Digiscoping equipment help and advice
Digiscoping equipment help and advice
Click the image on the left to skip to a range of scopes and adapters suitable for digiscoping.
Placing the lens of a digital camera to the eyepiece of a spotting scope to take photos is called digiscoping. It's caught on big-time with birders and nature photographers because you can take good (often great) pictures without a long, expensive, heavy telephoto lens. These days, there are even digiscoping birding tours. There are a variety of ways to bring the camera lens and scope eyepiece together. You can just hold the camera in place yourself. It's quick, but it takes a steady hand and there's a chance the centre of the camera lens may not line up properly with the centre of the scope eyepiece. When that happens, part of the image is cut off. The two lenses also need to be very close. You'll get shadows if light leaks in between the scope and camera lenses. Too much space between lenses will also worsen the vignetting effect, creating a dark, circular frame around your image. Depending on camera and scope you will need either a universal adapter which doesn't actually physically connect the camera to the scope, the use has to align the camera with the scope using the adapter. This type of adapter is ideally suited to cameras with external zoom lenses. The other type of adapter is the standard adapter, this adapter physically connects the scope to your camera. This type of adapter is suited to cameras with internal zoom lenses or cameras which can have filters attached to their lenses. There are many commercial adaptors, but they are not universal, so make sure you get what fits your scope. These adaptors need not be expensive. There are also pivot mounts that allow you to quickly flip your camera on and off the scope lens to switch from viewing to digiscoping. The magnification produced by digiscoping is just what you need to bring your subject in close, but it can also magnify any small movement from wind or a shaky pressing of the shutter. A quality tripod provides stable support and prevents your photos from turning into a blurry mess. If your tripod is not rock-steady, you can make it better by keeping it as low as possible and/or adding some sort of weight to keep it firmly settled. Using a cable release system to fire the shutter remotely is another hands-off way to get the picture. Like any new skill, the key to improvement is practice. Don't be afraid to experiment. Digiscopers do what they do because it's fun. So go out there and have fun!
(Extract from Digiscopediary.co.uk)
Choose a camera which has flexible shooting and focus modes (Program, Aperture Priority or Manual) as using cameras in full auto mode generally produce disappointing results. You will also need a camera with around 3x optical zoom to eliminate vignetting (the black circle surrounding your image that the camera picks up from the scope eyepiece)
Spotting scopes with high resolution glass do give better results but come at a high price tag, but non ED scopes can also offer pleasing results. I personally think that scopes with a large lens (70 - 90mm) also give better results as they capture more light.
Other equipment that I think is essential is a good sturdy tripod to help keep your set-up stable plus a good tripod head to help you locate the subject matter. Plus - also essential is some kind of remote shutter release cable for your camera to ensure minimal camera shake. Spare camera batteries are useful as digiscoping is heavily reliant on the use of your cameras LCD screen. Also I would advise a number of media cards as you do tend to take a large number of pictures. (End)
Please follow this link for a range of scopes and adapters suitable for digiscoping
Please follow this link for a range of digiscoping kits from Praktica .
Please follow this link for a range of Olivon Spotting Scopes ideally suited to digiscoping..
DIGISCOPING WITH OLIVON AND PRAKTICA HD VIDEO
ATTACHING A COMPACT DIGITAL CAMERA TO A SCOPE
ALIGNING THE CAMERA TO THE SCOPE
Placing the lens of a digital camera to the eyepiece of a spotting scope to take photos is called digiscoping. It's caught on big-time with birders and nature photographers because you can take good (often great) pictures without a long, expensive, heavy telephoto lens. These days, there are even digiscoping birding tours. There are a variety of ways to bring the camera lens and scope eyepiece together. You can just hold the camera in place yourself. It's quick, but it takes a steady hand and there's a chance the centre of the camera lens may not line up properly with the centre of the scope eyepiece. When that happens, part of the image is cut off. The two lenses also need to be very close. You'll get shadows if light leaks in between the scope and camera lenses. Too much space between lenses will also worsen the vignetting effect, creating a dark, circular frame around your image. Depending on camera and scope you will need either a universal adapter which doesn't actually physically connect the camera to the scope, the use has to align the camera with the scope using the adapter. This type of adapter is ideally suited to cameras with external zoom lenses. The other type of adapter is the standard adapter, this adapter physically connects the scope to your camera. This type of adapter is suited to cameras with internal zoom lenses or cameras which can have filters attached to their lenses. There are many commercial adaptors, but they are not universal, so make sure you get what fits your scope. These adaptors need not be expensive. There are also pivot mounts that allow you to quickly flip your camera on and off the scope lens to switch from viewing to digiscoping. The magnification produced by digiscoping is just what you need to bring your subject in close, but it can also magnify any small movement from wind or a shaky pressing of the shutter. A quality tripod provides stable support and prevents your photos from turning into a blurry mess. If your tripod is not rock-steady, you can make it better by keeping it as low as possible and/or adding some sort of weight to keep it firmly settled. Using a cable release system to fire the shutter remotely is another hands-off way to get the picture. Like any new skill, the key to improvement is practice. Don't be afraid to experiment. Digiscopers do what they do because it's fun. So go out there and have fun!
(Extract from Digiscopediary.co.uk)
Choose a camera which has flexible shooting and focus modes (Program, Aperture Priority or Manual) as using cameras in full auto mode generally produce disappointing results. You will also need a camera with around 3x optical zoom to eliminate vignetting (the black circle surrounding your image that the camera picks up from the scope eyepiece)
Spotting scopes with high resolution glass do give better results but come at a high price tag, but non ED scopes can also offer pleasing results. I personally think that scopes with a large lens (70 - 90mm) also give better results as they capture more light.
Other equipment that I think is essential is a good sturdy tripod to help keep your set-up stable plus a good tripod head to help you locate the subject matter. Plus - also essential is some kind of remote shutter release cable for your camera to ensure minimal camera shake. Spare camera batteries are useful as digiscoping is heavily reliant on the use of your cameras LCD screen. Also I would advise a number of media cards as you do tend to take a large number of pictures. (End)
Please follow this link for a range of scopes and adapters suitable for digiscoping
Please follow this link for a range of digiscoping kits from Praktica .
Please follow this link for a range of Olivon Spotting Scopes ideally suited to digiscoping..
DIGISCOPING WITH OLIVON AND PRAKTICA HD VIDEO
ATTACHING A COMPACT DIGITAL CAMERA TO A SCOPE
ALIGNING THE CAMERA TO THE SCOPE
