Welcome to my first week of outdoor photography & videography!

A bit of a run down on what equipment I own and what tools/techniques I’ve experimented with. I personally own what’s called a spotting scope. A spotting scope is a large, high power optic similar to a telescope. In order to have a steady and clear image looking through the scope ( or videoing/photos),I then have a I-Phone adaptor which mounts my phone directly onto the scope. the scope must be mounted on a tripod and as stable as possible. This isn’t always the most simple task, a ton of factors come into place and the biggest one is straight up the terrane I’m in. Mainly I’m either on the side of a rocky uneven cliff face or in the middle of a logging slash with endless branches and brush impleading any flat spot I may be able to find. The next biggest is the weather. Weather never seems to end here on the west coast. between high speed winds and seemingly sideways rain someone trying to capture images never gets a break.

I previously spent the weekend a little north or Cowichan lake and spent the day looking for some animals. I managed to come across this cow elk grazing on some Salal ( A native ground bush here in BC). I had a couple problems taking this video which I will address later and focus a bit on how I’m going to improve throughout the year. This video was captured from roughly 440 yards away (1320 feet, or just shy of half a kilometer). so other than the darker streaks through the lenses and the shakiness I am quite impressed with how clear the image came out!

Here’s an image I captured on the previous weekend as well of a young blacktail deer. This image was actually through my binoculars rather than my spotting scope due to how close I managed to get to this guy. Keeping my phone and binoculars steady was the toughest part with this one. I took this image just after a fairly long hike and was definitely out of breath. I also don’t have a good way to stabilize my binoculars or hold my phone in a spot that it can use my binoculars like a lens. I also tend to run out of hands when I attempt to do this. Between holding my bino’s and my phone in just the right spot all the while the animal I’m trying to photograph is carrying on with its day. Nobody did say this was easy I guess….

Next up I want to just touch on a resource I found which I hope can make my imagery a little better for future posts. This is a super well known group of guys on social media, TV and their website which you can find here… https://outdoorsmans.com/blogs/spotting-scopes/digiscoping-tips-and-tricks

They are super passionate outdoorsman who have found a way through videography to make a living. They started with a fairly basic YouTube channel, and now own a great online store and have designed a large amount of different products which they sell nationwide. Anyways, I was reading up on their one blog which the link above will bring you too and it goes over some great things to watch for while attempting to ‘Digi-scope’ (attaching a phone/camera to an optic). In my future post I hope to touch on a few of their pointers and implement them into my photography!

Alright, That’s all for now. Thanks for veiwing

~Alex