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Tuesday 1st September. Another visit to the lake in bright but cloudy conditions with sunny periods..
Despite having Continuous Preview set on the Lumix G9 many of my hundreds of digiscoping images were so dark they were almost black. Yet again, most of them looked out of focus or grainy.
Meanwhile, video was great on the 50-200 x 1.4 TC. Sharp and bright but simply too distant. So I tried the 1.4x, in-camera teleconverter on video and it was surprisingly good. With much better reach at 400mm equivalent focal length. [280 x 1.4 = 392.]
As I have reported before: The Kowa '884 images are absolutely stunning visually. Best I have ever seen in a long lifetime of telescope and binocular use. Why do I have such a problem capturing what I can see so clearly?
If only I had not trusted my settings and the viewfinder and had checked Review. I could have seen, yet again, that there was a serious exposure problem. I must be missing something about settings for a contactless [manual] lens. I shall have to do some serious research on settings for "dumb" or legacy lenses with smart camera bodies.
Update: This morning I set up the tripod in the garden with the telescope and camera attached. I used the PA7 "lenseless" Kowa adapter at 25x on the Kowa zoom eyepiece. I used the wireless shutter release to kill the obvious shake whenever I touched the camera or telescope.
Update: This morning I set up the tripod in the garden with the telescope and camera attached. I used the PA7 "lenseless" Kowa adapter at 25x on the Kowa zoom eyepiece. I used the wireless shutter release to kill the obvious shake whenever I touched the camera or telescope. BTW: The Pixel Oppilas wireless sender eats AAA batteries. It is always on without any switch. The receiver has an off switch. Removal of the batteries is a bore due to the ridiculously tight battery cover! Broken thumbnails tight!
Otherwise it works well enough for single and short burst releases. Sadly it doesn't work for video on the G9. Now that would be real magic! Try pressing a button on a camera dangling from a 2000mm telephoto lens without causing a massive wobble! NEWS: A YT poster suggests you should use Creative Video instead of normal. This allows the wireless remote to start and stop video. I'll look into that.
Wireless Remote Video control: Setting the G9 dial to Manual Video provides start and stop on the wireless remote. That's a relief! Video is a great shortcut to worthwhile digiscoping results. Getting sharp stills is the difficult part.
The Manfrotto 055 CF tripod is not remotely stiff enough for digiscoping with the legs fully extended. I usually have only the first, thicker sections extended and sit on a camping stool behind the camera. I use a Sirui gimbal head but it has its own serious issues. Like a complete lack of friction. A total waste of money! If only I could get it apart I could modify it to provide the vital, smooth drag in panning. Complete freedom makes for jerky movements.
The "secret" to getting sharper pictures and correct exposure seems to be going over to all manual settings. Manual focus. Manual ISO. Manual exposure. Manual on the settings dial.
The Manfrotto 055 CF tripod is not remotely stiff enough for digiscoping with the legs fully extended. I usually have only the first, thicker sections extended and sit on a camping stool behind the camera. I use a Sirui gimbal head but it has its own serious issues. Like a complete lack of friction. A total waste of money! If only I could get it apart I could modify it to provide the vital, smooth drag in panning. Complete freedom makes for jerky movements.
The "secret" to getting sharper pictures and correct exposure seems to be going over to all manual settings. Manual focus. Manual ISO. Manual exposure. Manual on the settings dial.
Today's tests had ISO in the low thousands. [More image noise?] At least it meant movement freezing, shutter speeds. I captured wind blown trees at 40, 100 and 600 yards. Not razor sharp but a definite improvement. Whether this translates into sharper water bird images at the usual 80-120 yards I shall have to see. I can only judge progress after a new trial at the lake.
This time I pressed the Review button on the G9 after each and every single exposure to check sharpness and brightness. Continuous Preview seems to be worthless after a useful start. Perhaps it is switched off under certain other settings? Some menu settings ae blacked out when another choice is made.
There is a Kowa digiscoping product advertisement/guide online. The Micro 4/3 camera and 25-60mm eyepiece with the PA7 adapter: 25x = 2000mm equivalent. 40x = 3500mm equiv. 60x = 4900mm equiv. No wonder the image magnification seems so extreme! And, so very different to the superb, visual appearance at the eyepiece.
Full frame would be far easier with its much lower equivalent focal lengths halved compared to the 4/3 format. Adding the Lumix 20mm pancake lens reduces the magnification but still needs the correct settings. Another area of research to attend to.
I am guessing that these quoted figures are equivalent focal lengths in 35mm FF terms due to the usual crop factor of 2. Dividing these f/l figures by 50 will give the effective magnification. 2000mm = 40x, 3500 = 70x and 4900 = 98x. There is also the 1.6x Kowa extender = 3200mm, 5600mm & 7840mm respectively!! You do the maths!
I am guessing that these quoted figures are equivalent focal lengths in 35mm FF terms due to the usual crop factor of 2. Dividing these f/l figures by 50 will give the effective magnification. 2000mm = 40x, 3500 = 70x and 4900 = 98x. There is also the 1.6x Kowa extender = 3200mm, 5600mm & 7840mm respectively!! You do the maths!
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