Astroscope + DSLR = Setups! (1 Viewer)

Miles Green · Apr 8, 2013

Thank you Dan and Paul for your replies. I'll be using it with a Pentax K5. I have a heavy tripod with leveler and gimbal. With the K5, I also get image stabilization (up to 800mm) and focus-confirmation and (native) focus trap (catch-in-focus as it's called in Pentax lingo). I use it a lot, like for the duck shot i shot & posted yesterday (also my avatar).

The attraction to the 120 is not so much reach, but aperture. I'm having a terrible time focusing at f/11 with my 400 f/5.6 + 2x TC. Past f/8, I also lose focus confirmation and focus-trap. I'm not too keen on using TC on an f/7.5 lens because of this. With the TC on my current setup, I'm also getting a lot of noise when i'm shooting at f/12 or f/14 (i need to stop down a little). It even takes time for my eye to get accustomed to the dark viewfinder.

I know, the size... and weight... Ugh! It's a major concern. And pretty much no travelling with it...

In Japan, the Kowa costs 1900 euro, or about 1600 gbp, MUCH cheaper than in England! So it's not much more expensive than the 120ED...It's also hand-holdable. Is the ED80 hand-holdable? Are you using something other than the usual Crayford focuser? There's no denying the ED80 is a great value!

Decisions decisions... Thanks again for your help!

DanC.Licks · Apr 9, 2013

Some do hand hold the 80/600. Ask Tord; he has been getting some pretty good shots hand held. Can be done. I don't....arms not strong enough.

I think you would not have any trouble focusing an 80/600 with the K5. It has a nice bright finder. Some of us even stop down when the light is good enough, either with baffles, the half open lens cap, or as in my case, a diaphragm built into the end of the extension tube.

Whether focus trapping will work or not I don't know. Might react too slowly, or not at all if the light isn't sufficient. I find the focus confirm thing to be all but useless. Usually don't have time to take my eve off the subject and look at the little green light. But maybe it would work with a K5. (I am using a D7000 at the moment). Focusing is always a problem when it gets dark. Practice and lots of shots is the key.

There are discussions here about using IS on a tripod. I wouldn't do it with a K-5. The OM-D has a much better system, and Carlos (cango) has had good results with it on. I have found that you get perhaps better AVERAGE shots with it on (head NOT locked down!) but that none are as good as a good shot with IS off. Better to get the ISO and shutter speed up. If the head is locked down, IS should be OFF.

You live in Corfu. What a lot of us wouldn't give for some of your light!!

Tord · Apr 9, 2013

DanC.Licks said:
Some do hand hold the 80/600. Ask Tord; he has been getting some pretty good shots hand held. Can be done. I don't....arms not strong enough.

Hi Miles,

Welcome to this forum.

Regarding the handheld shooting, it can be done but requires a three-hand grip. Left hand supporting the scope, right hand operating the focuser. The third hand operates the shutter. What I did was to use a cable remote control, easiest is probably to operate with the right hand thumb but it can be done with left hand as well.

The reason for shooting hand-held is that often I shoot not from a static spotting point but tend to visit several spots, driving along small roads with interesting surroundings and seize the opportunities as they come. Most often these will be birds of prey in flight and there is simply no time to deploy the tripod.

Some samples:
Post #5 in http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=251711

The Red Kite in Post #1059 in http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=194789&page=43

Post #993, #995 and #997 in http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=194789&page=40
(not the Yellowhammer)

I am using Olympus E-620 and the built-in IS comes in handy so shake blur is mitigated and I could probebly achieve sharp pictures down to 1/500s or so, which is too long times anyway to capture BIF. In sunshine or light overcast 1/1000s or faster is easily achieved at F/7.5 and the shake blur should be virtually eliminated by the IS.

I use an AF confirm chip when shooting BIF, which helps quite a lot in addressing the challenge of getting sharp focus. The audio/visual confirm signal provides a good starting point. From that starting point try to get at least one sharp frame from from a sequence while refocusing to compensate for the subject motion. The depth of field is quite narrow with the SW80 F/7.5. According to DOF master it should be about 50cm for a subject at 25 meters distance and increasing to almost 2m at 50 meters.

At close range, 25 m, I get maybe 1:4 keeper rate. At longer range, 50 m, maybe 3:4.

I have tried with 1.4 TC as well but at F/11 it becomes dark/difficult and most shots are waste.

