Digiscoping tutorials for birders
Top 10's: Digiscoping tips for beginners
How often, when out birding, have you ever wished you could capture that "perfect moment" forever? Well, digiscoping could be the answer to your prayers. Digiscoping is the art of attaching a digital camera to a spotting scope to create powerful telephoto pictures.
Perfect for wildlife photography, especially bird watching, digiscoping lets you use the powerful zoom of your spotting scope, coupled with the ease of use and convenience of your digital camera - enabling you to get right in to your chosen subject and capture amazing images of wildlife, without having to get to close to risk disturbing the wildlife.
However, most will say, that the real beauty of digiscoping, is enabling you to shoot DSLR-quality imagery, at a fraction of the cost using a DSLR camera with a large telephoto lens would.
Here's 10 top tips to get you started.
Research
Doing your research can save you both time and money. If you currently don't own any digiscoping equipment like a spotting scope or a digital camera, be sure to search the web for relevant articles and videos, read independent reviews and get lots of forum advice on the correct tools for the job before making any purchase. Alternatively, a chat with a respected online or bricks and mortar optics shop should see you get good buying advice also.
Preperation
Digiscoping is heavily reliant upon the LCD of your digital camera, make sure your digital camera batteries are fully charged before you set off and take spare batteries with you in the field. As a rule, try to always carry three spare batteries with you when out on a days digiscoping. The same principles apply if you are using an electronic shutter release.
Conditions
Good light is super-important when digiscoping. Good light conditions will allow for faster shutter speeds in order to freeze bird motion and limit camera shake. Before setting off, note that warm and humid days can cause heat haze which will vastly reduce the quality of your results and strong winds will increase the chance of camera shake, no matter how well placed your tripod is.
Practice
Practice makes perfect, it does indeed. Before you venture out for shots of wildlife, make sure you test your camera and scope settings by focusing on objects in your back garden. Use a shrub, plant or bush as a subject and experiment until you are confident you are using the best settings for your needs.
Gear
Before you start digiscoping, its important to make sure you can operate (practice) your scope and camera functionality individually, thus making it easier when you combine the two. Digiscoping requires a good understanding of your equipment and dual processing in order to get the best quailty images.
Expectations
Its possible that 80-90% of your imagery shot on a digiscoping field session will be discarded, but don't be too disheartened. This is normal. That's the beauty of digital photography, we can take as many pictures as we like as film doesn't run out anymore! This enables us to only keep the good ones, and discard the poorer images when you're relaxing in the evening with a good glass of wine. The joy you will find when scrolling through your images and finding one that's just perfect will be a fantastic achievement.
Taking a picture
As discussed, light is so important and a successful digiscoped image is all about light. We need good light to illuminate the subject matter and more importantly to give us faster shutter speeds to eliminate motion blur. The position of the subject is also all-important, you need to be in between the light and your subject so that the light is behind you, that way the bird(s) in question will be nicely lit so that you don't get silhouette with no detail. These quick and simple snapping rules should bring you lot's of happy images.
Image software
All your images will require further work on your computer to tweak where needed. This is perfectly normal and its important that you purchase good image software and get to know your way around this when editing. This is just as important as your scope and camera, and will vastly improve your imagery. Here at Birding24/7 towers, we use an Apple MacBook Pro (just our preference) with Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Enjoyment
Don't get too frustrated if you are out on a days digiscoping and your images are disappointing, there are many factors including the weather that can hinder your performance, but remember why you are there and this is all part of the fun - its part and parcel of birding.
Care
Just a word of caution here, no need to panic, but viewing direct sunlight while using optics can cause permanent eye damage. Try to never view the sun with any optical equipment or even with the naked eye and always follow the manufacturers instructions when attaching adapters to your optical equipment.
Perfect for wildlife photography, especially bird watching, digiscoping lets you use the powerful zoom of your spotting scope, coupled with the ease of use and convenience of your digital camera - enabling you to get right in to your chosen subject and capture amazing images of wildlife, without having to get to close to risk disturbing the wildlife.
However, most will say, that the real beauty of digiscoping, is enabling you to shoot DSLR-quality imagery, at a fraction of the cost using a DSLR camera with a large telephoto lens would.
Here's 10 top tips to get you started.
Research
Doing your research can save you both time and money. If you currently don't own any digiscoping equipment like a spotting scope or a digital camera, be sure to search the web for relevant articles and videos, read independent reviews and get lots of forum advice on the correct tools for the job before making any purchase. Alternatively, a chat with a respected online or bricks and mortar optics shop should see you get good buying advice also.
Preperation
Digiscoping is heavily reliant upon the LCD of your digital camera, make sure your digital camera batteries are fully charged before you set off and take spare batteries with you in the field. As a rule, try to always carry three spare batteries with you when out on a days digiscoping. The same principles apply if you are using an electronic shutter release.
Conditions
Good light is super-important when digiscoping. Good light conditions will allow for faster shutter speeds in order to freeze bird motion and limit camera shake. Before setting off, note that warm and humid days can cause heat haze which will vastly reduce the quality of your results and strong winds will increase the chance of camera shake, no matter how well placed your tripod is.
Practice
Practice makes perfect, it does indeed. Before you venture out for shots of wildlife, make sure you test your camera and scope settings by focusing on objects in your back garden. Use a shrub, plant or bush as a subject and experiment until you are confident you are using the best settings for your needs.
Gear
Before you start digiscoping, its important to make sure you can operate (practice) your scope and camera functionality individually, thus making it easier when you combine the two. Digiscoping requires a good understanding of your equipment and dual processing in order to get the best quailty images.
Expectations
Its possible that 80-90% of your imagery shot on a digiscoping field session will be discarded, but don't be too disheartened. This is normal. That's the beauty of digital photography, we can take as many pictures as we like as film doesn't run out anymore! This enables us to only keep the good ones, and discard the poorer images when you're relaxing in the evening with a good glass of wine. The joy you will find when scrolling through your images and finding one that's just perfect will be a fantastic achievement.
Taking a picture
As discussed, light is so important and a successful digiscoped image is all about light. We need good light to illuminate the subject matter and more importantly to give us faster shutter speeds to eliminate motion blur. The position of the subject is also all-important, you need to be in between the light and your subject so that the light is behind you, that way the bird(s) in question will be nicely lit so that you don't get silhouette with no detail. These quick and simple snapping rules should bring you lot's of happy images.
Image software
All your images will require further work on your computer to tweak where needed. This is perfectly normal and its important that you purchase good image software and get to know your way around this when editing. This is just as important as your scope and camera, and will vastly improve your imagery. Here at Birding24/7 towers, we use an Apple MacBook Pro (just our preference) with Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Enjoyment
Don't get too frustrated if you are out on a days digiscoping and your images are disappointing, there are many factors including the weather that can hinder your performance, but remember why you are there and this is all part of the fun - its part and parcel of birding.
Care
Just a word of caution here, no need to panic, but viewing direct sunlight while using optics can cause permanent eye damage. Try to never view the sun with any optical equipment or even with the naked eye and always follow the manufacturers instructions when attaching adapters to your optical equipment.