Distance photography.

[John]

It's a shame the weather was so miserable as I wanted to show those that don't know anything about digiscoping just how close you can get to a subject using your camera attached to your scope. I tried for a Great Grey Shrike, knowing that for the most part it would be relatively distant from me.

I thought it was going to be sunny this afternoon and when I left Coventry just after 13:00 it was fairly bright. I had to call into a couple of places first but by the time I had arrived just outside of Walton on Trent the sky had turned very dark so a quality shot was out of the question.

This is the power of digiscoping. You can get to photograph birds at extreme distances. I have taken a few movies of the bird also. You can clearly see the bird but they are not that good unfortunately.

I battled against all the wrong elements to get these shots. Extreme distance (over 400 yards), bad light and trying to photograph a bird with the sky as the background.

I took one record shot of the bird then took a photo from just my camera to where the bird actually was. I have arrowed the tree it was perched in.

Still these two shots will give you a clear indication on what can be acheived. I have to say that I also wasn't on full zoom at the time. The third shot is of the same bird taken on 28/01/2006 at an even greater distance.

John

[paulthomas]

I'm amazed that thing's still there John. I saw it on News Years Day but no sign of it on any recent visits Attached photo taken with Fuji S5500.

[Mark43]

Wow that certainly shows the difference up doesn't it John.

So you use a CP4500 camera but what scope do you use and at what magnification was it at?

I always thought digiscoping was best at around x30 or less but that looks more than that...........i may be wrong though.

[John]

Originally Posted by Mark43

Wow that certainly shows the difference up doesn't it John.

So you use a CP4500 camera but what scope do you use and at what magnification was it at?

I always thought digiscoping was best at around x30 or less but that looks more than that...........i may be wrong though.

I have the Swaro STS80HD. 30x is about right. This was taken at about 40+ and the camera zoom was about 3x. I was using ISO200 and even then the best speed I could get was 1/60th and that was still a bit fast so i had to do some work in Photoshop to get the darkness out of the image.

You can tell from the sky how dark it was.

John

[Kev Lewis]

The 80HD looks like it handles CA problems very well even at high magnification. I use a Tele-Vue 85 fitted with a wide field 40mm plossi lens in a maxview adaptor to take my Canon 20D. It's too slow to set up for any active birds but ok for static work. Biggest problem I have is finding the birds in the viewfinder even with a sighting scope!

[John]

Originally Posted by Klewis

Biggest problem I have is finding the birds in the viewfinder even with a sighting scope!

Same here. The FOV at high mag means that a bird can move a couple of inches the wrong way and you are more than likely not able to find it again unless you zoom back or take your camera off and reline your scope.

BTW that televue looks a serious piece of kit.

John

[Kev Lewis]

It's designed for planetary work but has a good close focus and is really strong on minimising aberrations so makes a good birding scope. It would be even better if it was lighter!. It also uses 2" or 1-1/4" lens and accessories so plenty of camera adaptors on the market for it One day I'll use it to look at the sky lol