Hi all
I'll start this note by stating my position.
I'm in the very early stages of using digiscoping to get bird photos, and I'm
unlikely to get into DSLR with expensive high quality lenses. I don't feel
however that digiscoping is limited to getting 'record shots' of the odd bird.
Indeed I expect to use some of my photos for print publication. Not to forget
that 'publication' these days means as much the Web as it does paper
anyway, and that puts a different slant onto things.
I think Chris hit the nail on the head when he said "what ** I ** mean by
good.."; and "publishable photographs (**8x11..and larger**)". The two
issues here are that "good" is personal (from my Fine Arts background I
learned that crispness is not essential for quality) and that not all of us are
intending to submit our photos for publication at coffee table book size and
so will not have to meet the narrow criteria of mainstream publishing houses.
One of the great things about digiscoping is that there are now in the public
forum many photographs of birds that were hitherto unavailable. And many
are beautiful pictures of great birds (and vice versa). I can see the listservs
building into quite a significant resource for birdwatchers, photographers and
researchers.
Cheers
Niven
On 3 Dec 2003 at 8:15, Chris Fagyal wrote:
If you are interested take a look at my webpage,
http://www.avianphotos.org
All photos were taken with a DSLR, mostly Canon Eos10D.
Just a note regarding your comparisons. The lens you used for your
D-SLR is a rather poor lens and generally doesn't take very good
photographs. A better choice would have been something such as a Canon
300mm f/4L USM or Canon 400mm f/5.6L USM. Granted both are more
expensive than the Sigma zoom lens, but both also resolve a LOT more
detail and don't have any of the problems the Sigma lens does with
respect to image quality (problems with resolving detail [The 135-400mm
Sigma has very poor MTF scores at 400mm. The 500mm will be worse,
though I haven't actually located specific scores. The 135-400mm fully
extended had significant problems resolving fine details at 400mm],
problems with contast, problems with chromatic aberrations etc). Prime
lenses in general are significantly better than zooms. There are a few
very good zooms (Canon 70-200mm f/4.0L USM, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
(Not the IS version, which although good is significantly worse than the
non-IS version)), but any of the very large zoom lenses, and especially
from 2nd tier companies are not all that good (ie 135-400, 170-500,
120-300, 300-800 etc), especially at the end of their ranges.
Given what I said above, the differences based upon the distance to
subject that appeared to be present, you still would not have achieved
great results with a DSLR because after cropping as much as you stated
you were cropping, the image is going to be blurred and lossy.
There are a few advantages to digiscoping if you are seeking record
shots of birds, such as the distance factor. If one however wants
publishable photographs (8x11, 11x14, 14x19, and larger), digiscoping
won't do. One problem is most digiscoping cameras can not (if I recall
correctly) take photographs in raw mode, and jpeg fine already gives you
a compromised image quality as well as a compromised ability to properly
process the digital images once they are transfered from camera to
computer. I used to digiscope myself with a Nikon coolpix 995 + Nikon
Fieldscope 65mm ED. I switched because of the general poor image
quality.
Some other things you can not achieve in digiscoping: flight shots.
Good luck. Shots of birds that are close aren't generally possible
either. I have found with my Eos10D + 400mm f/5.6 that I can generally
get most of the shots I want. There are some limitations, but for
detailed, good (and my definition of good is drastically different than
what most people on most bird listservers I belong to consider good.
Seems "good" to most birders means that the bird is recognizable. Good
to me means the picture is crisp, with no blur, the details in are fine
down to the individual feathers, the eye is crisp etc...) photographs, a
DSLR blows away digiscoping and I doubt i'll ever have reason to
digiscope again with the exception of trying to get a record shot of a
rarity that just isn't close enough to photograph properly.
Hope my comments are somewhat useful. I am not trying to start a flame
war or criticize. Just bringing up some points from someone who has
both digiscoped and now uses a DSLR. By the way I hope to have
signfiicantly more shots from Brazil by the end of the weekend. If you
want to see some of the truly incredible bird photographs that can be
taken with a DSLR go to http://www.naturescapes.net and take a look at
some of the photos there in the bird section of the forums.
Specifically ones from photographers such as Greg Downing, Jim Zipp,
Alan Murphy, Charles Glatzer, Heather Forcier, Anthony Medici, and E.J.
Peiker. They are some of the many remarkable photographers whose work
there is absolutely out of this world.
Cheers,
Chris Fagyal
Senior Software Engineer
United Defense, L.P.
Fridley, MN
(763) 572-5320
>>> "Robert Inglis" <> 12/01/2003 14:42:14 PM >>>
Hi all,
For the benefit of birders interested in photographing the birds they
see and who may be wondering
which system would be best: Digiscoping or a Digital SLR, I have added
a few pages to my web-site
showing the details of, and my conclusions from, a test I recently
did.
I mounted my Digiscoping gear and a D-SLR side-by-side on a tripod and
took some pictures for
comparison.
To see these pictures and to read my opinions and conclusions go to:
http://users.tpg.com.au/inglisrc/index.htm
Click on the link "D-SLR or Digiscoping" on the Entry Page to go
straight to the 'Comparo' pages.
There are a few pictures on a couple of pages which will cause the page
to be slow to download on a
dial-up connection but it should be worth the wait and you can read the
text while waiting.
Please read the disclaimer before offering criticism of the comparison
and my conclusions.
Cheers
Bob Inglis
Woody Point
Queensland
Australia
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_________________________________
Niven McCrie
Birds of Darwin, Kakadu & the Top End:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/birdsnt
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