 John Rhodes |
Shooting through a spotting scope Yesterday, I went with a group of Audubon Society birders to a bird sanctuary. Many of the birders were looking through spotting scopes on tripods. I'm not sure of the magnification range of the various scopes. No one was photographing through the scopes. Does anyone here shoot through a spotting scope? If yes, what advice would you give on obtaining and using this setup. My camera is a Nikon D70. Currently, my longest lens is the Nikon ED 28-200mm 1:3.5-5.6G. Would I be better of with a 300mm lens? I'm pretty sure the spotting scopes were longer than 300mm equivalent. Thanks,
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Sharon Day |
I have a Bausch & Lomb Discoverer 15-60mm spotting scope. I consider them useless for telephoto work. I used it with a film camera. It was difficult to focus. It produced bad chromatic abberration or purple fringing. Maybe they've improved since I purchased mine in the 80's, but my experience with them was a lot less than wonderful. I believe adapters are available so I could use it with the D70 but I consider it a waste of money and haven't been tempted to get one. I'm sorry, but I don't think there is a substitution for a good lens.
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John Rhodes |
Thanks Sharon, You confirmed what I suspected. maybe that's why I didn't see anyone taking photos through the scopes. My next purchase will be a long zoom. John
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John G. Clifford Jr |
Well, the technique of taking photos through a spotting scope without using a special adapter is called 'digiscoping' and many birders use the technique. Digiscoping is at its best when one is using a quality spotting scope (like a Swarovski) and a digicam (point and shoot digital camera). What people do is make up a quick-and-dirty slip-fit adapter (maybe out of cardboard or plastic) that fits around the scope eyepiece and which also fits around the extended lens. The camera's LCD viewfinder is used to compose the scope, and the camera's autofocus will usually take care of the focusing... get it close with the eyepiece, though. Some of the shots I've seen taken using this method are extremely good. No, they're not as good as a $5k 800mm lens on a dSLR... but the equipment doesn't cost $5k or more either. Here's a good site with lots of digiscoping info: http://www.jayandwanda.com/ Good luck!
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Will Turner |
I have never tried this with a bona fide 'spotting scope' but have done it with various low-powered refractor telescopes I owned. Probably because of lens coverage issues, the vignetting was severe, and greatly limited the value of the photograph - to me, anyway. As I was still poor at that time, I found a secondhand manual-focus, 500mm f/8-f/32 telephoto lens for $100 - one of the older third-party models made in Japan. I also bought a Nikon 'T' adapter. I got very good results with this until I could get a dedicated Nikon tele. If you can find a D70 T adapter, that's one other option for you.
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Marcia L. Getto |
Hi John -- We meet again! I have tried digiscoping with the Swarovski scope and Nikon CP4500 with mixed results. First of all, you need a LOT of patience. I'll probably try again in the spring, but I'll also work with with my 500mm telephoto and a tele-converter. Last weekend, I compared my 500mm with the 60x scope, side by side, and the scope was much better. I'm going to try to use the digiscoping calculator on the jayandwanda.com site to see what the equivalent DSLR lens would be. I know there are a number of people who are successful digiscopers....after years of hard work. Here's a great one -- http://www.birddigiscoping.com/. Marcia Messman-Getto
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Sharon Day |
Here's an interesting website where the photog takes pics of birds with a digiscope. Makes me want to run right out and get the equipment! http://www.digital-nature-photography.com/
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BetterPhoto Member |
Hi John; If you go on ebay, you can find some major telephoto lenses as low as about $60 bucks (what I paid for my 500mm in January). It would be worth your while to check into it if you are thinking of using a spotting scope. A lense that's not designed for a camera has a different measure of power since it will have an eyepiece. Since the eyepiecehas elements in it also, it will change the magnification of the scope. Just food for thought. Have fun and keep shooting,
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