Flatholm Island in Trouble?

It is that time again for another pointless post with promises I can only hope but make but hopefully Danny from Dannysdigiscoping having a little competition being held in a few months could be that push to make some time to get back out there. The fun of competing, which granted isnt as fun as winning but never the less I am hoping it gives me that push.

 The biggest news that has hit me as I waste days not digiscoping is the selling of Flatholm Island, I have been to Flatholm twice, yes you heard twice and despite the bombardment of lesser black back gulls and rabbits suffering on myxomatosis, it is an enjoyable time out with nice weather, spectacular wildlife and pretty flowers if you are into that stuff. I don't tend to get political with my posts partly because it is not relevant. As part of the wonderful government budget cuts that have been going on for a while now, which as you can see...are not helping at all, they say this for flatholm:

  Proposal: To Cease Operation of Flatholm Island and Consider Options for Disposal.

  The visitor and income profile for Flatholm demonstrates that demand for the island is highly concentrated in the summer months and is insufficient to cover the operating costs of the facility. It is proposed to cease all visits to the island, and dispose of the island to a third party with no further Council involvement. Visits to the island could be ceased promptly whilst options for disposal are explored. The budget saving reflects retention of a small contingency for service visits during closure.The proposal also includes the disposal of the Lewis Alexander, the vessel currently used to service the island which has increasing costs associated with keeping it serviceable and licensed due to age. If minded to retain some operation of the Island whilst disposal is explored and effected, revision of operations so that visits and overnight stays are only facilitated in the summer could be implemented saving the lower amount of £100k, with visitor access provided by partner commercial boat operators, with emergency/service visits by Council staff facilitated through the Harbour Authority's "survey vessel"

A Depressing Site

Today I took a trip to Llanishen Reservoir, a depressing site I must say, once a massive lake used for sailing is now a insulting puddle (and I am not even exaggerating) all thanks to the WPD who want to sell the land for housing development. This however has sparked a massive public debate since the surrounding areas have been marked a SSSI. If you want more information on this visit LlanishenRAG.

The day started out trying to find the reservoir, after walking paths and across a field, the muddy entrance revealed itself, a stone and a piece of fence was placed down to save people from being knee deep in sticky, soggy mud. Passed this a hill lead up to a fenced off reservoir, well reservoir was stretching it, it was what once was a reservoir, now just a desolant area, unmanaged and uncared for it was rather shocking to see. Walking around the fenced off reservoir just lead me to another area fenced off, I managed to find another lake, this lake was accessible to the public as there were several people around it. On this lake I found the tufted ducks, grebes and something rattling in the grass, I never could locate the source of the sound. This trip along with all my summer outings proved to be an unsuccesful one. Nothing special only a tufted duck, canada geese and a great crested grebe, perhaps next time I will choose somewhere where the wildlife is plenty, timing and luck is all i need.

More Like It

Today I took a trip to Chepstow, I remember a nice antique shop there which I was looking forward to, when I got there however it was closed, pity. However, I felt like I needed to get a nice shot or otherwise I would die! So out of an half hearted decision I decided to bring the kit aswell.

Not much to report here but I did get a photo of a Jackdaw! A good photo and one I like since coming back and taken with my little panny, this jackdaw was right out where the car was parked so a nice and easy shot from not far away.

Getting back into things

Today I took a trip to Roath Park, a place I go to get easy shots, instead however it made me realise my mistake and made my mind put two and two together and work out why it has taken me so long to get back into things.

The day started by a walk round the lake, the typical birds were present, swans, mallards, coots and moorhens. All easy subjects (apparently), I for some reason find it much more difficult to get a decent picture of waterfowl, I much prefer song birds as they make much nicer pictures and provide me with a challenge.

Talking about challenges, I came across a heron, a grey heron and to be honest, I hate trying to get a picture of one, they are so easy to over expose, but the eye, its so easy to pick up and get sharp, it can create such a horrible experience. After about 40 failed attempts of taking a decent picture of a Heron I headed back and on my way bumped into a few black swans and robins. This trip produced no photos that were keepers but next time I will hold my head high as I go back to my old pano.

grey herons are easy to expose

Successful Nesters

Summer has ended and it is back to the miserable weather, unless you live in Wales like me, the miserable weather just seemed to keep going through the summer. Some good news to come out of this summer was that in the garden two pairs of nesting blue tits were sucessful in rearing their young, with luck not on my side both these pairs didn't choose the nest box with the camera in it but with hope next year could bring some nesters as right now a blue tit has gone in to roost every night, fingers crossed he/she makes it a whole year round.

