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Wednesday 19th August. Back to Grebe lake again. I chose Shutter Priority, so no more foolishly slow exposures. However, image brightness was all over the place. I changed EV and ISO countless times. The viewfinder was too bright and very washed out. While most of the images were far too dark! I should, of course, have used Constant Preview. So that every shutter button depression shows the actual degree of brightness or lack of in the next image.
Then I could have noticed the problem straight away and compensated with ISO or Shutter Speed. Instead of which I took lots of dark images which could not be brightened later in image handling software.
Two Grebe adults were present but only once did they come within a few yards of each other. They ignored each other while pending lots of time diving for food for their young. One adult was accompanied by one well grown chick. The other had two rather more independent chicks. Grebes are know to feed favourite chicks and ignore the others. I have seen them repeatedly driving young away. Even charging at them when the adult just happened to drift nearby!
It is interesting to see how hydrophobic the adult bird's plumage is despite spending lots of time underwater. Glistening droplets just roll off their backs. There is lots of preening and splashing about to keep their plumage in good condition. Meanwhile the chicks look constantly damp. They copy the actions of their parents when preening but haven't yet developed their own diving suit. Stabbing at your own back with such long, sharp beaks cannot be without risk!
Several fish of about 10cm or 4" in length were caught and delivered to each of the young. Grebe diving trips seem a very haphazard arrangement. Not only did it leave the chicks unprotected on the surface but the adult's resurfacing could happen almost anywhere on the lake! Presumably there is considerable underwater searching and chasing going on. One adult kept checking the sky for predators while on the surface.
The images above were captured within moments of each other. Both required heavy cropping to produce acceptable scale of the distant birds in the frame. They were both taken by the Leica 50-200 with the addition of the Lumix TC14 1.4x teleconverter. 280mm in Micro 4/3 or 560mm in 35mm Full Frame terms.
This is best considered as a 50 yards maximum range lens for filling the frame with a water bird. Any lens with a shorter focal length and you had better find a much smaller lake! You may capture some birds likenesses but they will be tiny on your image processing screen.
None of my Kowa digiscoping images were really worth sharing. [But see the two images below] This was despite my having captured nearly 500 images, in total, in my hour and half beside the lake. I can well understand why photographers prefer long, camera lenses to digiscoping. Automatic everything! WYSIWYG! Almost guaranteed images unless you are doing something very wrong.
Make no mistake, the Kowa '884 provides absolutely stunning images visually at any reasonable distance or power up to 96x! However, reliably converting that gorgeous imagery into still photographs still eludes me. Distance is a major part of the problem. The Grebes constantly keep their distance near the far shore at 120-150 yards. Coming nearer than half of the width of the lake only occurs by accident. That would provide only 50-60 yards range if I was very lucky.
A faulty, guidance system, resurfacing moment brought them closer only once today. Which was soon corrected. At the time I had the camera on the Kowa telescope. Which meant a very narrow field of view even at 25x for 1200mm equivalent focal length in 35mm terms. Finding the birds at 40-50 yards was a real struggle against the almost featureless, uniformly green, watery background.
I quickly changed to the Leica 50-200 [280mm equivalent] lens but it was already too late. The adult had spotted me instantly dived. Leaving its solitary chick to paddle quickly away. Those chicks can really travel! You should see the size of Grebe's feet. Like swans flippers stuck on birds smaller than most ducks.
This was the only digiscoping image where a chick had some light in its face. It had turned its head slightly in my direction. Most of the time their faces are in deep shadow because of the position of the sun in the sky relative to my position. The unbreakable rule is always to have the sun behind you.
I have no choice where I can position myself on the northern bank looking south west. There is litweally no access to the far [southerly] side of the lake. Where tortured, dead trees and large living specimens crowd most of the lake edges on three sides: East, south and west. Two, very large, private gardens close off all access over a quarter of the perimeter to the west of my position. Though well hidden by mature trees and tall reeds.
I have tried to explore the surrounding woodland but it is inaccessible due to impenetrable undergrowth.
I checked on Google Earth and there is really no other option for photography. I am very fortunate that the owner of the lake invited me to use his grass bank. He just happened to be walking his dog, recognised me and stopped to chat. It seems that other birdwatchers use the bank but are not always careful about their litter. Or perhaps others visit at night and leave the beer cans I see occasionally.
All joking aside, I may have to get a camouflage net to conceal my presence. Only then am I likely to have birds within a comfortable range for some serious image scale without cropping. Cropping reduces sharpness by digital enlarging. Reducing image size to suit the blog format further damages the sharpness. If I am already using 60x on the Kowa zoom then I am expecting too much from images of 120-130 yard distant birds. [See the final image below taken at 60x at 120 yards.]
All this is despite the lowly needs of the blog with regards to image quality. Postcard size is perfectly adequate for blogging posts with 1000-1200 Pixels maximum dimension. Make your images any larger and people will complain bitterly that it takes ages for a blog page to download on their "wet piece of string," Internet connection.
I enjoy 210/210Mbps fibre in rural Denmark despite being several miles from the nearest village. Denmark has taken the digital economy very seriously for years. Few other countries seem quite so fortunate. It would be ironic indeed if they need Musk's multi-satellite, internet system in supposed "developed" countries!
Now I am wondering if I should take my tablet to the lake to better monitor my captured images. The camera viewfinder is very obviously not an accurate depiction of the captured image. This is probably due to the lack of aperture control where the Kowa has no contacts to feed information back to the camera. It is just a dumb lens. Like using a legacy, film lens on a modern, digital camera. The contactless adapter is merely a supporting tube. Nothing else.
