digiscoping

what do you think about digiscoping for bird photo?

Hi Paul - there are many issues with digiscoping if your interest is bird photography - IMHO.
Some good results can be obtained - however once again IMHO - it's not going to compare to a shot out of a DSLR. The shots I have seen here generally suffer from a considerable amount of noise and have a fixed aperture - F8.
The best I have seen were posted here in a discussion the other day - just need to find it for you.

If you're using a DSLR for digiscoping, the results are quite comparable to a DSLR ;)

Seriously, if you can't afford the big lenses (like me) digiscoping is the only way to go for long reach bird photography, yes it's MF and fixed aperture, but the optical quality of an APO scope is great, you can learn to MF until you become quite good and fail very little photos and the aperture is adequate for most photos, although yes I'd prefer controllable aperture, I miss that much more than AF.

At similar prices (in Nikon mount), the options are either a digiscoping system or a lens like a 300mm F4, tamron 200-500, sigma 50-500, etc, I tried them all and none can compare to my scope for long reach shots.

JMHO of course :)

If you're talking abot attaching a point-and-shoot camera to the eyepiece of a spotting scope, then that is what is really meant by digiscoping. It's also possible to unscrew the eyepiece and attach a dSLR to the barrel of the scope using an adapter. I don't know how well that works, but it doesn't seem to be very popular. I have done a lot of digiscoping, and I have seen a lot of other people's work as well.

Advantages --

- Long reach at a relatively cheap price
- If you're a birder, there's a good chance you already have a scope, tripod and good tripod head, so you just need to get a point-and-shoot camera and adapter. The higher the quality of the scope and eyepiece (e.g. ED glass) then the better the image will be.

Disadvantages

- Manual focusing, and often at least partly hand-holding
- Can be a lot of fiddling with equipment to get it all joined up correctly, unless you have the right adapters
- Image quality usually not as good as dSLR + long lens except in the very best hands.
- Hard to do well, with low proportion of "keepers".

Having said that, the best images produced by the best digiscopers are just as good (at least on the web) as good images taken with dSLR + long lens that cost and weigh 5 times as much, but most digiscoped images are less sharp and have more noise than most dSLR images.

Cheers,

Richard

Years ago I bought a Leica Televid APO scope, coolpix, and a few camera mounts. After a year of frustration, I bought a DSLR with a long lens and never looked back. I have seen some great results from digiscoping, but never from my setup :(

No one mentioned the the overly vivid colors that digiscoped images have. Also, vibration at high magnification is an serious problem, and is worse due to the light weight of the digiscope as compared to a equivent focal legnth dslr lens(which incidently would weigh alot! Digiscopes ar incredible tools for viewing wildlife, and the detail is phenominal. However, IMO, images from them, which includes those seen on the web, have much to be desired(and this is jpegs downsized for the web, which should be better). In any case, the odd colors and other characteristics such as high contrast, make digiscoped images instantly recognizable, to me at least. Images often lack composition (due to always needing to be tethered to a tripod due to vibration, and the very narrow field). Bottom line for me at least:neon red and green are not colors found in nature! regards~Bill

I digiscoped for a number a years & its really a hit & miss affair.Theirs so many variables to take into account not least heat haze & vibration.Have a look on this site for tips/set-up advice www.digiscoped.com even this guys now gone over to a DSLR.

Steve.

I digiscope also for a long time. with good tool and long lens technique you can got some very good image. the real thing with digiscoping are that is very slow, so you can't do BIF, chase small warbler, etc.. Take a look at my Pbase gallerie nature 2, page 2 ther is a petit duc damerique in automn leaf, this picture are taken with a Nikon scope and P&S camera at f8, not bad.

Hi all, I digiscoped exclusively for just under 2 years and can say I gave it a shot, having posted close over 600 shots with the Nikon ED82 and Coolpix P5100 P&S camera.
I cut my teeth in regards to bird photography with such a setup.
After a while you get pretty good and I was getting warbler shots etc.
I knew though that a big lens was in my future and was very happy when I finally joined the 500mm f4 club w/ a proper DSLR.

For those curious as to what it's all about one can check out my Digiscoping gallery here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/revs45/...7600205421154/

Regards,
Paul

Wow! good porte folio and nice photography, I use close the same set up: the 30XDS and the cp4500, later the CP P1