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Digiscopy Birding
by Wikipedia
Digiscopy birding, often simply known under the general term of digiscoping, is a technique combining the magnification of optical telescopes with the imaging of digital cameras to photograph birds. The telescopes used are called spotting scopes, or field scopes.
In digiscopy birding, users can search for and observe birds manually using a scope and then, once found, a digital camera is attached to the scope's eyepiece and a photograph is taken. It was originally intended for bird identification and cataloguing, but has become more popular with advancements in digital cameras. The technique is now accepted by many experienced professional and amateur nature photographers.
Benefits of digiscopy birding include:
- Versatility — birds can be found more easily with a scope rather than a camera.
- Cost-effectiveness — good-quality photographs can be shot using digital cameras attached to a scope. Users do not need a large expensive telephoto lens, therefore the camera can be updated without the need to replace expensive optics. Telescopes are more likely to be compatible with a wider range of cameras than telephoto lenses are.
- Extremely high magnification — high magnification, often more than any commonly available telephoto lens, can be achieved because of the longer focal length of most telescopes.
- Preview, examine, and recapture — digital cameras provide a preview on the LCD viewer while aiming, and after photographing a user can examine the picture immediately. If the photographer is not satisfied with the result, they can delete the photograph and re-capture the image.
- Digital image format — images are already in digital format, and can be easily modified or enhanced as necessary using image editing software. Combined with the MMS capabilities of mobile phones, the digital image can be transmitted instantaneously to others.
For best results, it is crucial that the optical axis of both the camera and the telescope are aligned. The distance between the camera's objective and the telescope eyepiece is also important and typically is adjusted by trial and error.
Originally, attaching a camera to a telescope would depend upon the skill of the photographer. Now, however, several camera adapters for digiscopy are available from major manufacturers of both telescopes and digital cameras. These adapters address the difficulties faced above. One such adapter, developed by the late Mr. Laurence Poh, the father of digiscopy, is considered particularly versatile.
A recent variant of digiscopy birding uses a camera phone in place of a digital camera, and is known as phonescoping. The added advantage of phonescoping is that the birdwatcher can send an MMS directly to another to aid or confirm identification.
A similar application to digiscopy birding has been adopted by the astronomical community and is usually called digiscopy astrophotography. The main difference between digiscopy birding and digiscopy astrophotography is the type of telescope used. The spotting scope used in digiscopy birding is a telescope with erecting prism on the eye-piece to flip the image such that it is erect (right-way up and left-right correspondingly). Digiscopy astrophotography uses an astronomy telescope which usually lacks the erecting prism, since astronomers are not traditionally concerned whether the image is erect.
When not birding, some birdwatchers enjoy using their digiscopy equipment to photograph plants (for example, wild orchids growing in the canopy of a jungle), insects (for example, wild bees near their beehive), other shy or dangerous wild animals, or details in old buildings (for example, statues/gargoyles on the roof of old churches/castles).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography
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