A problem which keeps surfacing is the touch screen on the G9. As I press my cheek against the camera to see through the excellent viewfinder I seem to be accidentally making adjustments to the settings. I have repeatedly caused bursts of exposure without intending to. This is caused by my accidentally touching the exposure bracketing symbol on the edge of the screen. I also keep pushing the central focusing point out to the edge of the touch screen.
I need the viewing screen to make adjustments and to check images by pressing playback. I haven't yet mastered making changes via the viewfinder. That would allow me to fold the screen safely away and stop it being such a nuisance. Worse, is that I have to put on stronger reading glasses just to see the tiny viewing screen clearly. They may claim it is a 3" screen but the "picture" is much smaller than the frame!
This is best considered as a 50 yards maximum range lens for filling the frame with a water bird. Any lens with a shorter focal length and you had better find a much smaller lake! You may capture some birds likenesses but they will be tiny on your image processing screen.
None of my Kowa digiscoping images were really worth sharing. [But see the two images below] This was despite my having captured nearly 500 images, in total, in my hour and half beside the lake. I can well understand why photographers prefer long, camera lenses to digiscoping. Automatic everything! WYSIWYG! Almost guaranteed images unless you are doing something very wrong.
Make no mistake, the Kowa '884 provides absolutely stunning images visually at any reasonable distance or power up to 96x! However, reliably converting that gorgeous imagery into still photographs still eludes me. Distance is a major part of the problem. The Grebes constantly keep their distance near the far shore at 120-150 yards. Coming nearer than half of the width of the lake only occurs by accident. That would provide only 50-60 yards range if I was very lucky.
A faulty, guidance system, resurfacing moment brought them closer only once today. Which was soon corrected. At the time I had the camera on the Kowa telescope. Which meant a very narrow field of view even at 25x for 1200mm equivalent focal length in 35mm terms. Finding the birds at 40-50 yards was a real struggle against the almost featureless, uniformly green, watery background.
I quickly changed to the Leica 50-200 [280mm equivalent] lens but it was already too late. The adult had spotted me instantly dived. Leaving its solitary chick to paddle quickly away. Those chicks can really travel! You should see the size of Grebe's feet. Like swans flippers stuck on birds smaller than most ducks.
This was the only digiscoping image where a chick had some light in its face. It had turned its head slightly in my direction. Most of the time their faces are in deep shadow because of the position of the sun in the sky relative to my position. The unbreakable rule is always to have the sun behind you.
I have no choice where I can position myself on the northern bank looking south west. There is litweally no access to the far [southerly] side of the lake. Where tortured, dead trees and large living specimens crowd most of the lake edges on three sides: East, south and west. Two, very large, private gardens close off all access over a quarter of the perimeter to the west of my position. Though well hidden by mature trees and tall reeds.I have tried to explore the surrounding woodland but it is inaccessible due to impenetrable undergrowth.
I checked on Google Earth and there is really no other option for photography. I am very fortunate that the owner of the lake invited me to use his grass bank. He just happened to be walking his dog, recognised me and stopped to chat. It seems that other birdwatchers use the bank but are not always careful about their litter. Or perhaps others visit at night and leave the beer cans I see occasionally.
All joking aside, I may have to get a camouflage net to conceal my presence. Only then am I likely to have birds within a comfortable range for some serious image scale without cropping. Cropping reduces sharpness by digital enlarging. Reducing image size to suit the blog format further damages the sharpness. If I am already using 60x on the Kowa zoom then I am expecting too much from images of 120-130 yard distant birds. [See the final image below taken at 60x at 120 yards.]
All this is despite the lowly needs of the blog with regards to image quality. Postcard size is perfectly adequate for blogging posts with 1000-1200 Pixels maximum dimension. Make your images any larger and people will complain bitterly that it takes ages for a blog page to download on their "wet piece of string," Internet connection.
I enjoy 210/210Mbps fibre in rural Denmark despite being several miles from the nearest village. Denmark has taken the digital economy very seriously for years. Few other countries seem quite so fortunate. It would be ironic indeed if they need Musk's multi-satellite, internet system in supposed "developed" countries!
Now I am wondering if I should take my tablet to the lake to better monitor my captured images. The camera viewfinder is very obviously not an accurate depiction of the captured image. This is probably due to the lack of aperture control where the Kowa has no contacts to feed information back to the camera. It is just a dumb lens. Like using a legacy, film lens on a modern, digital camera. The contactless adapter is merely a supporting tube. Nothing else.A problem which keeps surfacing is the touch screen on the G9. As I press my cheek against the camera to see through the excellent viewfinder I seem to be accidentally making adjustments to the settings. I have repeatedly caused bursts of exposure without intending to. This is caused by my accidentally touching the exposure bracketing symbol on the edge of the screen. I also keep pushing the central focusing point out to the edge of the touch screen.
I need the viewing screen to make adjustments and to check images by pressing playback. I haven't yet mastered making changes via the viewfinder. That would allow me to fold the screen safely away and stop it being such a nuisance. Worse, is that I have to put on stronger reading glasses just to see the tiny viewing screen clearly. They may claim it is a 3" screen but the "picture" is much smaller than the frame!
In the menus I discovered how to "switch off" the active symbols on the right of the touch screen. I haven't found a way to expand the screen image to cover that now completely wasted area. So there is a black/blank stripe down that edge.
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