Monday 14 November 2016

DIGISCOPING

I've  been trying my hand at a bit of digiscoping over the last couple of months, I must say it is a lot more difficult than I thought. I've got a Luyi spotting scope this is a decent scope in good light but the zoom on the fixed lens isn't great (its crap to be honest) but it is a budget scope and I've had some good use out of it. I also bought a couple of adaptors one for a compact camera and another for my iphone. The results I have to say are not great or even good not a very sharp image and a hell of a lot of noise. Even with the help of photoshop they're still well below the standard I can get with my digital SLR. 
Here's a selection of images I've digiscoped.

a gathering of swallows with a couple of house martins before they set off on migration

ravens preening each other

raven

female kestrel

There would have been I feel some cracking images there especially the Kestrel but either me, the scope or the rest of my digiscoping equipment wasn't up to the job. I've done quite a lot of research on techniques, camera settings etc so I do feel I need to upgrade.

My darling wife bought for my birthday an Olivon scope and it's a cracker, the only trouble now is non of the adaptors fit over or on the eye piece so will have to search ebay for some adaptors that do, it's getting expensive this!
The two big factors that's making me battle on with it is the reach digiscoping gives you and some of the quality images you see in books and on the internet.
So hopefully I'll get it right and will be able to photograph distant birds and wildlife and share with you some quality images (fingers crossed) so lets go have a look on ebay. 

Friday 4 November 2016

FIELDFARE

After photographing the redwings a couple of weeks ago I've been trying to get a pic of our other winter thrush the Fieldfare. There are plenty of both species about but getting close enough for an image has been proving quite difficult. Finally after many attempts I managed to get close enough to this individual to bag a couple of half decent shots.

fieldfare

  
Whilst concentrating on the Fieldfare this male Stonechat landed on a post nearby so I was able to get an image of him.

stonechat
With watching and photographing wildlife you never know what's going to turn up whilst driving down towards my house at night this Woodcock was on the side of the lane. Apologies for the pic but it was taken with my phone with the car headlights on the bird. As soon as the lights went off it the Woodcock took off onto the night.

Woodcock
With the Autumn migration coming to an end and winter starting to set in it will be interesting to see what else turns up.