OpticsBlog – Thoughts and reviews of binoculars, telescopes, scopes, sights, and much more - birdwatching, astronomy, target shooting - pretty much anything related to optics, nature, and life!

I am not a competitive person, at least not in a conventional sense; I have no inclination to compete with others, though I do compete with myself on a regular basis in my never-ending quest to improve myself. When folks think of competition, though, they tend to think of competition in that Olympics sense of the word, with contestants battling it out for Medals and a bit of honor. Despite my lack of competitive spirit, though, I have been watching the winter Olympics. No, there are no Olympic events that cover my expertise in binoculars, spotting scopes, digital cameras, telescopes and so on, but I do find myself watching the Olympics from the perspective of human drama. It’s hard not to cheer for contestants who have worked so hard and beaten such odds to get a crack at a medal, just as it is so heartbreaking to see them fail, or, worse yet, injure themselves in a fall or a crash. Needless to say, I took the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili quite hard.

The only event in the Olympics that I have in common with the contestants is cross-country skiing, though I am far, far, from that level of expertise. Still, I turned the television to the Olympics, Sunday night, and have been watching ever since, in an effort to catch a glimpse of the cross-country competition. Sad to say, I am still waiting to see that competition get some air time. Okay, I must have missed it, somewhere, so it’s back to competing against myself. Time to grab the skis, my digital camera and head out to the trail. This is one event where the outcome is in no doubt; I am guaranteed a win.

Okay, you are trying to do some bird photography with your digital camera and you are a little hesitant to pay the price for that really long telephoto lens you need to fill the frame with something the size of a songbird. By now, you know that a 300mm telephoto lens isn’t going to get you close enough and even that 400mm telephoto lens is just a start. A 600mm telephoto lens is better and … well, those darn songbirds are really small, aren’t they?

Enter, digiscoping. This is a very simple, but also a very effective way to do bird photography when you need more magnification than conventional camera equipment can provide. In terms of magnification, digiscoping begins where a 400mm or 500mm telephoto lens stops. What is digiscoping? Digiscoping is nothing more than placing a small digital point and shoot camera over the eyepiece of spotting scope and taking a picture; you can either hold the camera by hand or attach it to the spotting scope by means of a digiscoping adapter, such as the Alpen 706.

In digiscoping, the spotting scope provides far more magnification than even the longest telephoto camera lens and if that isn’t enough, you can kick in more magnification with the digital camera via the digital camera’s optical zoom. The result? You can get pics with digiscoping that would be impossible to get with conventional camera gear. Image quality won’t rival that of a $10,000 camera lens, of course, but that does not mean image quality of pics taken by digiscoping are not potential keepers and worthy of adding to your photo album.

How much magnification, in terms of either a telephoto camera lens or a spotting scope do you need for bird photography? The answer depends on the equipment and the technique you are using for bird photography.

If you are going the traditional photography route with a standard digital SLR camera and a long telephoto lens, the answer is almost always more than you think. You must be very close to fill to fill a frame with a songbird, even with a 400 mm camera lens, which translates to about 12x in a digital camera format and about 8x in a film camera format. That sounds like a lot of magnification and it is, but even with such a long telephoto camera lens, twenty yards is even too distant to fill a frame with a songbird. Half that distance is better and even closer will pay dividends when taking pics of songbirds. The female cardinal in the pic was shot at only five yards (fifteen feet) with a 420mm lens setting.

Digital cameras and digital camera lenses, though, have a secret weapon and that is the ability to edit with the photo software in your computer. See the pic of the Robin, shot with a 420mm digital camera lens at a distance of about thirty yards and then heavily cropped to enlarge. Editing, especially cropping, does have its limitations and if you want the absolute best in terms of pic quality, you still have no choice but to get up close and personal with those song birds. The more you crop in your software, the more image quality you lose, but, assuming you took a good pic at the start (and that is a must), you can get some pleasing, though perhaps not wall mountable, results, by cropping in your software program. Let’s face it; most of us are not printing pics, anyway and probably 99% of our pics stay on the computer screen. Such pics will rarely win a prize, but will still be fun to review at a later date.

Tomorrow, we'll look at another way to get up close and personal to take pics of those songbirds.

