Digiscoping is holding or attaching a p&s camera to the eyepiece of a spotting scope. It's a "cheap" way for many birders to use their existing scope to obtain long-distance images instead of using true "long glass". Often the results are not as good, but in the best hands (not mine!) they can be excellent. As in any kind of bird photography, getting close to the bird produces better results than just cropping. I digiscope a fair bit, but it's rarely that I obtain an image that I would even consider posting to BPN. However, I thought this GBB gull is reasonable, in terms of framing, color, sharpness and even head angle.
Panasonic ZS7 at approx 35mm. equiv. zoom held up to the 30X eyepiece of a Kowa 773 scope, no adaptor. "Sports mode" to maximize shutter speed.
I agree Richard, there's a lot going for this image. It does appear to be sharp, although the eye looks a little funky. I agree HA is very good. I think the biggest challenge with digiscoping is to get a sharp image and you have succeeded here. I would suggest a couple of things- some major CCW rotation as I know of no gull that would stand up with it's legs at that angle(!), and a boost in saturation.
There is a lot to be said for digiscoping if you already have the equipment. I will say though that a scope up to the task is a pretty expensive item.
Last edited by John Chardine; 08-27-2010 at 07:03 PM.
Reason: typo
Hi Richard - one of the better digiscoped images I have seen on BPN - a few tweaks as mentioned above would improve even more.
Agree on your assessment of scopes - IMHO you would not go out and buy one as a cheap alternative to a long tele - would be better off with a MANUAL focus non VR lens.
Keep em coming :)
Agree that image quality at this small size and sharpness look just fine, but for the funky eye. Any clue as to what's with the eye?
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I didn't alter the eye in any way - so either I happened to catch it in the act of winking, or perhaps there's something wrong with it. Here's another attempt, incorporating John's suggestions - and I think they have improved the image. I agree, though, the eye still looks the same. John - my scope, a Kowa 773, is pretty top of the line, but still much cheaper than, say, a new Nikon 500VR f4 AF-S. I suspect that many birders getting into photography already have a good scope, while many photographers getting into birding will have a "big glass" lens - and eventually the twain shall meet.
Richard, I'm glad to see you did the rotation and cut out most of the BG rocks from the image in the process. In the second post I can see far more distortion - especially on the rock/perch area. I really like the image overall, though, and it made me wonder if you ever do any conversion to your images so they have a painted effect to them? I think this one might just be outstanding for something along those lines - it would help camoflage the softness that is apparent in some areas and might even take the image up another notch or two. Something to think about...
Thanks for sharing this...I'd never heard of digiscoping before...very informative!
Hi Richard. I've generally been underwhelmed by the digiscoped images I've seen, but this one manages some pretty good image quality (granted no match for a really good long lens). Some of the loss in quality in the repost is presumably due to the larger crop, but the rotation and saturation helped. Hard to tell without blowing this up, but it looks like a double catchlight may be part of the problem with the eye. If you zoom way in and clone out the small bright spot just above the primary catchlight it might look better.
1st winter plumage GBB gull digiscoped