Baader Optical Wonder Cloth

Every now and then your optics need wiping and sometimes your optics have delicate coatings that you do not want to damage. Baader have created a little cloth that says to clean your lenses without damaging it.

The cloth does exactly what it says, it cleans your optics from dirt, finger prints and smudges, it is of excellent quality with fine stitching and durable in strength, having had mine for over two years it has still has shown no signs of tearing or weakening and still looks as good as it did when it came out of the box. Baader gives you a generous size cloth to work with (25x25CM) giving you a sense of purchasing a well made product.

For a £5 price tag it pretty much is an excellent accessory to get your hands on, I have found it uneccassary to use anything else or try anything else as the quality of this product is fantastic, however one must wonder when it would be time to throw it away after all the build up of grease and dirt it is still great value for money!

A Look at the Celestron Regal Spotting Scope

I have gradually upgraded my scope over the years for my never ending quest of getting better results, I started with a Camlink CSP80 a cheap, affordable scope, it did do the trick and  I wanted to see if digiscoping was for me. My thirst for sharper images caused me to spend more dough which I then bought a Celestron Ultima 80ED. A Scope that you can say is inbetween Celestron's just Ultima Range and its Regal range and then without taking any risks (getting a scope by a different brand) I bought a Celestron Regal 80 F-ED the best offered by Celestron.

The Eyepiece

Because of its 1.25 barrel the
Celestron can fit third party eyepieces

The eyepiece is different to the Ultima and the Ultima ED series of scopes. The supplied regal eyepiece feels chunkier, larger and better built with the scope itself containing a locking mechanism to secure the eyepiece into place and with this 1.25" barrel you have a large selection of third party eyepieces. 

This is a great thing since digiscoping is no place for zoom eyepieces and a wide angle lens can get rid of all that vignetting, alas, depending on the camera. Back to the supplied eyepiece Just like thier Ultima series the eyecup comes off to reveal a thread,a 52mm thread to be exact a different size to that of the ultima series but it comes with a little (and I mean little) adapter that allows you to fit anything that already fitted on your Ultima scope.

Design

The Celestron looks far from cheap, in fact it is of very sturdy build, I wouldn't reccommend dropping it but it has survived a few falls. Weighing at 2041g the weight of Celestron scopes is one of the biggest reasons why people tend tosteer away from them but with such a small price tag I do not see the weight as an issue but it can be for people of a few older generations. I have checked and the Celestron Regal 80 F-ED is only 500g heavier than the Swarovski scope. My personal opinion is that the scope is fine to carry and most of the weight is let off when it is being carried on a tripod so you will most likely not suffer a back ache.

Focusing

The regal comes with two focus knobs, one for coarse focusing and one for fine focusing. I have had some people contact me having an issue with the coarse focus knob being stiff, this is true, but, just to start with. Over time the coarse focus will loosen to a satsifactory level allowing to focus with ease, even with your pinky finger.

Image Quality

Cameras can easily attach to the
Celestron thanks to its threads

Comparing to the Ultima ED the colours are more accurate, more detailed and more focused it and it gives satisfying results. Purple fringing seldom makes itself appear and the colours are accurate when looking through the eyepiece.

As a digiscoping scope the detail it can pick it is pretty impressive given there is plenty of light and capture is at the right moment, with a few nit picks here and there considering its price tag the image quality is far from poor.


The Celestron Regal spotting scope offers tremendous value for money, and according to some third party reviews is hands down the best scope you can get for under £1000, with a few setbacks such as the weight these are nit picks and with a under £1000 price tag it would be hard to ignore such a good product.

How to Attach a Camera to a Baader Eyepiece

Someone asked me how does the camera exactly attach to a baader eyepiece. This is not the first time I have been asked this so to save people some time from waiting for me to reply here is a short video showing you how it does.

Blue Tit Roosting ( Birdbox Camera )

A year or two back I installed a bird box camera into, of course, one of my nestboxes. With my luck I have never had any nesters in them but from this moment I have got a roosting blue tit. Here is a video of it having a bit of a stretch!

Oh look... A Canadian Goose, Aye!

Well, it's about time I introduce myself to you all, I seem to be mentioned a lot here... Don't know why!

