gregscott

<p>Thanks for you advice! I appreciate your input, all of you.</p>

<p>Thank you! I can normallly walk a TOTAL of about 3 miles a day, maximum. It can be fairly steep if I take it very slow. A 3 mile hike would take me about 4 hours.</p>

<p>I'm interested in locations and times for Vermont and New Hampshire in Late September/ Early October.<br>

I like wilderness, iconic locations that are easy to get to. I can't hike much at all because of disability.<br>

Waterfalls, Maple forests, Mountains, Trains, scenic farms, ocean, lakes, river, covered bridges, etc.<br>

Usually I just drive and look, trying for a more efficient plan!</p>

<p>Well, I finally got the red dot sight to go with the hot shoe adapter.<br>

I'm extremely pleased. Hopefully, I'll have some photos to post soon. It's rainy now, so maybe tomorrow.</p>

<p>I had to cancel my order with the unknown Amazon.com vendor, and placed a new order with Midway.com.<br>

I'll let you know how it works out, but it will be a bit longer...</p>

<p>With regard to parallax, I think that this will be an easy issue to address. I have a 300mm prime lens I mostly use. The working distance for this is about 10 to 20 feet for many birds. I sight in the scope at a working distance, and hopefully be close enough to correct to take photos without looking through the viewfinder at all. We'll see if that works out...</p>

<p>I went ahead and ordered this, and will let you know how it works out for me.</p>

<p>That's the essence of it: A wider field of view, without any focus issues, but good ability to center the frame on the bird. You just sight, and hope that you are "on the bird" well enough to make a decent composition. For example, a problem with this setup would be if the bird were too close, or too far away, you wouldn't necessarily see that at the moment. On the other hand, you would have a much BETTER idea just ahead of time when the bird's flight path might be about to cross a good background.<br /> You would have to be aware of the right range to take the shot. But keeping the bird in frame so that autofocus could work might be much, much easier. Your view is not made unworkable by autofocus seeking. You just pan with the bird, Click a little early, and hopefully, will acquire focus in time to get the shot or shots.<br /> Here is a supplier of an adapter for the hot shoe to scope:<br /> http://www.photosolve.com/main/product/xtendasight/index.html<br /> if you look around the site, you can see that the price is 26.95. No drilling, tapping, fuss. Plug and play.<br>

Sighting in the scope would be trivially simple. Just allow for parallax at the working distance of the lens. You're done in a couple of test exposures. A tripod would help for sighting in accurately.</p>

 

<p>I've never been any good at photos of birds in flight. I just can't seem to find the bird in the viewfinder at all, because of autofocus issues, and being able to keep the bird in frame.<br /> I just read about a hotshoe mount that holds a red dot sight. Has anybody tried this?<br /> <br /> How does it work for you? What kind of red dot sight do you use?<br /> <br /> Thanks.<br /> <p><b>Signature URL removed. Not allowed per photo.net guidelines.</b></p></p>

<p>Thanks so much for your informed opinion, Tom, and Jeff. I especially like the posting of the example. It was an example of Simplify I saw that made this a must have:<br>

<a href="

Below is an example of a horrible photo that I "salvaged" using simplify, and find the results marginally useful, and the simplify effects at least interesting, particularly in the greener leaves and in the water. The detail on the fish was almost invisible, and is almost decent here:</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/14343612-lg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="1437" /></p>

<p> </p>

<p>Suffering can force a person to acquire depth. Needless choice of suffering may indicate a lack of depth. So it can work either way.</p>

<p>I'm thinking about buying Topaz simplify. If I do, should I get a big bundle of their stuff? Or save my money for other filters. Which digital manipulators are most important to you? The only other filter I'm tempted by is one I've heard about which works like HDR, but instead stacks and blends images for sharp DOF.<br>

Here's a semi-realistic photo I manipulated with Topaz Simplify. I made a simplify manipulation, and then layered the original semi-transparently back on top of the manipulation. It looks realistic, but more vivid and less harsh than the original, as if under a much softer light.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/14331665-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="466" /></p>

<p>In the old days, when buying stereo components, you did better investing in higher quality speakers than the rest of your system. They were the critical point. Likewise, with lenses, this is where you will put most of your money. On the other hand, every body upgrade you ever do will likely add some more control, and a better sensor/resolution. So if you are NOT walking around every day screaming "More Pixels!", hang in there, and save your money for the long term investment, the glass. Otherwise, if you simply must have a feature like live view, or more resolution, buy a new body. Or maybe a used 5D mark II.</p>

<p>If you change the aspect ratio, without linking the dimensions, you can rescale the image so everybody looks thinner! This is normally not a very good solution, but for some photos, it can work pretty well.</p>

An example of an unmanipulated irridescent blue throat with just a little help from ambient light.<div></div>

The answer definitely varies with species. I haven't found ANY flash placement which works reliably with some species. Others, like the broadbills, you just can't miss. Some species, like the Ruby throat, 14 degrees on each side of the lens works just fine. I think this also worked well with broadtails. On the other hand, blue throats, magnificents, and black chins and coasta drove me crazy this year until one evening:

After sunset, with the sky somewhat bright blue and no overcast, in the somewhat dark twilight as I was tearing down my equipment, I saw the brightest irridescence I've ever seen on a magnificant, at least in terms of relative to the other illumination of the bird. First, the light was quite indirect and diffuse, and from overhead. As I pondered, I realized that it's much easier to see the ambience in natural light than flash. I don't your answer in flash, but I found a practical "workaround". Make sure you use a little ambient light. Expose so that your ambient light is 2 stops underexposed. You'll get a natural (but dark) background, or you can use a white card in the background, or whatever. But the ambient light will somehow provide more irridescence. I've got some photos posted on my section (Greg Scott) here, or you can visit my website, www.gregscott.com, to see my examples from year 2006. Warning: some of my "misses" have gorgets "colorized" in photoshop. The brighter the irridescence, the more likely that it's the real mccoy.

Corrected. Previous image "wrong".<div></div>

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