I was in such a hurry to get out on my ski trail, yesterday, that I forgot to bring a camera. I had been skiing and carrying a camera all week, but yesterday was such a beautiful day and my mind kept forming images of yours truly, gliding on my skis through gorgeous woodlands, buried in snow … but without a camera, I guess. Really no excuse, given that I have plenty of cameras, both film cameras and digital cameras and I am not exactly one of those people who own digital cameras and don’t use them. In fact, I had purposely planned to bring my 12x Panasonic ZM50 digital camera, the night before, just in case some of my deer friends made an appearance and begged to be photographed. What can I say? I’m sure other amateur wildlife photographers have made the same mistake. It’s the photographic equivalent of locking your keys in the car, I suppose.

I was halfway through the deep woods section of my trail when I did a mournful “oh, no” and considered backtracking to retrieve the Panasonic, but decided, instead to forge on, telling myself that I probably wouldn’t see deer, anyway. You guessed it: I didn’t make it another fifty yards before I saw five deer standing right on the trail that I had labored to make the day before in the heavy snow. Apparently I am not the only one that appreciates it when someone breaks trail in heavy snow. Naturally, the scene would have made a great photograph and I couldn’t help but kick myself, yet again, for not having the camera, any camera. Even a small digital point and shoot camera, such as a Canon Powershot would have done a nice job; the deer were only about thirty yards, away.

Still, it was such a beautiful day and I was on my skis in fresh snow, that I didn’t waste a lot of time on regrets. Besides, today looks to be another great day, the trail is even in better shape, now, and this time, I will have a camera. It’s great to be semi-retired and have the luxury of skiing whenever there is snow. All I have to do is to remember to bring my digital camera.

The quest to be King or Queen of the mountain is an ever changing and interesting battle in the spotting scope world. Of course, those of us who have been around optics know that there is no such thing as a single “best” spotting scope that scores at the top in all optical or mechanical categories, but that doesn’t stop spotting scope manufacturers from claiming the title of best spotting scope. Invariably, though, the battle for the best spotting scope is exclusively for the larger models, since the larger optical systems have the most potential for performance.

On the other hand, there are more than a few of us who no longer subscribe to the bigger spotting scope is better mentality. I think I have a permanent groove in my shoulder bone from carrying a tripod with a spotting scope attached to one end. The big 77mm, 80mm, 82mm, and now even 85mm, 88mm, 90mm and larger spotting scopes may be the ultimate optical tools, but, no matter the cost or the quality, they aren’t worth a dime if you left one in the car because the weight just got to be too much of a hassle.

So, for all of you weight afflicted spotting scope users, there is good news. Smaller spotting scopes, especially smaller spotting scopes with ED, HD, fluorite and other high performance optical packages can do just about everything you need out in the field, where it counts. I have used a Kowa 663 for many years and have never missed the bigger spotting scopes I used to carry and I doubt carrying this smaller birding spotting scope has ever cost me a single bird identification. Even better, a smaller spotting scope means you can also use a smaller tripod for even more weight reduction. The end result for my birding with a smaller spotting scope means the spotting scope is much more likely to be there when I need it, instead of back at home in the closet.

Here comes the snow and here comes my digital cameras! Nothing like a pure white backdrop or background to make those bird colors and other interesting subjects just jump right out at you in a pic. As someone who has always loved birding and photography, snow is the ideal time for me to get some good bird pics with a little digiscoping.

The classic bird in the snow photograph for color is probably a Cardinal. Not saying that other birds cannot make an equally colorful photograph in the snow, but a Cardinal is the bird that comes to mind for most of us when we think of colorful winter birds. Although I have several nice Cardinal pics, I have no pic of a Cardinal in a snow scene. In the meantime, just imagine what the Cardinal in this pic would look like on a snow covered evergreen branch. My goal, the next few days, then, is to get that Cardinal in the snow pic and, to that end, I hope to spend a lot of time with my digital camera behind my spotting scope.

What are my chances? I’d say they are excellent. I have the spotting scopes and the digital cameras, I have the patience and I certainly have the cardinals. If you have all these ingredients, you can also get good bird pics by holding the camera over the eyepiece of the spotting scope, either with or without a digiscoping adapter, such as the Alpen 706. Yes, this is called digiscoping and it is a fun and easy way to get some nice bird pics to use as your desktop background or to share with friends.

