First Post: May Warblers and Camera Thoughts

Well, I can't think of a better time to start a birding blog. May is here, and so are the neotropical migrants. With school being so busy and the birding being so good, I doubt I'll have time for much else this month. I just picked up a new camera, a Canon Powershot A590IS. It's my second digiscoping camera, with the first being the old Nikon CP4500, a digiscoping classic. It was time to move on...the rechargeable battery was losing life, the auto focus wasn't as sharp as I remember it, and it's just a big clunky camera. So I decided to take advantage of a very low price on the Canon ($149 at amazon.com) and upgrade to an 8 megapixel.

Pretty good results so far with the camera. First, the menus are intuitive, the screen is much larger than my old one, and it's size and shape are ideal for easy handheld use. Probably the best thing about this camera is the ability to 'digibin'...the binocular equivalent of digiscoping. The camera is small and light enough so that I can photograph through the right eyecup while I look through the left eyecup with my right eye (got that?). My initial results, shown here, have really pleased me so far. With the old Nikon I had no hope of documenting warblers and flying birds, but now I can!

This Yellow-rumped Warbler was one of many at East Rock Park in New Haven this week (digibinned)


Black-throated Blue Warbler at ERP (digibinned)


Worm-eating Warbler at ERP (digibinned)

The digiscoping has not gone as smoothly as hoped, yet. I am having some trouble with vignetting at the moment, but I hope to figure out a way to get around this. I'll get into detail some other time.


This pair of American Oystercatchers has taken up residence at Sandy Point in West Haven (digiscoped)

So that's it for the inaugural post. There will be much more to come as migration develops. Shorebird numbers are building...hopefully this will be the year I see Curlew Sandpiper in Connecticut.

Thanks for reading.

Nick

Comments

  1. Really a nice job, Nick. Great idea and I will keep looking in!

    Mark

    ReplyDelete

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