Hope this helps
Tord

JGobeil · Apr 9, 2013

DanC.Licks said:
... There are discussions here about using IS on a tripod. I wouldn't do it with a K-5. The OM-D has a much better system, and Carlos (cango) has had good results with it on. I have found that you get perhaps better AVERAGE shots with it on (head NOT locked down!) but that none are as good as a good shot with IS off. Better to get the ISO and shutter speed up. If the head is locked down, IS should be OFF...

Hi Dan,

With my Canon 50D and either 100-400mm or 300mm with 1.4X TC, I found that leaving IS on when using a tripod had no adverse effect. I also read comments by many people who think the same. However, the Canon manual says it should be turned off.

I have limited experience with the OM-D but I have found this:

IS helps a lot to stabilize the image in the viewfinder, making manual focusing easier.
IS can be set up to 1000mm for manual lenses which should be close enough for our scopes with a barlow, TC or TN.
At 40X+ effective magnification, there is still quite a bit of vibration even on a stable tripod, so IS should help. Even more, the vibration effect gets worse as distance increases, which is often the case with digiscoping.

Do you turn IS off because the manual suggests to do it or have you made experiments to validate that ?

All comments will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Jules

DanC.Licks · Apr 9, 2013

Hi Jules,
I have done LOTS of testing with my E-30. Usually 10 shots of an ISO 12233 card, rating shots according to their horizontal and vertical resolution from 1 to 10. In general I have found:
On a tripod with the head free: I get a higher percentage of good (8 on a scale of 10) shots with it on, but no 9s or 10s. With it off I might get a 9 or even a 10, but also some 5s. The average is about the same, around 7.5, but the spread is wider with it off.
With the head fixed the average is greatly in favor of IS off with more 9s and 10s. With it on the average drops a whole point.
On a monopod: No question, ON!!
Handheld: ON (mais bien sûr!)
I have never bin big on r-ing the f-ing manuals. Too lazy. :smoke:

Tord · Apr 9, 2013

JGobeil said:
Hi Dan,

...
I have limited experience with the OM-D but I have found this:

IS helps a lot to stabilize the image in the viewfinder, making manual focusing easier.
...

Regards
Jules

Hi Jules,

Out of curiosity - do you have the IS permanently engaged, or only when half pressing the shutter release button?

I have it permanently on when planning to use the LCD touch function to fire the shutter, otherwise I will set it to engage when half pressing the shutter button.

On a side note: I found the LCD touch + permanent IS useful when taking pictures in poor light conditions. With some care, just barely touching the LCD, you can activate the shutter without inducing vibrations. And it's useful to be able to fine tune the focus with magnification on.

JGobeil · Apr 9, 2013

Hi Dan and Tord,

Thanks for your answers and comments. I am much interested by this IS/tripod question.

Dan, what do you mean by "head free" ? The E-30 is a 5 years old camera so I expect the IS to be much better on the OM-D. I suspect that the results may be quite different.

Tord, I always set IS to engage only when pressing the shutter button; I see no reason to waste precious battery energy.

I love the LCD touch shutter and I use it a lot for family photos - combined with Face Detect, it does a great job - touch a face and you're done - the photos are always perfect - one of my preferred features on the OM-D. I have tried it also for birding and it does ok as long as the bird is in the clear. For birds in branches, I always use the Magnify / Zoom Frame AF function with the smallest rectangle - this way, I can get spot focus like on my Canon. I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect it would work great for BIF - however, following the bird on the LCD may be a problem. The weakness of this mode is that it uses the LCD and strong light is often a problem.

I haven't had a chance to do much serious birding with the OM-D yet and Spring seems to be back-ordered here. The snow is almost all gone but it is still cold. We had snow this morning and the weatherman predicts 15-20cm for Friday... I'm eager to get going and seriously test the OM-D with the 100-300mm and the scope.

Regards
Jules

DanC.Licks · Apr 10, 2013

Head free means the scope is mounted but the head is not tightened down. It moves freely. The hand actually dampens a lot of fine vibration that you get when the head is locked down. Shots done with the head locked were all done with a 10 second mirror lock-up delay and a wireless release. Not very practical for bird shots.o

The IS on the OM-D is for sure MUCH better than on the E-30, or any other Oly for that mater, but that does not mean that it is bad on the E-30. It is a great help for hand held shots and I have it on all the time. In fact, I ruined a bunch of shots of diving Gannets last trip to Scotland because I had it ON. The backgrounds were all nice and sharp but the birds were all a blur.:-C

rferrieri · Apr 10, 2013

Manual IS setting

I have a question for you guys that are using Olympus equipment with onboard camera IS. When you set the IS manually for legacy lens (or in this case for the telescope) do you need to take into account the 2x cropping factor of the Olympus sensor? For example, I use a 380mm refractor + x1.4TC for a focal length of 532mm. If you take into account the sensor size the effective focal length is 1064mm. The manual adjustment of the Olympus IS is 1000mm. So do I dial in 500 or 1000mm for best compensation. I too have found better results with a free floating head arrangement rather than locking everything down and using remote shutter triggering. Rich