Snow is back in our forecast, after a January that was well below normal for snow. For some folks, this is bad news, even here in Wisconsin, but for most of us, up here in the north country, snow is welcome for all the activities that snow allows us to do. Count me in the later group, because snow, for me, means my favorite winter activity – cross-country skiing. There is magic in those skis as they glide through that snow and, at times, I almost feel as if I am floating on air.

Snow, though, also gives me a great opportunity for some winter photography, either with my digital cameras or my film cameras. Snow drifts, for instance, can sculpture themselves, with the help of the wind, into some incredible shapes and, when the snow passes and sunlight fills the air, the sculptures are pieces’ dart of great natural beauty. Snowscapes also offer an endless variety of possible pics and there is nothing like pulling up a pic of your own local area, covered in snow, later in the year, when our eyes are a bit bored with all that green. Then, too, even something as simple as a set of animal tracks makes for interesting pics in the snow.

No special camera is needed for winter fun; any small digital point and shoot, such as the Canon Powershot will work and the beauty of digital cameras, in general, is that you have the option of editing any pic to your taste; you do not have to be a pro to have fun with photography in the winter.

Astronomy, for so many of us, these days, is a catch-as-catch-can affair. Life in the digital age so often finds us with more on our hands than we can manage, as it is, and when that one night when the sky is clear and dark does arrive, we find ourselves bogged down with other activities or previous commitments. I suspect that is one reason for the trend to portable telescopes. No, a smaller, portable telescope does not have the performance as a larger telescope, in terms of number of objects to be seen or wealth of detail to be seen, but a small telescope, such as a Meade ETX-90 PE telescope or Celestron Nexstar 4SE telescope is sure one heck of a lot easier and quicker to set up and get into action when we have only a precious hour, or maybe even two, to spare for astronomy. Smaller telescopes are cheaper, too, than their larger equivalents and they are also much easier telescopes to transport your to a distant location, as many of us must, to escape light pollution

When my girls were young, they used to beg for a look through the telescope before they went to bed. “The telescope” at that time was a 10” Dobsonian and that was about all I could manage to lift and carry, by myself, but, worse, in cold weather it took the telescope optics a full 30 minutes or longer to cool to air temperature, once I moved the telescope out of the basement into the backyard. That cool down time is essential, because, until telescope optics are the same temp as the air, images suffer, badly. Now, when you are trying to get kids into bed at a decent time, that half hour is just a real pain. Instead, I just grabbed my small 70mm Televue refractor telescope. Had that small telescope setup in an instant and, because of its smaller size, cool down times was only a matter of 5 or 10 minutes. Come to think of it, I probably spent more hours with that small telescope than the large telescope. As they say, when buying a telescope, the best telescope to buy is the telescope you will use the most.

Did my cross-country ski trail, yesterday, in hopes of getting a pic of deer or other wildlife with one of my digital cameras. Okay, no wildlife pics, but I did have a good time on the skis, as I always do. Snow conditions were not all that great, but, hey, I was skiing and that’s what counts. I did have to make some detours in open areas where the snow had thawed and was too thin, but, back in the woods, there was still enough snow to keep gliding, along. For you cross-country types, the glide was excellent, but the kick was poor.

I am at an age where my thoughts sometimes turn to living where it is warm, or, at least, warmer in the winter, but never in a serious way. Close as I have come to a winter in the south was a couple winters in Portland, Oregon, where it rained most of the winter, rather than snowed. I'd be tempted to winter in Portland, again, because it is such a great city and it would just be a matter of traveling an hour or two to find snow, but I couldn’t bear to lose my winter landscape, again, and I have been spoiled by being able to ski out my front door. Bill feels the same way about the north country, though we may someday find our way to the mountains, out west or, perhaps, a place even farther north. Not that there is anything wrong with living in the southern part of the country; it’s a birders paradise, for one, and even has more potential for my astronomical binoculars or telescopes, since the southern skies offer more targets for an astronomer like me. It’s just that the north country is in our blood. We feel at home, here in Wisconsin, with our winters. What can I say? The forecast tomorrow is for another inch or two of snow and I couldn’t be happier.

