digiscope?

[wrecker1971]

hi all. just wondered what are your thoughts on digiscopes attached to dslr's?
Have been toying with the idea for a bit as they are cheaper than the BIG lens i want and wondered what your thoughts are and are they worth buying.
I am going to be using it mostly for bird pics and just wondered what kind of quality i would get from it.
cheers

paul

 

[mikew]

If you do an image search on "pictures from digiscoping" or something similar you will see results ranging from crap to brilliant i can only assume to get brilliant you need to spend a lot,when looking through a scope your eye and brain are doing a lot the camera cant so before you buy look at pictures from the scope you are thinking of.

 

[magicaxeman]

The trouble is Paul that as with lenses you get what you pay for and you need to ensure the scope will take a T mount even then there's no assurance you'll get good results.

I would say your best bet would be to upgrade your current 70-300 Di LD to the SP 70-300 VC, I had some amazing results with that lens and the VC on it is awesome, it really does knock camera shake on the head.

Taken through double glazing on a canon 500D

 

[pingu666]

i think the main digiscoping issue, apart from mounting is the slowness of them, probably f8 or worse

 

[magicaxeman]

i think the main digiscoping issue, apart from mounting is the slowness of them, probably f8 or worse

Again that depends on the scope used, but getting anything as fast as F5.6 or even faster is going to cost more than a decent lens.

 

[wrecker1971]

well magicaxeman using a sony its already got steadyshot in cam. the problem i have is i have noticed that the 70-300 lens seems to be soft at full zoom and i cant afford £1000s for a larger lens. was hoping that a digiscope would be better than what i already have

 

[LauraJ23]

Hi Paul, I have used my slrs attached to a telescope a few times. Here are some examples using a Kowa tsn 823 and an 850mm photo adapter, giving a 1360mm equivalent when combined with the 1.6x crop factor of my canon or 1700 on the 2x of a panasonic g series

First two with the panasonic


Solitary Sandpiper 1 by scilly puffin, on Flickr



Solitary sandpiper 3 by scilly puffin, on Flickr

This with a canon


Wryneck by scilly puffin, on Flickr

You need a very capable tripod head as the weight with a dslr can become very back heavy.

Quality wise, get a good scope then it's very passable. Look at hd scopes, nothing less.

The scope I used for these is now discontinued, can be sourced on the used market though. The new version is about £1850 for the scope body alone.

Do you have a firm budget in mind

 

[wrecker1971]

no not got a firm budget just an idea at the moment just wanted to see what kind of images i could get but seems to me that they dont seem that bad as long as like you say a good tripod is used and you have good light

 

[LauraJ23]

A good tripod, a good scope and good light is essential. It takes a lot of getting used to. There are plenty of good scopes out there with a good few options on the digiscoping front either own brand or 3rd party.