I get on famously with the SX50, and I've managed to get some pictures that I'm very happy with. But one thing that has always been a bugbear is finding the bird in the first place. When you're at a high zoom scanning for a bird on an expanse of water, a patch of grass, or some other background which offers no points of reference, it can be a real struggle to locate the target. (Not helped by my rubbish eyesight and the less-than-brilliant viewfinder on the SX50). What's needed is something that enables you to simultaneously see the whole scene and pinpoint the target.
The only commercial solution to this problem that I know of is a
red-dot sight, but the only one specifically designed for a camera (from Olympus) costs around £100. It's possible to DIY one using a gunsight, but I found it all a bit flakey when I tried it.
So here's a solution I came up with which I've found to be a huge help, and which costs under a fiver.
The basic principle is that you mount a "sight" on the lens hood. To use it, you align the sight with the target, while peeping over the viewfinder hump on the camera - a bit like aiming a rifle with the lens hood "sight" acting as the front sight, and your eye acting as the back sight. Once the target is lined up, you then just move your eye down the inch or so to the viewfinder, and - hey presto - the bird is in the viewfinder.
I made mine using a cheap lens hood (a couple of quid on Ebay) and fixing a bolt onto it, with a small ring attached to the top of the bolt (see pic). It took a while to get everything aligned so that the sight pointed to the same spot as the viewfinder, but once it's fixed and immoveable it doesn't need recalibrating (unlike a red dot sight).
To use it, I just raise the camera to my eye, get the bird in the ring, move my eye back to the viewfinder, and compose and shoot. It has absolutely transformed my ability to take pictures of birds - I reckon that I can now find small birds at full zoom - regardless of the background - in just a second or two as opposed to them flying away whilst I'm still trying to find them.
Attached are a couple of photos of the device showing it on the lens hood, and from behind the camera, together with a couple of pictures I took in Pembrokeshire recently, which I don't think I'd have got without it.
If you're interested in trying out something like this, you're probably best off to first take a look at the thread at
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=99084&highlight=aiming+device) which is where I got the idea. The thread is about aiming devices for use on telescopes where the problem of getting the bird in the eyepiece is even greater, but the same idea works fine on the camera. There are also lots of helpful drawings.
If you want to try making one of these, and need a bit of help, drop me a line, and I'll do what I can.
Cheers
Jeff
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