but it's difficult on a web photo as the original quality is less than ideal. Anyway - here it is. You might also try and get hold of a trial copy of AutoFx AutoEye - that really can transform some images at the click of a mouse button.

The easiest way is to buy the software that does it all for you - try a search for Colorwasher, or Autoeye. These improve focus as well as contrast and colour. In Photoshop / PSE, the filters to try with many shots are "Levels" and "Unsharp Mask".

scampo said:

The easiest way is to buy the software that does it all for you - try a search for Colorwasher, or Autoeye. These improve focus as well as contrast and colour. In Photoshop / PSE, the filters to try with many shots are "Levels" and "Unsharp Mask".

Click to expand...

And if you're brave <g>, in Photoshop, try "Layers" "Duplicate Layer" "Filter" "High Pass" "Hard Light" and then set the Opacity to between 28-70% or so... it only takes a minute or two but I've found it gives really good results if the pic is half-decent to begin with. If levels need adjusting, it's best to do that first.

GR