Friday, June 19, 2009

Antpitta revisited


I've written the third (and final) part of a digiscoping mini-series for August's Bird Watching magazine. This month we are concentrating on 'tricks' of the experts. Included in this are Kevin Du Rose's patent rubberband technique. Using a bog-standard rubberband and a key ring, you can make a digiscoping adapter in seconds for next to nixpence.

That was how I digiscoped this shot of a Chestnut-crowned Antpitta in Colombia earlier this year (in very dark, forest conditions). I know you may have seen this shot before, but I just thought I'd present a close up, full size (if you click it), to see exactly what a rubberband can achieve. A quick check of the Exif data shows the photo was taken with a shutter speed of 1.0sec.

2 comments:

Peter said...

Having been present when this image was taken I know just how bad the light was - I'm not surprised that you're so pleased with it. Your rubber band technique certainly out-performed by Canon DSLR set-up. Of course, if the bird had been moving about it might have been a different story.

Dale Forbes said...

that shot is incredible enough to re-post over and over again. dont be shy.