Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:13:44 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Derek C. Richardson" Subject: Re: Digiscoping In-Reply-To: <001f01c3e5bd$bd2983a0$827ef2d0@a4m0q8> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Until I bought a Canon Rebel which can mount directly to my Leica 'scope, I used an Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom digital camera and simply held it to the telescope eyepiece. At some point a helpful individual gave me some tips, so I'll pass them on below... On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Ben Poscover wrote: > Again I must come to you for advice. I am interested > in getting a digital camera in which to do > digiscoping. Those pictures of birds taken using this > technique are amazing. The scopes that I would be > using are a Swarovski Habicht ST80 with zoom 20x - > 60x.eyepiece. When I fly to locations, I take a > smaller Bausch & Lomb scope with a 15 to 45 zoom > eyepiece. I have a Digital Mavica camera now but have > been unsuccessful in trying the technique with it. > The reasons are: > > a.. Trying to see any image on the LED screen in the > back of the camera in bright light.. Not much you can do here unless you have someone else around who can shade you from the light. When I couldn't use the viewscreen I simply contorted myself so I could look through the camera viewfinder. > b.. Trying to orient the camera so that an image will > appear on the screen. The trick here is to start with both the telescope and the camera at their lowest zoom settings, so it's much easier to find your subject. If your camera can zoom, slowly increase its magnification while keeping your target as centered as possible. Use the telescope for focusing (it helps to have an extra pair of hands...). The focus will change as you zoom, so you need to constantly make adjustments. > c.. Trying to get a sharp image. when I do See the part about focusing above. :) You face two problems: 1) it's hard to tell if you've got good focus, so blur the image back and forth and take the average; 2) you're losing a lot of light through the optic train, so your camera will try to take a longer exposure -- any jitter will make the image blurry. It's essential that the telescope be mounted as firmly as possible; other than that you just need a steady hand. Ultimately there's no substitute for a camera mount to the telescope, which generally requires homemade rigging or an SLR camera. > d.. My skill Practice practice practice. :) > What I would like to ask is what characteristics > should I look for in a digital camera? If a digital SLR is too much right now, look for a digital camera with a maneuverable LCD viewscreen (so you don't strain your neck and back so much), fast CCD read time (so you can take pictures in rapid succession -- you'll be lucky if 10% of your shots are worth keeping), high resolution (so you don't have to zoom so much and thereby be overly sensitive to telescope/camera shake), and overall good auto exposure (so you don't have to worry about it yourself, but beware that the shutter will tend to want to stay open longer). Unfortunately each of these features makes the camera more expensive... For an idea of what you can achieve, here are some of my better shots using the Leica with handheld Olympus: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Goose,Chinese2.jpg http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Hawk,Red-tailed3.jpg http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Kestrel,American2.jpg http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Meadowlark,Eastern.jpg http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Night-Heron,Black-crowned2.jpg http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Phoebe,Eastern2.jpg http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Tern,Common3.jpg http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Woodpecker,Red-headed.jpg (you can see that these all suffer from a big of fuzziness; and of course there's the vignetting, which actually adds a bit of artistic flare IMHO). And here's my best shot so far with my Canon mounted to the telescope: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/Archives/Photos/Birds/Sparrow,Ipswich.jpg (less fuzzy, no vignetting :) ). Good luck! D > Thank you for your help. You can address your replies to: > > Ben Poscover > Towson MD > bposcove@bcpl.net > > > I > > > ====================================================================== > = > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > -- Derek C. Richardson, Ph.D. (CANTAB) ________ Astronomy, U Maryland, College Park MD 20742 Tel: Office 301-405-8786 Fax 301-314-9067 __ Home page: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/ __ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================