I am proud and delighted to have helped many folks get a start in bird photography by offering advice on digiscopoing – taking pics of birds with small point and shoot digital cameras through the eyepiece of spotting scopes. As bird photography goes, digiscoping is the simplest and easiest way to take pics of birds and also one of the most addictive. No, digiscoping won’t get you pics that rival the quality and sharpness of the bird photographer using ten thousand dollar DSLR camera and long telephoto lens setup, but it will get you plenty of pics that you can enjoy and add to your collection and, because it allows you more magnification than that ten thousand dollar DSLR camera outfit, digiscoping will get you bird pics that no other technique of wildlife photography can match,

Okay, you have a small digital point and shoot camera and a spotting scope. Where to start? The first thing that you will discover is that there is a huge difference in the bird world as to suitability as photographic subjects. Some bird species tend to be rather stationary and slow in their movements; some bird species never seem to sit still. In general water birds, such as herons, egrets and so on, as well as raptors (hawks and owls) tend to be good subjects, since, as every hunter knows, you must keep still to avoid spooking prey. At the other extreme are small songbirds. These little birds are always on the move, though some are worse than others in this respect.

Of the two birds I have pictured, today, the Great Egret was relatively easy. I was already setup on the shore of a marsh and it very thoughtfully landed near me and posed, perfectly. On the other hand, that darn Chickadee was a real challenge. It took many, many dozens of pics to get just this one were I was able to capture that brief fraction of an instant where it was motionless. Whew! Start your digiscoping with those water birds.

Even a reasonable quality binocular will last for many years of hard use and any premium grade binocular will last a lifetime or more of very hard use. Nevertheless, many binoculars die an early death because their owners simply ignored some very commonsense rules for handling and maintenance.

The number one reason binoculars are damaged and rendered inoperable? That’s easy. Dropping a binocular or banging it, inadvertently, against a solid object, is the number one cause for a malfunctioning binocular and that is always a matter of not using that one simple binocular accessory that comes with every binocular – the strap. Even with my giant astronomy binoculars, that strap goes around my neck the second I take the binocular from the case. It’s a habit that has prevented me from ever dropping a binocular.

Another common cause of binocular failure? Leaving a binocular in a vehicle, on a permanent basis, exposes the binocular to extremes of temperatures and those temperatures cause the seals to expand and contract. The result is often a failed seal and that gets you a binocular that “fogs” up on the inside. That fog may disappear when the binocular or dries a bit, but once a binocular fogs, it will fog again – a binocular cannot properly reseal, itself.

Another way too damage a binocular is actually to clean the optics too much or clean the optics, improperly. Compulsive types who need to wipe down the optics every day will eventually scratch or wear the coatings, thin. Better to clean too little than too much and when you do clean binocular glass, use actual optics cleaning products, such as a lens pen or lens cloth.

Last, but not least, are the folks that keep binocular repair shops in business by playing do-it-yourself repair. Taking a binocular apart requires special tools and doing so also voids the warranty. What typically results is a box full of parts that get sent to a repair shop hoping for a miracle. If you see a speck of dust or dirt inside the binocular, ignore it. Won’t affect performance of the binocular in any way.

I own and use digital cameras and absolutely love digital cameras for their convenience. For the record, I am not at all opposed to new technology and don’t want to give anyone that I am some kind old crank that wants to turn back the clock to so-called “better days”. In fact, for my age, I pride myself on being fairly literate as far as things digital. The fact is, I like all kinds of photography equipment.

Still, I am having the time of my life with old film cameras. Maybe you would have to be old enough to have started photography long before there was anything digital to truly understand the attraction for that old film equipment, but, then again, maybe not. For instance, compare a manual focusing camera lens made back in the 70s or 80s, even a relatively inexpensive camera lens, such as the old Sears screw mount lens in the picture, to the digital equivalent you would purchase, today - even an expensive digital camera lens - and I think you would see the difference. Yes, today’s high tech digital autofocusing camera lenses are invariably made of plastic, rather than the metal of yesteryear. Optics are as good or better than the old film lenses (with some exceptions), but the typical construction on today’s digital camera lenses simply does not compare to those old film camera lenses. There is a solid mechanical reason for this – modern autofocusing systems work more efficiently with lighter lenses and plastic is lighter than metal. Then, too, there is the matter of labor and production costs – it is definitely easier to keep the cost down with plastic housings and parts.

Pick up one of those old camera lenses, though, and you have to appreciate the fact that they were made to last and that, with the exception of some Leica lenses, they don’t make them like that, anymore, though Nikon, to their credit, still sells the 55mm AI-S manual focus lens in the photograph, but it ain’t cheap.