I am Cee, the creator of that terribly awful bloggy thing that the owner keeps linking in his blogs. I know right? You think he'd learn it sucks, but he never does!

So, being the wonderful person I am, the most I can do with a camera is click it! That's it, I can turn it on and click the button and then there is a picture, when it comes to my skill, you need 50 before you get one good picture, but alas, I have a few to share with you.

See, the thing is, the digiscoping supergraphers having NOTHING on my impeccable skills of turning on and clicking a button!

I am not a professional, not nearly as good as Danny over there and Geraint in the corner, but I think I have a knack for it, so let me share with you some unseen footage, yes, you've got it folks, it's like reading your favourite gossip magazine in the hopes of a juicy story, except with birds and bugs and dragonflies. Oh, come on! It's not all bad, the bugs are juicy!

Well, enough about me, let's move on to the pictures, I am going to treat you to some old photos of mine, there are two that actually puckered my interest in photography and though I still just consider myself a girl with a camera, seeing the photos I have taken over the two years I have been photographing, I consider myself to have some sort of knack for it and of course as the title suggests... A Canadian Goose!

Not sure what it is, I'd be glad if anybody can give me the name of it though! 

So ugh, I wasn't too sure about this photo, this is actually the first ever photo I took when photography started to become a hobby of mine, it is simple enough, tadpoles eating a dead slug.

When I first started taking photos, I took frogs, tadpoles and dragon flies and used them as my inspiration, I loved that, they were very unpredictable and it was fun sitting by my pond for hours, watching the frogs jump around and actually seeing this very nymph, become a dragon fly, I think this is the picture that really made me validate myself as more then a girl just taking photos for the sake of it.

I took this on an outing with the owner of TheBirdGarden, Geraint, he is teaching me more and more and I don't think he realizes that, but this! This, my friends, is a Canadian Goose! 

... And just for the sake of it, have a Barnacle Goose too! Why? Because I said can,

Well folks, this is my first official, you hear that? Official blog on TheBirdGarden, isn't it just impressive, I think these photos are splendidly amateurish!

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I wrote this.

Bye folks.

Cee.

Oh by the way, just because Geraint hates him so

Adam Sandler!

P.s:- Over there is a duck! 

...

There is no duck!

Panasonic Lumix LS75 for Sale

I am selling my Panasonic Lumix LS75 which pretty much has given me most of the images in my gallery. It comes completely  boxed with original wires and carry case, CD and instructions which all never came out of the box when I bought it. There are no scratches I can visibly see on the lcd screen or lens. There are a two chips near the controls which you can see in the picture below

This camera is great for getting started in digiscoping and is an excellent camera for outings and to give to someone little. The only reason I am selling is that I have no longer use for it after upgrading

a picture taken with this through a Celestron Regal spotting scope, here is the image on flickr to prove on the cmos on the side it was take with this.

£40 or Make me an offer, the worst that can happen is that i can say no! contact me via the contact page. payment via paypal so you can buy with confidence!

NOW SOLD

Cosmeston Lake

The other day I took a trip down to cosmeston lake. This was the first trip I have done in a while, It could have been better, taken the trip in the evening where plenty people were around wasnt the best conditions for birding, but I managed to capture this bee which Danny told me was a common carder bee, with a poor picture to go on, he can only assume from what was given to him.

In the same week and a few days before I also took a trip to Roath Park lake, to get into the feel of things again, not bringing my equipment I went there with Cee to get into the feel of things again. Apart from having a nice time, I also took a picture of this flower and the only thing I took all day. Dunno what it is, it was in the green house. Until next time.

Improving Wildlife Photos with Photoshop

This quick guide will show you some tips on how to get the most from your pictures, and because it is written by a novice like me I am sure you will understand the simpleness behind it....that is if you ignore the grammatical errors and enjoy this non proof read guide.

This guide is all about improving and has nothing to do with manipulating your photos i.e. removing branches, adding backgrounds. this is because of two reasons, reason one, I'm too stupid to know how to do that and reason two I feel (and this is a personal feeling) that manipulating the photo takes all the skill out of taking that perfect shot.

Now this is pretty much for people like me and hopefully you, someone who hasn't got the dough for a huge expensive setup for them spanking shiny photos, but instead opted for a cheaper output like digiscoping and have decided you'd like to 'pimp' those photographs.

Now for this neat silly little guide we are going to use one picture, this picture below to be exact, hope this helps.

