OUT!! #27: Phone Scoping and Other Technical Mishaps

Phone scoping refers to the practice of using one's camera phone and a scope/binocular in order to get a closer shot. This can produce varying results and is best done with a steady hand and extreme patience. This is a good way to get acquainted with digi-scoping as well. It differs in the sense that a digital camera is specially mounted onto a spotting scope in order to take distant pictures of birds, animals, ships, or any other object of interest.

This was taken on 1x zoom or regular

This one was taken using 3.5 to 4x zoom

The first photos show a Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) seen at the pond last week. For the most part, the phone takes a good picture, but gets overexposed in the noon day sun and causes most of the lighter lines and shades to look as if they're glowing radioactively. Having the bird close by makes the shots a little clearer however and they are fair for identification purposes.

Another selection of pictures shows a Green Heron (Butorides virescens) I saw preening near the dock today. While the top picture shows a clear image, the bottom one reveals the effects of shaky hands that are to be expected when holding up a heavy pair of binos and balancing a camera phone against one of the lenses in order to snap a picture. Did I mention I have finite patience? So far the only clear image I got out of five photos was the top shot, so you can't win them all can you?

Aren't you just a little darling?!

Lastly, this lovely little Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) was found by a coworker and of course, I had to get a picture. As we can see, there has been no photo manipulation or use of a scope to enhance the image. Just a creature in hand as a simple photo subject (and yes, they are that small when they hatch). It was such a little cutie, but we had to return it to the wild.

Overall, camera phones are useful pieces of technology that are so simple to use and can make for some interesting wildlife shots. So even if you don't have a proper camera, if you have a steady hand or at least some patience (binoculars help if you need zoom too), you'll be able to take some fantastic shots.

Have a lovely weekend and I'll be back next week.