Thanks Paul, sound advice on the choice of camera. This is exactly what i did when i bought mine. I have an Opticron scope and the eyepieces i use are the slightly older type with rubber eyecups. I found the lens on the Canon power shot range fits snuggly into the eyecup giving perfect alignment. Vignetting is not a problem and is reasonably steady when hand held. This is the main reason i wanted to stick with Canon. I bought the A590 IS, not tried it in the field yet but seems fine. I was surprised to find that the lens on the 590 is actually a slightly smaller diameter than the A85(my previous camera) which means i might have to make a new adaptor. But the fit into the eyecup is actually better.
Thanks also for the advice on settings, some good points in there which i'll give a try. My general rule has always been to use the fastest shutter speed possible, even if you have to under expose a little.
I was once told that the focus of the scope wasn't very critical as the cameras focus system with compensate for it. I've never really be able to check this because the screen on A85 was far too small to check the sharpness properly. The new one has a much bigger screen so should be able to utilise it more.
Best settings i have found for acceptable pics for the Sony W300 are in this order from the menu
Set the dial to "P" Setting
"Image Size" 12M as if you need to crop, you have space and file size
"REC Mode" Set this to "Burst" if you ever need it, it is already setup. e.g wing stretch, visible rump etc, just hold the shutter button down, it aint mega quick but if its ID you need for that rare bird your covered
"Colour Mode" Normal
"ISO" set on the lowest setting ISO 100, but if you need a record shot in dull light, take it up to 200 or 400 it is grainy but most compacts are at the high end anyway
"EV" i always under expose, by -0.3 all the time, if you have white on the bird this helps to give you feather detail, a little known fact is that you can also use this when conditions are dull as although it gives a dark picture, you can bring these pics up in "levels" in photoshop or what ever you use, it also gives you a little faster shutter speed, NB, too low in under exposure in dull condition and the pic goes really grainy
For bright conditions take it lower if needed, take the pic, check and adjust accordingly, it takes 2 shots for me to judge the right underexposure, then you can snap away.
If you are taking pics of birds against the skyline, use + EV combined with Spot Metering, it stops pictures being too dark on the bird
"Metering Mode" Spot or Center, you will see what works for you
"Focus" i use spot as it avoids unwelcome twigs or blades of grass being sharp and the bird out of focus!
"White Bal" most people us auto, on most occasions its fine, but "cloudy" makes the whole pic red and warm, "Daylight" makes the pics blue, you can judge it for yourself, i use it to try and get the colour of the bird to what is saw in the field, not what the "Auto" does in the camera
"Flash" Normal
"Red eye reduction" off
"Contrast" Normal
"Sharpness" Normal, never be tempted to use it, it can be controlled better in the software AFTER you have taken the pic
"Steady Shot" set to off, i cant visually see any difference with this on or off IMHO
Settings i only make sure that in "AF mode" it is set to single
"Home" Button bottom right of Screen arrow across to main settings i turn the "beep" off so if i am close ot doesnt alert the birds
The settings above once done will stay, you only need to touch EV or Spot or center meter due to differnet weather conditions, the other setting stay the same so its really quite simple,
You can get a velcro eyeshade for the camera with glass in it, (Pennine in Rochdale) this helps greatly when you just hold down the shutter button and get focus lock ( Green light comes on next to viewfinder) with the camera before you shoot, this allows you to fine tune the manual focus on the scope, this is done because you may think the pic looks sharp on the back of the camera, but many times its not, also see tip below
Another tip is to set the digital zoom to "ON" when trying to focus a bird go into digital zoom to enlarge the image greatly i.e. the head and eye or look at the primaries, get the camera onto focus lock, fine tune the scope focus, bring the zoom back down into digital and take the pic.
