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One of the best things about using a Point and Shoot camera behind the eyepiece of a spotting scope is that you can get really really close. And, with today’s best P&S cameras you have fairly fast continuous shooting, which makes capturing action easier than it ever was. This Song Sparrow was actively feeding with a number of its fellows about 25 feet in front of me…never still for a second. I had to catch it in focus and posed enough for a moderate shutter speed to freeze the action. I shot hundreds of frames in continuous mode, at about 4 frames per second, and sorted out the best when I got home.

The camera I am using, the new Canon Digital ELPH SD100HS, also has a burst mode, which fires at 10 fps for 7 frames before writing to the SD card. I find that 10 fps is actually too fast for birds. You end up with what amounts to 7 identical shots…and since they are all taken in less than a second, the digiscoping rig has no chance for vibrations to settle out…so there is no sharpest frame advantage. 4 fps is just fast enough to capture a sequence of action, or a set to select the sharpest frame from. Here is a 4 frame sequence of another Song Sparrow picking grain.

(If you click the image it will open at Wide Eyed In Wonder and you can view it in larger sizes using the size controls at the top of the window.)

Canon Digital ELPH SD100HS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of about a 1800mm lens on a full frame DSLR, 1/100th to 1/125 second @ ISO 125. f5.9 effective. Programmed Auto with iContrast.

Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.