JGobeil · Apr 10, 2013

rferrieri said:
I have a question for you guys that are using Olympus equipment with onboard camera IS. When you set the IS manually for legacy lens (or in this case for the telescope) do you need to take into account the 2x cropping factor of the Olympus sensor? For example, I use a 380mm refractor + x1.4TC for a focal length of 532mm. If you take into account the sensor size the effective focal length is 1064mm. The manual adjustment of the Olympus IS is 1000mm. So do I dial in 500 or 1000mm for best compensation. I too have found better results with a free floating head arrangement rather than locking everything down and using remote shutter triggering. Rich

Hi Dan and Rich,

I believe you should set manual IS to 500mm. The camera settings use the real focal length of the lenses; it's the sensor that doubles the values.

I'll have to try that floating head technique.

Regards
Jules

Tord · Apr 10, 2013

You should enter the focal length - 500mm in the example you provided.

I use the "floating" head technique too. I find the amount of high frequency vibrations, in particular in the horizontal plane caused by wind is reduced compared to when head is locked.

DanC.Licks · Apr 10, 2013

That is right. Just enter the actual focal length. It is always the same and has nothing to do with crop factor. "Cropped sensors are only using different portions of the projected image, depending on their size. The glass/focal length stays the same.

Miles Green · Apr 11, 2013

Thank you Dan and Tord,

I'll agree with you that f/7.5, in good light, is still decent for manual focusing using the viewfinder. On the Pentax, focus trap and AF-confirm work nicely up to a little past f/8. Focus trap is VERY responsive and accurate. I can even do BIFS with a good hit rate with my Sigma 400 f/5.6 photo lens (without TC). I'll go as far as to say that i get a better hit rate than with AF-C with an AF lens (but many fewer images taken). But by f/11, it's much less responsive, if at all, so i don't use it. With the darker viewfinder, get many more "oofs" (out of focus).

Handheld, Shake Reduction will repeatedly give me sharp shots at shutter speeds 1/2 the focal length. Without SR, i would use twice the focal length to get the same reliable results, so there's a 2-stop gain with SR (in my experience, with my shaky hands, ymmv...)

If time permits, I'll do the "total lock-down" routine: lock tripod head, deactivate shake reduction, focus with LV at high magnification, and use the timer / remote with MLU... I'll get sharper shots, but not much sharper. Maybe i'll see a bigger difference with a sharper lens?

I see the problem with needing a 3rd hand to properly hand-hold an astro-scope, unless it has a helical focuser somewhere close to the middle of the tube. I guess the remote-release can work, but it sounds a little "dirty"... I think it's safer to plan on being a little more tripod-bound with a pure astro-scope...

Until i make up my mind, i'll keep shooting with my current combo. If i end up using the TC + tripod combo, i'll probably go for the 80ED or 120ED. If i mostly use the 400 handheld, I'll get a small borg or most likely the Kowa prominar... In any case, I hope to be able to post lots of bird pix here!

DanC.Licks · Apr 12, 2013

What about taping a wireless release (or wired for that mater) to the scope right next to the focusing knob?
Trap focus is also supposed to be possible with the D7000, but I haven't been able to figure it out yet.

EDIT. It won't work without a chip. It gives me the green dot in the VF when the subject is in focus, but it won't release.

Tord · Apr 12, 2013

DanC.Licks said:
What about taping a wireless release (or wired for that mater) to the scope right next to the focusing knob?

Sound like idea that deserves to be exploited. I will try it during next session. I have both wired and wireless releases.

/Tord

Tord · Apr 12, 2013

Miles Green said:
Thank you Dan and Tord,

I'll agree with you that f/7.5, in good light, is still decent for manual focusing using the viewfinder. On the Pentax, focus trap and AF-confirm work nicely up to a little past f/8. Focus trap is VERY responsive and accurate. I can even do BIFS with a good hit rate with my Sigma 400 f/5.6 photo lens (without TC). I'll go as far as to say that i get a better hit rate than with AF-C with an AF lens (but many fewer images taken). But by f/11, it's much less responsive, if at all, so i don't use it. With the darker viewfinder, get many more "oofs" (out of focus).