Ian, some of these things may sound OTT, but you have a great camera, why not use it to its full potential for little effort? it will become second nature, i tell people to practice with a coke can in the garden before they ever go out with a new camera, it helps considerably, becauase they know the settings when they get out in the field
Also dont forget to use the video mode, its a great little tool, it will play back on your wide screen TV in Full HD 1080 if you set it to 16:9 again check the settings and use some of the settings as for the camera, they are limited but i have had some good results
These basic settings could be used for other digiscoping cameras,
Take a printout of this in your camera bag so it always there should you change the settings by mistake
Let me know how you get on? any probs drop me an email and i wil publish on here to help anybody else who may benefit
if you only listen to one person's reply with regards you camera set-up etc, then please make it Mr. Paul Hackett's. Thanks for taking the time to post Paul, much appreciated by all I'm sure.
My velcro fastening cable shutter release was from Bristol Cameras, check out their website for details.
Regarding your purchase of the CanonA590IS, you didnt say what scope or eyepiece you were using?
This can be very important as some eyepieces work better than others due to the eye relief, this has an impact on vignetting.
When people ask me about what camera's are best i ALWAYS tell them that where possible take scope, eyepiece and tripod to a shop to try it, it sounds a little over the top BUT, its the only way to satisfy yourself.
Hold the camera to the eyepiece centrally, (this is not easy!) i normally cradle my left hand around the eyepiece with 3 fingers around the eyepiece, and place the telescopic zoom of the camera between my thumb and fore finger, so the the thumb and fore finger act as a vice and can move slowy in or out away from the eyepiece, my right hand cups the right hand side of the camera and steady's the whole thing on zero zoom, and move the camera slowly away, look on the screen and note the vignetting,
Does the vignetting on the screen get less or more as you move back the camera back and forth from the eyepiece? once you have found the optimum distance from eyepiece to camera, try and increase the zoom, note how many stops of the zoom it takes to eliminate the vignetting, ( this is always the sign of a good digiscoping camera) e.g if your zoom of 4X has 9 clicks from zero to 4X how much of the zoom is vignetting free?
The point of this exercise is to see how much of the zoom is useable without vignetting on the picture, it also tells you how far the camera has to be away from the eyepiece when digiscoping and also is an important factor on what adapter you buy for your kit, as some adapters when connected may not be giving you the best least vignetted picture, this can be overcome with some models by simply loosening off the screws on certain adapters, and just slightly move them away from the eyepiece noting the LCD screen of the camera, does the vignetting increase or reduce? it may work for some models but not all.
I hope my ramblings make sense to you, its what i do every time i want buy a camera for digiscoping, i appreciate that you may or may not be able to visit a shop with your model in it, but maybe some people on the forum have this camera and you could meet up?
Its the difference bewteen the sad realisation that you didnt do your homework yourself and that you were very dissapointed with your results, or you did try, and you didnt buy it as it didnt work on your scope/eyepiece set up, my email intray over the years tells me that a lot of people just buy without checking their actual setup
Ian, Any chance of some more info on this ingenious velcro fitting for the shutter release?
I've made my own adaptor and am working on a shutter release system. I've got some ideas but need machining and bolting, no problem but velcro sounds easier.
After months of trying to get good pics with the super zoom with converter i'm going back to digiscoping. Get far more pleasure out of seeing the bird and getting the odd decent shot than carrying a bag full of camera stuff.
You are indeed right about the quality and not necessarily the quantity of pixels that count Adrian, hence my old 3.2MP Contax still produces great images but the 13.6MP of my new Sony does too and the cropping capabilities of that may pixels has proven already to be invaluable.
As for settings, I too had always 'heard' that macro was the best for digiscoping but I have never seen the proof for myself and continue to shoot on 'normal' settings. I also basically shoot on a near fully automatic setting on both my old and new cameras, after all I'm a digiscoper and if I really was all that bothered about capturing the perfect image and fiddling with settings etc I'd get take out that second mortgage and get myself a decent DSLR.
