Scope Eyepieces For Digiscoping

I haven't thought about scope eyepieces all that much. Swarovski Optik has three different eyepieces you can choose for your scope a 20-60 zoom, a 25-50 zoom and a 30 fixed. For newer people to the blog, those numbers give you an idea of the scope's magnification or of how close the image is brought to you.  A 20-60 eyepiece can bring the bird 20 to 60 times closer (as opposed to your 8x42 binocular which will only bring the image 8 times closer). I've always been a fan of the zooms, because they can make a real difference in ID when that bird is far away (I got a great look at my lifer saker falcon thanks to my scope's ability to go to 60 power when I was in Israel.  I don't digiscope when I zoom in to 60 unless I really, really need to document something because the photo will be crap.  You lose clarity and brightness when you zoom in and the photos aren't worth it unless you are documenting your state's first record of a hooded crane.  When digiscoping, I always keep it on the lowest magnification.

I almost always use my 20-60 eyepiece.  I like having the option of such a wide range of magnification.  The 20 power magnification gives me a fairly wide field of view but it also helps me a bit with the problem of having the bird too close.  My buddy Clay Taylor kept nudging me to play with the 25-50 zoom eyepiece and the other day, I decided to head out to the feeders at Minnesota Valley NWR.  Their feeding station is always active and I figured I could get some good comparison shots.  When I got there, the feeders were bare.  And I saw the reason why before I could complete the sentence, "That's odd."

A sharp-shinned hawk was perched outside and was so darned cooperative, I got all the footage I needed to compare both eyepieces in less than 15 minutes.

So, here we go and I have to say, I was surprised at my results.  All the video and photos were taken using my iPhone 4s.  Here's a video tutorial followed by photo samples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z5yprCMYrA

I was very happy about the lack of vignetting with the 25-50  zoom when taking video!  Here are some photo comparisons of the sharp-shinned hawk without zooming in with the phone.  This is what it looks like as soon as  you train the iPhone to your scope's eyepiece without zooming in with the phone using the 20-60 zoom eyepiece:

There it is at 20 power and you get a full vignette (the black circle framing the image).  That could be edited out in iPhoto or Photoshop or whatever photo app you use to crop images.

Now, here is the same sharpie on the same perch with the 25-50 zoom eyepiece:

There it is at 25 power and with that eyepiece there's less vignetting.  Again vignetting can be cropped out later, but you get a bigger and better image if you zoom in on the iPhone when you take the photo.  And you do that the same way you enlarge images on your phone with your index finger and thumb.

Now, here are images of the same sharpie with the two different eyepieces and zooming in with the phone:

A pretty good image of a sharp-shinned hawk (especially with it being an overcast day).

Not a lot of difference when you zoom in with the iPhone.  If you want to take video, I highly recommend the 25-50 zoom, it will save you a lot of headaches post production of cropping out the vignetting.  But if you only want to do photos, both eyepieces work really well.

And this was all done by hand holding the iPhone up to the scope--no adapter.

When I think back to what bird photography used to be I marvel at the quality of photos I can get with a phone.

Digiscoping With An iPhone Tutorial

By popular request I created a video of how I take photos using my iPhone and my Swarovski spotting scope (I use the ATM 80mm with 2- - 60 zoom eyepiece)--also known as iPhonescoping. A couple of things to keep in mind: I'm currently hand holding the phone, there is no adapter for this yet like their are for digital cameras. Meopta is supposed to have their adapter out for iPhones soon but I haven't seen it yet (they told me they would send me one early this year).  But you can still get some pretty good photos hand holding your phone.  Video is going to be a little shaky but without an adapter to hold the camera still--what can you do.

Note that I'm using a Mophie Case with my phone which gives a little "eye relief" to it. FYI Mophie cases are AWESOME!  It's a heavy duty case that will charge your iPhone's battery.  It has tripled the life of my crappy iPhone 4s battery.  I'm a little bitter that I had to pay about $70 to correct an Apple issue, but I'm so happy to use my phone all day in the field that I've soon gotten over that expense.  I can actually use my phone all day long without plugging it in. This includes taking photos, texting, sending photos to Twitter, surfing the net, Words with Friends (Scramble with Friends), Fruit Ninja--the works!

Also, note in the above photo that I have the eye cup twisted out halfway.  I find this reduces the vignette (the black circle around your photos).  Also, it prevents you from scratching your scope's lens with your iPhone or case--which is a heartbreaking thing to have happen and one of the reasons I hover like crazy when someone puts their digital camera up to my lens without an adapter.  This also gives you a way to reduce some of the hand shake that comes with holding the iPhone rather than attaching it with an adapter.