Handheld, Shake Reduction will repeatedly give me sharp shots at shutter speeds 1/2 the focal length. Without SR, i would use twice the focal length to get the same reliable results, so there's a 2-stop gain with SR (in my experience, with my shaky hands, ymmv...)

If time permits, I'll do the "total lock-down" routine: lock tripod head, deactivate shake reduction, focus with LV at high magnification, and use the timer / remote with MLU... I'll get sharper shots, but not much sharper. Maybe i'll see a bigger difference with a sharper lens?

I see the problem with needing a 3rd hand to properly hand-hold an astro-scope, unless it has a helical focuser somewhere close to the middle of the tube. I guess the remote-release can work, but it sounds a little "dirty"... I think it's safer to plan on being a little more tripod-bound with a pure astro-scope...

Until i make up my mind, i'll keep shooting with my current combo. If i end up using the TC + tripod combo, i'll probably go for the 80ED or 120ED. If i mostly use the 400 handheld, I'll get a small borg or most likely the Kowa prominar... In any case, I hope to be able to post lots of bird pix here!

Hi Miles,

You will notice one thing with the scope compared to the lens and that it is more prone to capture wind due to the form factor/length of the scope + length of the focuser + extensions tubes. This in turn leads to increased requirements on the tripod and head to eliminate vibrations, in particular in the horizontal plane. I guess that the SW120ED would put even higher requirements. I would not recommend taking shots with tripod head locked unless necessary due to long exposure times, in calm conditions. I like using the "loose head technique", assisted by a gimbal head that (within certain limits) returns the scope to the horizontal stance when left unattended.

Miles Green · Apr 14, 2013

Tord said:
Hi Miles,

You will notice one thing with the scope compared to the lens and that it is more prone to capture wind due to the form factor/length of the scope + length of the focuser + extensions tubes. This in turn leads to increased requirements on the tripod and head to eliminate vibrations, in particular in the horizontal plane. I guess that the SW120ED would put even higher requirements. I would not recommend taking shots with tripod head locked unless necessary due to long exposure times, in calm conditions. I like using the "loose head technique", assisted by a gimbal head that (within certain limits) returns the scope to the horizontal stance when left unattended.

Thanks tord, I've had my gimbal for only a short time and i like it a lot. I can let go of the camera at any time and it will stay put. Shooting in the wind is hard. The camera won't stay still, same goes for the branches the birds are sitting on...

punta · Apr 15, 2013

Just a quick question guys. I have sold all my camera stuff now, so i will be using the scope with my daughters LOANED Canon 450d camera for taking photo's. Does anyone use the scope with just a monopod?

If so what would be the best head to get?

I just fancy being able to walk around with the scope attached to a pod over my shoulder, instead of a tripod, if its possible that is.

cheers Paul

Miles Green · Apr 16, 2013

Hi Punta!
I'm no expert, i don't even have a telescope yet. I use a manual focus Sigma 400 f/5.6, sometimes with a teleconverter. So i'll just share my experience, can't really call it advice...

I have a tripod, but often retract 2 legs and use it as a monopod. I recently moved from a ballhead (Arca-swiss B1) to a leveling base + gimbal head (both mid-range, a bit rougher in quality than the arca-swiss). With long lens, i like this support combo a lot more. The camera / lens combo never risks flopping (and banging the lens on the tripod legs), so you can let go of it any time and it will stay pointed where it was. Even at steep angles with a heavy lens. So I find it more relaxing in use. As a bonus all my horizons are straight. With a wide lens mounted, you can use it as a nodal point head for stitched panos.

I have some thick piping insulation foam on my tripod legs, and toss it over my shoulder, camera and lens included.

On a monopod, there is no use for a leveler base.

My cheapish gimbal is the "Sirui". It pans very smoothly, but "sticks" a bit when tilting. Cheap bearings? I think i should have gone for a Wimberley or a Jobu... After all, these are things that last many years. The Arca-swiss is almost 20 years old and still works perfectly.

Hope this helps...

Cheers,

Miles

DanC.Licks · Apr 17, 2013

Miles,
Check out our earlier discussion about gimbals. A lot can be done to improve them. I am now VERY happy with my LensMaster, but it took a little doing. Without tweaking I would have just been very happy with it, but not VERY happy.
What kind of bearing is in the tilt? Is it a simple side mount gimbal, or a two part one with a rocker arm? I thought the Sirui was a carbon fibre super jobbie.

Astroscope + DSLR = Setups! (1 Viewer)

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