Digiscoped Lutong Beach this morning with Sony DT 50/1.8

The far ends of Lutong Beach.

Today I thought I'd stop by Lutong Beach and check-out who's there before lugging the rest of the bulky gear over for the annual Jan-Feb date with the Chinese Egret. It's been going on since 2008, notwithstanding the fact that all 2009 pictures came to nought when the hard-disk went missing.

With Leica APO77, Sony SLT33 and 50/1.8 in tow, sussed the beach with an expressed desire to test whether it's easier to tweak the 18-55kit zoom or fixed lens 50/1.8 with the scope set-up. Might as well since I'm already there.

Arrived at the beach approximately 6:30AM, still not much light. There were several Kentish Plover and Lesser Sandplover roosting and foraging in the area. And one common Sandpiper. No egrets in sight, so I took the opportunity to shoot the roosting waders instead. They were all pretty calm sitting around, preening and once in a while affected an upwards glance to the sky.

Aligning the 50mm lens to the scope was a bit fiddly at first. With the 18-55mm you can st zoom at 18mm, locate the eyepiece and gradually increase focal length to between 50-55mm to rid of all the vignette. With the 50/1.8 after considerable time stumbling over the right position to see through the eyepiece, one was still left with tiny amount of vignette at the coners, even at largest aperture of 1.8 ... forget about shooting at smaller apertures, it'll vignette to kingdom come. Exposure measurements alo become wonky mostly ... overexposing most of the time ie. instead of measing exposure on the image, it's taking exposure of the eyepiece glass surface.

When final "best" alignment was achieved in the end, one had to live with a tiny amount of vignette at the far corners. Center sharpness was excellent though. The front element of the 50/1.8 is built with an at least 2cm recess from lens front end. The 2cm++ space between lens front element and that of the eyepiece isn't a good thing. Any closer, you wouldn't be able to focus (manual only, impossible with auto). Come to think of it at 55mm the kit lens provide shorter front element to eyepiece distance ... less vignette, less stray light.

Image wise, the 50/1.8 is a tad better with a bit of crop to get rid of the vignette. More acceptably sharp images too.


Chinese Egret, only one lone bird this morning.


Kentish Plover juvenile roosting with a couple adult birds.


The same bird from a different angle.