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FSYKBbg69c

Bentsen Rio Grande State Park Birds via iPhone

South Texas, as always was SO much fun.  Even if you choose to do some casual birding you can still hit all the specialties.  I took a mini break down there over the weekend to hang with a girlfriend and since we had both been there, each day we slept in and let our bodies wake us rather than our alarm clocks and enjoyed the local Mexican restaurants and headed to our favorite parks.

I always have a soft spot for Bentsen Rio Grande State Park. It's the first south Texas park I ever visited in the Rio Grande Valley and where I got most of my Texas specialties like the above green jay (you can get them at most of the parks, but like actors who portray The Doctor, you never forget your first).  Sitting in the balmy 60 - 70 degree weather with my scope and bins really made the tension melt from my bones.

Though walking and biking are fantastic ways to enjoy this Texas park, the bird feeders really deliver. The birds went crazy for this log filled with peanut butter. There was even a clay-colored thrush (or clay-colored robin as some field guides call it). These sometimes zip over the border from Mexico but I haven't seen one since Panama.  Not that I really note that, but I guess I got a new bird for my US list without even trying.

I really clicked with using my iPhone 4s for digiscoping rather than my Nikon D40.  I'm hopeful that by the time spring arrives, I will no longer go out with that camera and only go out with my iPhone...we'll see.  Hand holding has been okay but not as nice as having an adapter.  But since I was having such luck in Texas, I tried taking video at the feeders...I was hand holding but it turned out okay.  Ignore what the people are saying during the oriole part.  They were sitting next to us and talking about a different bird than what you see in the video.

http://youtu.be/A1j4Rvcz0pE

I loved those great kiskadees.  They were "peanut butter catching" at the feeder like they would for aerial insects.  As a matter of fact, because the kiskadees were so fast, they people next to us thought they were grabbing flies attracted to the feeder.  But check out these stills I grabbed from the video:

That's a beakful of peanut butter!

Even the plain chachalacas got in on the peanut butter action...I don't think I saw a single woodpecker come to that feeder.

Besides all of these there were warblers checking it out as well (warblers in January, what a gift to this Minnesota girl). We didn't see them, but many reported that bobcats come to hunt around the feeders too...needless to say, we didn't see squirrels.

Thank you, Bentsen State Park, for a lovely afternoon.

 

Boreal Birding & Digiscoping with an iPhone

I think I had the most fun at Sax Zim Bog last weekend since the great owl irruption of 2004/2005. An informal gathering of birders headed up and we started at Hasty Brook. I've known Lynne for some time and I've always wanted to visit. What a treat to start it off with her deck full of common redpolls. I wish we could have spent more time there, she's so lucky to have such a beautiful view to watch birds and animals go by--and incredibly sweet.  Our group birded the crap out of the little daylight we have up here in winter and when we went back to her place, her husband was heating up a huge kettle of wild rice soup.

As much as I miss the birds who sing in the summer, I truly do appreciate living in Minnesota where a few hours drive north gives me a different set of habitat and birds. Redpolls are in abundance this winter in northern MN, which was actually predicted in the Winter Finch Forecast.

Huge flocks of redpolls would descend onto the roads to chow down on either spilled grain or salt mixed with snow. When they would take off, you could actually hear their woosh of wings.

We had a bonus in the car with us when we went, a guide for the bog by the name of Erik Bruhnke came along with us--for fun. He's a young kid trying to earn a living in birding--it was fun to go out in the field with someone so young and excited about birds. There are a lot of great guides up at the bog but the area is so popular they book up quickly, so if you're ever looking for one, Erik is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide. Some in our group had been to the bog several times before and had an idea of where to go, but having someone along who birds the area on a regular basis really helped get all the bog specialties that are being seen.

I used the day to compare digiscoping with my iPhone 4s vs my Nikon D40.  I don't have an adapter yet for the phone so photos like the one above of evening and pine grosbeaks are taken by hand holding the iPhone up to my scope.  Not bad at all!  I've been playing with the camera app that comes with the phone but there's the Camera+ app, I like it because it has image stabilization and the ability to go into burst mode and take a crap ton of pictures all at once.  It's handy if you are doing this without an adapter.

One thing I did learn about my iPhone is that it's not ideal for cold weather digiscoping.  My fingers got so cold that the touch screen function ceased recognizing when something had been touched (it was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit when I took the above photo).  I do have a pair of gloves that is supposed to work with the touch screen, but I have a screen protector and it doesn't work with the gloves.  Also cold fingers can lead to shivering which also doesn't help image stabilization.

Can I say what a treat it was to get some quality time with evening grosbeaks (the above photo was taken with the D40, not the iPhone).  I haven't been around a good sized flock for a few years so it was fun to spend time with these birds who look like like a goldfinch on steroids...though Non Birding Bill thinks they look more like Ed Asner.  We're so lucky that the people who live on Blue Spruce Road just north of 133 in Meadowlands place feeders at the end of their driveway so people can enjoy a bunch of boreal feeder birds.

