Advantages of Using Digital Cameras for Birding

Video Transcript

"Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Wayne Petersen and I direct the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Important Bird Areas Program for Massachusetts. Today, we're here at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield, Massachusetts. And, we're going to be talking about the equipment needed to get one started in birding. Not to take you down the garden path, but indeed it is possible to spend more money than less money depending upon how far you want to go in your birding interests. One of the things that is increasingly become very popular is the idea of using digital equipment to capture birding images on the camera. And, these days, the idea of using cameras with slide film and prints and so forth is rapidly being replaced by, in many cases, very compact, small, digital units like this that can very surprisingly capture workable pictures of birds not for calendars, not for publication, but for your own enjoyment, or in some cases, could be very useful as a way to take a picture of an unfamiliar bird and then later on compare that image, or images, to pictures in a field guide or something. What a lot of birder are doing these days is getting into something called digiscoping. Where they actually will take a very small digital camera and then simply using a telescope that has a sufficiently wide lens. Literally placing the camera to the telescope. Focusing the view finder. And, exposing the image. In the same way, there are adapters that can be specifically fitted for various brands of telescopes and cameras, so that they actually are hitched together and you don't have to do it in sort of this primitive way. But, actually, these days it's possible to take bird pictures with telephones and all manner of digital equipment. And many cases of obtaining acceptable images for later enjoyment."