Camera shake? Never really been a problem for me to be honest, even with the 'pods legs fully extended, although taking advantage of any available cover is only common sense. I never hand hold the camera to the eyepiece, always using an eyepiece adaptor to connect the camera to eyepiece and have always utilised a remote shutter, including on my new camera which involves a very ingenious velcro fastening item. A decent tripod is a must of course, but that goes without saying, using a telescope with or without camera attached.
Although some digiscopers obtain some superb images and I myself have been very pleased with many of my own efforts, it is what it is, and especially for shots over reasonable distances is no substitute for a good DSLR and photographer but for me it's not meant to be. Whatever you use, for whatever reason, practise really does make as near to perfect as is practicable, so enjoy it for what it is and add another dimension to your birding but remember don't let your phorography take over unless you really want it to, because it can, will and has to many. Often by the time you've seen something decent, got all your gear out and photographed it, the bird's flown off by the time you've realised you never actually looked at it through anything other than your viewfinder!
Thanks for the advice. I'm gonna go for the A590IS. Just thought i'd check on the zoom power before buying. Looks a great camera for digiscoping. I want to stick with Canon so that my fancy new home made adaptor will fit(hopefully) and i'm familiar with the menus. You certainly get a lot of features for a £100!!
I am not a digiscoper and know next to nothing about compact cameras. However I can say, you will probably get best images with a camera that gives you manual mode and semi-automatic modes. This will allow you to control exposure.
Even for DSLR cameras, lots of pixels do not necessarily mean better quality. It's the quality of the pixels that count and not the quantity. Small pixels squashed together can lead to excessive digital noise (horrible coloured speckles in the image particularly in dark areas) so any camera with a big bunch of pixels will need a good noise reduction system that doesn't make a picture look too soft thereby loosing the benefit of high resolution.
My instinct would be that macro would be good but if you have obstructions etc try infinity. I am prepared to be shot down to pieces on that one though!
More generally:-
As stated, I am not a scoper but do often meet scopers by reservoirs and along the coast(where it can be very windy) who take pictures with tripod legs fully extended . This can lead to camera shake and blurry pictures. Best results will be obtained by collapsing the legs of the tripod to gain extra rigidity. If your shutter speeds are larger than the equivelant focal length or if your camera has image stabilistion it may not be a problem but in my humble opinion the quality of your shots at lower shutter speeds will improve considerably. In any event it is good fieldcraft and you are less likely to spook the bird IMHO.
I'm no digiscoping expert by a long way Dean but I listen to many that are (or nearly are atleast) and play around for myself and this is what I know.
I have read that the Canon A590IS is a very good digiscoping camera so I don't think there's a problem there. Stay away from cameras with anything over 5x optical zoom (and ignore the digital zoom) as it's just too much for digiscoping, 3 or 4x is plenty, most camera have to be zoomed in full to exclude vignetting completely.
I've just switched to the new Sony w300 compact camera from my old, trusted and still superb Contax SL300r. The Sony offers 13.6 megapixels (so plenty of scope for cropping), a 2.7 inch LCD screen on the rear (great for ageing eyes) and most importantly is producing excellent images. Sony also produce a great range of digiscoping accessories including an excellent adaptor that fits onto the camera and joins to the digiscoping adaptor, essential for those like me who are terrible at just holding it up to the eyepeice by hand.
Whatever you choose, they pretty much all produce great results but asking around and checking out other birders gear is essential research before you buy.
I need to replace my Canon A85 compact camera which i've been using for digiscoping. I'm looking at the Canon A590 IS which has all the right spec and more besides. Could any of you guys that digiscope help me with the importance of the Optical zoom? The A85 has a 3x which i've found to be ok, need to set on full zoom to get rid of vignetting. The A590 has a 4x zoom. Before i take the plunge i was wondering if it is worth getting a higher optical zoom. Some compacts offer up to 10x. Will a higher zoom improve digiscoping or prove to be more of a hinderance?
Also i've been reading recently that the best focus setting for digiscoping is Macro. Anyone tried this?
