Hi, John,
Wow that's a great shot with digiscoping. The lighting looks just great to get that gorgeous blue and even a glint in the eye. And obviously, i'ts in its element. Nice! Nice!
Posted by Marc Adamus on December 28, 2007 at 11:03 AM
John, I like seeing the bird in this environment. Maybe I'm wrong, but at this small web size the focus looks to be more on the tree?
Posted by Rick Lamb on December 28, 2007 at 11:49 AM
Wow John what a nice capture!!! Just what is a "digiscope"??? I'm not sure I've ever seen one....
I agree with Marc Adamus that the plane of focus appears to be a bit in front of the bird itself. But really this is only a fraction off and most non-photogs will never notice.
Posted by Rick Lundh on December 28, 2007 at 12:00 PM
I was thinking about the focus issue as well. If the bird were sharper, you could just gaussian out the surroundings...but well, maybe you can still do that...hmmmm.
Posted by Chris Hodney on December 28, 2007 at 2:51 PM
Nicely shot. I love the color here. I do agree about the sharpening though. Needs a bit, at least for the web version. The top left of the birds head or face is pretty dark on my monitor here at work also. Probably just my monitor here though, since nobody else has said anything.
Posted by John Williams on December 28, 2007 at 5:01 PM
Thanks all! The bird is actually pretty sharp on the original. The focus issue may be partly due to the resolution, here's a link to a larger image. It is possible the focus is just fading at the level of the bird, but I also think it is due the the bird having less edges than the bark and the focal plane for sure beginning to blur immediately behind the bird. I think Rick may be right that a Gaussian blur of the sharper bark may help, so that the tree focus doesn't contrast so strongly with the tree out of focus surrounding the bird.
Rick, digiscoping is holding a camera up to a scope. Astronomers use it to photograph stars, and a lot of birders use it to photograph birds. In my case, I used a Nikon Coolpix 8400 digicam coupled to a Nikon Fieldscope III 60mm ED spotting scope, for an effective focal length of ~1400mm.
Discussion
7 repliesI digiscoped this bird at Ridgefield NWR in 2005.
Wow that's a great shot with digiscoping. The lighting looks just great to get that gorgeous blue and even a glint in the eye. And obviously, i'ts in its element. Nice! Nice!
I agree with Marc Adamus that the plane of focus appears to be a bit in front of the bird itself. But really this is only a fraction off and most non-photogs will never notice.
Rick, digiscoping is holding a camera up to a scope. Astronomers use it to photograph stars, and a lot of birders use it to photograph birds. In my case, I used a Nikon Coolpix 8400 digicam coupled to a Nikon Fieldscope III 60mm ED spotting scope, for an effective focal length of ~1400mm.