Sharpen

Ah, sharpen, probably the tool everyone uses first and maybe like you (well definitely me) as you click the mouse on the filter tab you went for the sharpen option. It is much better to go to the unsharp mask, why?...just go with it, you can see results so why question it.

Now after web searching, googling and trial and error I think these settings work the best

If sharpness looks too noticeable I'd suggest undoing it and if the opposite press ctrl + F to apply it again until you get what you prefer and keep in mind the better your computer monitor the better you can see the sharpness at work. If you think you have over sharpened hit ctrl + z to undo the sharpness. You also might like to fiddle around a bit yourself for your personal preference.

Cropping

I do not tend to do much cropping for the simple reason of that I am happy with the position of most of my shots to begin with, I chose this photo in particular because it is a photo I would like to crop as to the left there is a big empty space with nothing happening in it so what we would like to do is get rid of it.

This is easily done by chose the rectangular marquee tool and highlighting the area you want to keep by holding down the left mouse button. Now with the area you want to keep highlighted go to the image tab and select crop and ta dah! I am not sure if there are any other ways of doing this but this is definitely the best way.

Cropping can help frame that perfect image.

Noise Reduction

If you have troubles with your sharping technique I sometimes use this as a backup, I generally do not have noise appearing in my photos..well not much anyway but this can also enhance your photos and give it more of a clean sharper feel while being subtle. These settings are my much preferred.

There are other techniques which I will cover here but not in so much detail.

Contrast & Vibrancy

I do not tend to use these much as they fiddle with the original colours and with the current camera I have combined with the spotting scope, the colours I get are pretty swell not to be tampered with. Contrast & vibrancy are the two favoured and preferred methods to use, contrast in my opinion is fiddly and depending on the picture more or less could look better, too much or too less can ruin your picture and it is best not to go far beyond 0.

Vibrancy is similar to saturation and quite simply can warm your photo, I do not use this as I set my camera on the cloudy setting on the white balance, this makes the colours already warming and saves me on processing it afterwards.

Blurring

Blurring can be used to give the photo more of a depth of field, to me the best and very fiddly way to do this is to use the lasso tool and go around the image in focus, after you are done with this go to the select tab and click inverse, this will now have the background highlight, now you can go to the filter and use what blur you think looks best, I used to use gaussean blur but now I do not bother with blurring as I am usually generally pleased with the depth of field of my photos.

Chromatic Abberation

Now if you are having trouble with what is also called purple fringing, I have found this neat little trick that will work most of the time, for this you will need this and Extract the file and Send the location to the \Presets\Actions folder where Photoshop is installed on your computer. After that run Photoshop.

Now on Photoshop go to windows and select actions or alternatively you can press ALT & F9. This will bring up your actions window look for the one  titled "purple fringe killer" click it once and beneath it there is a Play symbol hit that and away it goes a box will appear after the process, just click OK on that and done! To see a slightly more in depth guide click here.

Hope this helps you even a little, happy birding

The birds and the bees..this post contains niether

woah another post, can't remember the last time that happened. Over the next few weeks I am hoping to get back out on the field since now my tripod has been fixed I need to do some proper field tests with the Nikon P5100...and by field tests I mean take pictures and nod my head in agreement if they look good.

In the meantime the blog is being update, new pages are up like the one on how to do macro photography for under £55 and an about page just because every site seems to have one.

Danny has go a new blog up and if you are interested in bees I'd recommend going to visit and I am sure soon he will make a post on here telling you all about it. Be sure to check the photos on the side with all my best ones and my flickr page too, here is a picture of a fly.

Guess a post is needed

Woah, some time away....okay a big time a way, anyway the reason for this? like for the last couple of times I havent been anywhere to do such digiscoping or photography, my time has seemed to been lost somewhere else. Hmm but to prove this blog is not dead here is a post...this post, and here are some pictures...these pictures!

I can make some wacky promises that i will be back on my feet out there again but at this moment in time i can't be sure what the future will bring, until the meantime please visit danny for your digiscoping pleasures...if that is the kind of thing you get off too.

Adult Iceland Gull, Lowestoft

Hello again digiscopers and other life forms!

I post again with digiscoping tales from the East of England.

This time I am going to talk about the adult Iceland Gull that has been gracing Lowestoft docks for nearly 5 months. Last year I myself found a first winter Iceland Gull that stayed for almost 7 months, but this year a full adult bird was found.

