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I purchased a fairly basic digital camera in the summer of 2001 - a Kodak DC4800. It has a 3X zoom and a maximum image size of 3.1 megapixels. A photo of it is shown below.
Many of the photos on the TBFN website have been taken with this simple camera, including the above Blue Jay photo. Often you can get close enough to a bird to get a very nice photo with this camera. Below are a couple samples. They are chickadee photos from this website. These photos were actually cropped from much larger images, but the image quality is still quite good.
Chickadee 1 • Chickadee 2
With a basic digital camera you can get a picture in a wide variety of situations in a hurry without any accessories. And since taking pictures with it costs you nothing and you can delete unwanted pictures, you can keep shooting until you get a good shot. At left is a twilight shot of a flying Great Horned Owl. The second photo is of a juvenile Hawk Owl on a wire. It's not great due to the amount of enlarging that was necessary, but it provides a record of the sighting (keep a digital camera in the glove box). The camera is lightweight and you can take pictures from different angles using only one hand. So you can get a photo of a Red-breasted Nuthatch feeding from your other hand (3rd photo). The camera is also fabulous for taking scenic images that fill your whole computer screen (I change my computer wallpaper regularly).
But the best feature of this camera is that you can take photos through a spotting scope! I have set up my old Bushnell Spacemaster II with a 22X wideangle eyepiece on a tripod and stuck the lens barrel of the digital camera into the rubber eyecup of the telescope and got some very acceptable photos. The Blue Jay photo at the top of this page was taken through the telescope. Here are some other examples of birds photographed this way from over 25 feet away:
"You ain't seen nothin' yet"
Today's digital cameras are even better than the model described above. I'm currently using a Panasonic DMC-FZ1 that features optical image stablization, movie capabilities, a Leica lens and best of all a zoom range from 35 to 420 mm (12X zoom). You don't even need the spotting scope for closeups anymore. Here are some sample photos:
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Previously featured on Fieldnotes:
Sphinx Moth •
Owl •
Tombolo •
Flying Squirrel
Ruffed Grouse •
Gray Jay •
Katydids •
Turtles
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Submissions, ideas, photos, leads are requested for this page.
Here we display recent photos from the district,
report unusual natural occurrences/sightings in our area, etc.
Your input is much appreciated.
Snail mail: Aarre Ertolahti, R.R. 14, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E5
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