It's a great little spot to practice digiscoping.  Lots of great colorful winter birds to get shots of like the pine grosbeak.  They seem very used to the traffic.

White-winged crossbills were all over around the bog too.  This one was part of a flock that was in the road.  As we watched it, we picked up a tail of other cars. It's kind of a strange thing to bird around the bog.  You want to get all the specialties and there are plenty of maps to be found of it on the Internet describing where to go, but at the same time if you see someone pulled over, you tend to pull over too to see if they have something you don't.

This is especially true when it's dusk and close to great gray owl time.  One road had a recent report of great grays and around dusk there were almost 2 dozen vehicles slowly cruising back and forth, creeping along and watching, waiting for the elusive giant.  I watched but I'm so spoiled when it comes to great gray owls.  I remember driving and finding 50 in a day.

Fortunately a great gray owl was spotted and the birding paparazzi excitedly moved in to watch it.

It was far, lightly snowing and dusk but thanks to the timer on my Nikon D40 I was able to get an ok shot of it in the low light conditions.

All in all it was a great day of seeing some northern specialties (like the above rough-legged hawk).  If you haven't birded the bog and live within driving distance, grab some friends and head on up.  It's a doable day trip from the Twin Cities.  We left the the northern suburbs at 5:30am and stayed til dusk then stopped for dinner.  I got back to NBB by 9:30pm.

If you'd like to learn more, come to Birds and Beers on Monday.  Lots of people will be happy to share tips (and maybe you'll find a birding buddy to go up).  Also there is a Sax Zim Bog Bird Festival in Feburary which I haven't been to but I know lots of people who have gone and had a great time.  Bird festivals a great way to get to know an area you haven't birded before.

 

 

 

Happy 2012!

Turns out that my first bird digiscoped in 2012 is an American robin and I got it by holding up my iPhone to my scope. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.  Non Birding Bill and I tried to take some time off but with his show, it was a bit more action packed.  When he takes Man Saved By Condiments to New York at the end of February, I'm hoping to come out and visit for a few days, maybe even try a New York Birds and Beers.

I've been trying to figure out what my resolution for 2012 should be.  No matter what I come up with it cannot compare to the smashing success that was 2011 (eat more cultured butter). But I thought this year should be more bird related. So I think I'm going to try and be a better contributor to eBird.  I started off okay with it in 2011 then ended up doing survey work where I wasn't allowed to submit some of my observations (until the project is finished) and got out of the habit.

But as I looked to my BirdsEye App on my phone to see what birds are being reported in my area, I noticed that there are several birding hot spots that haven't had any reports for over a year or in some cases 2 or 3 years.  I think I'm going to do my part to submit observations for those areas to eBird and check out areas that are under reported.  There are a ton of places to watch birds and these places wouldn't have been listed on eBird the app as birding hot spots had there not been some activity going on.  So I'm hoping that I find some habitat and interesting bird observations for 2012.

Again, hope your year is off to a great start.

 

 

 

 

Fun On My Ground Surveys

20111103-154003.jpg Man the final stages of fall migration have set in. Today on my eagle survey I had a flock of tundra swans fly over me. It was really cool because the were headed towards the Mississippi River and I realized that chances were good that the would be included on my aerial waterfowl surveys next week.

20111103-154040.jpg

There are still plenty of eastern bluebirds around and I find it amazing that I can see the above bird in the field and take a photo and send it to the blog all via the iPhone.

Bluebird Not Thrilled With Woolly Bear Caterpillar

There have been a ton of eastern bluebird flocks milling about when I've been doing my fall surveys.  Their calls follow me everywhere on my surveys...and they always sound like they are apologizing for something.

One of the birds caught my attention because he was just wacking the crap out of something on the fence post.  I've seen birds do this with large mealworms or other bugs.  I was curious about the prize the bluebird had.

It was a woolly bear caterpillar. I figured the bluebird wanted to subdue the large caterpillar before swallowing it but seeing that it was a woolly bear and that the stripe in the center of a woolly bear is supposed to predict the how harsh the coming winter will be, I can only assume that this bluebird is still bitter about how long and snowy last winter was and is not thrilled with the prediction for this winter.

Hey, if you're not squeamish about handling live mealworms, here's a video I found of someone who uses them to hand feed bluebirds:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjxJgxQVd3w[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjxJgxQVd3w[/youtube]

 

Fledging Flickers

I saw some flickers learning the ways of the world on my bird surveys the other day. Even though that baby looks full grown, he's still hoping to be fed by the adults. Old habits die hard.

This appears to be a little bit of some father son bonding (they are both male, they both have a mustache).

The adult male didn't feed the younger one, but flew off, presumable to teach the younger bird where to forage for food on its own.