The younger bird didnt change so much in its appearance during its stay, but this adult bird is completely different. The bill and head colours are now displaying full breeding plumage, and the white is so pure that it really could be snow!

Also, the bird is quite photogenic, and at times shows really well. I decided that I would like to try to get some flight shots, so I reorganised my camera bag to fit my DSLR and adapter in as well, so that I could switch between the 2 different camera styles. I use the compact for stills whereas the DSLR is much better for flight shots owing to the easier focussing technique.

Anyway, I got a few reasonable shots, along with the one posted I was very pleased. I have inset a still of the bird so that you can see more of its snowy beauty, and the white wing tips that puts it into the "white winged gull" catergory, along with Glaucous and Ivory Gulls.

I hope you like it as much as me!!

Until next time,

Danny
www.dannydigiscoping.com

The New....Dannys Digiscoping Blog...

Ok, ok, ok,

Its not really the new Dannys Digiscoping blog, its still the BirdGarden blog. Blog owner Geraint has taken some leave of absence to spend time with some of his other interests (well, one actually, and she's very nice!)

So, its up to me, good ol Danny to help his friend fulfill his blogging duties until his good friend is back in the hotseat!!

I have spent most of 2012 falling back in love with my compact set up. It consisits of my Swarovski ATS 80 HD, 25-50x wide angle eyepiece, Swarovski UCA and Nikon Coolpix P5100.

Its a great set up, and I'm re-learning how to use big zooms. Its all quite easy until the camera is zoomed. Then the aperture really starts to get cut down. It is a sunny weather activity only at such high magnifications, so pick your day well.

However, the results can be soooo much better, and they really fill the frame, so less cropping!

See what you think....

Best Wishes

On this blog January doesn't exist

Whoops, look at this a whole two months without a blog post, I hear you all crying in distress as people yet again take to the streets causing riots...among other things. As again I have yet to gone out anywhere to take any pictures and have been rather busy with other things. On the brightside I purchased a rather unusual item from the interwebz.

Know what it is yet? I'll save you the trouble of endlessly searching the web for the answer, it is the skull of a British Jay! this Jay was a by product of an extermination process.

This will be a short post but i assure you I will get back out there and with god as my witness!....you'll probably be dissapointed.

The Nikon P5100

Yes folks, you heard it right, the time has finally come. I finally grew a pair and made the plunge for a new camera and by the title it was indeed the Nikon....P....5100! I got this camera because Danny from dannysdigiscoping had me at gunpoint to hit the bid button on eBay!...oh and the other reason that it is meant to be one of the best cameras for digiscoping.

Do I like it? pfft what do I look like a guy who can give you a sensible and well constructed opinion? The truth is I havent really gone and taken it for a test run but the good news is, it works and I have got it to work with my kit with zero vignetting! Absolutely marvelous.

I know now your'e thinking "why bother making a post if you aint giving us anything TheBirdGarden?" but oh that is where you are wrong, I have taken some test shots to show you some image quality control (although im not entirely sure how to use manual so your stuck with auto mode with me)....here is a picture of a beanie lizard and a 100% crop I took a few days ago

After these I was curious how it worked on a bird! Yes those things I tend to take pictures of. So today I wrapped up warm, put on my game face and headed out in the garden fighting whatever the elements threw at me!...but as my luck goes no birds came and instead I got a cat and not just any cat, a spoilt rotten house cat that is probably after my birds.....o the fun to see them.

I Mush, You Mush, We All Mush For, Wait......

Told you I'd be back and I'm pretty sure I didn't say a date when on my last post.....I could read back over it but its effort. I haven't got any bird pictures today, I know I know I hear you all moaning in the cheap seats! I have got something else for you instead.

A long time ago in the year.....(checks calender) 2009..ish. I set out to try and make the garden as biodiverse as I can, to make it so natural things can grow naturally, food can grow without my interference and that animals can eventually come for the natural food on offer and not the food I supply.

Turns out I have actually made progress on my goal, I am quite surprised about that as I suck at goal achieving in the long run and so for the first time ever! The garden has grown mushrooms. We did have one grow in the summer, im no mushroom expert but I'm pretty sure mushrooms tend to grow in wet conditions. Now that winter has come so have the mushrooms. I am told they are edible and they do look delicious. Next time I will be giving an announcement to try and expand the way this site is helping you fine people get into the hobby of digiscoping.