Digiscoping Guide

Digiscoping Equipment

Which is the Best Spotting Scope to use?

Generally the higher quality spotting scopes cost a little more, but with increasing technology and production techniques and costs, very good spotting scopes and equipment can be now bought for a very reasonable price.

You should bear in mind all the equipment, including the camera, and some digital cameras are better suited to certain spotting scopes. With the cost of ever lower prices of digital cameras, and their higher performance in recent years, a complete digiscoping solution can be bought on relatively low budget.

Optical Quality

As regards the Spotting scope for digiscoping the best high quality optics will produce the best digiscoped pictures. As a general rule, fixed eyepieces are of better quality than zoom lenses, but there are also plenty of high-quality zoom lenses. Zoom lenses can offer more flexibility which may be of greater importance and convenient to use.

High Quality Spotting scopes should produce sharply focussed images, including to the edges, where lesser quality scopes will tend to become blurred. Better quality scopes will also be brighter, including at higher magnifications than lower quality scopes. Larger Scopes should also generally be brighter, letting in more light at a given magnification. Also it is worth noting that higher magnifications will give less light, as with all optics including binoculars.

High quality scopes will also have multi coated lenses and internal optics which help to focus light, and avoid unwanted internal reflections. Scopes with low dispersion glass also helps to focus light and reduce chromatic aberration and helps keep the image sharp. In poor spotting scopes or binoculars there may be excessive colour aberrations and smearing / splitting of colours, particularly around bright objects. These are things you should look for in a scope. These problems may be more noticeable when digiscoping, and enlarging the picture. However some of the aberration can be caused by the camera optics, so it is important to get a good quality digital camera and other digiscoping equipment if you want to produce excellent images with digiscoping.

Eyepieces.

As we have covered above, a zoom eyepiece may be more convenient, but they come at a higher cost/price for quality. One important factor to consider is the size / diameter of the eyepiece. The larger the diameter of the eyepiece is the less vignetting (shading /obscuring) will appear looking through the camera. Severe vignetting will look like you are looking through a small hole. Some cameras are better suited to scoping than others. It is a excellent start if the size of the eyepiece of the scope is larger than the lens on your digital camera, then little, if any vignetting will occur.

Vignetting can be reduced by zooming in with the camera (using optical zoom) but too much zoom can result in degraded image.

The Eye relief can also affect how close the eye / camera lens is able to get to the eyepiece. It helps if the camera lens can fit flush up against the eyepiece lens, to reduce vignetting, as the nearer the lens can get to the eyepiece the better.

Which Eyepiece - Straight or angled?

Generally most people prefer spotting scopes with angled eyepieces as they find it easier to look down, and the tripods do not need to be extended as high as straight through scopes, and making the tripod steadier, and most people find this more comfortable. With scopes with straight eyepieces you have to bend down, and this may be less, or more suited to digiscoping, depending on the circumstances.

Some people, for example, find straight scopes better, and feel they can ‘aim’ them better than an angled scope. For some situations, a straight scope is much more preferable, such as a window mount in a car, in which a angled scope would be very awkward unless you were lying on the roof and had a large sunroof!

Ultimately, it is personal preference, and you should choose based on your use and preference.

Best Digital Camera for digiscoping.

5-6 Megapixels or more is generally good for digiscoping, and with all new cameras generally over 8MP, this is now not an issue.

More importantly is the quality of the lens, and whether the camera is suitable with your digiscope. There are adapters that fit most scopes, but some digital cameras are better suited to certain digiscopes, simply due to the design, size of lens (some will fit certain eyepieces better) etc. It can be trial and error to some extent in choosing the right digital camera. It is good to ask around, and you should fing user reviews and opinions on what worked for their particular setup / scope.

Optical Image Stabilised lenses on better digital cameras can help to ensure sharp images, by cancelling out any camera shake, or movement from the digiscope. It is important to remember that Image stabilisation can only do so much, and that when using high magnifications, any movement will also be magnified. It is therefore a must to use a good quality, sturdy tripod, and when combined with Optical Image stabilisation from the camera can produce some excellent pin-sharp images.

It is certainly worth spending a little more on a digital camera with Optical Image stabilisation for digiscoping.

Recent Digital cameras are much faster, and shutter lag (the time between pressing the shutter button and taking a photograph) has very much improved, even in compact cameras. This helps in capturing moving subjects, or taking multiple photographs.

Setting the camera to a fast shutter speed is recommended to reduce any camera shake, and to capture movement of animals, or other subjects sharply.

Most ‘scopers’ find that the best focus setting is the ‘macro’ mode, but this can vary between the scope and cameras. The best recommendation is to practise and experiment to see which settings work best for your particular setup.

Some people like the swivel bodied cameras, or cameras which do not have an extending lens when you power it on, or zoom. An extending camera lens can be a problem, and you should be mindful of not fully securing a camera to a digi-scope mount too close or flush to the scopes eyepiece without correctly ascertaining the movement of the lens, or you could cause damage to the camera or lens motor etc.

A shutter release or self timer can prevent blurred photographs whereas pressing the shutter release by hand can easily cause movement, particularly with digiscoping which will magnify any movement. Using the 2 second self timer delay will allow the tripod to stop movement after the shutter is pressed. However if you are taking wildlife pictures for example, the 2 second delay that can give the animal a lot of time to move the shutter is pressed.

Some cameras have infrared remotes, or can be operated by another means of remote, which can be useful in these circumstances.

The choice of camera may vary to the features, and it it is worthwhile cheking out users opinions to which camera have worked best with a particular setup or a particular digiscope model or manufacturer.

When you have narrowed it down to a few possibilities, it can be useful if possible to bring your digiscope into the store before you make you decision.

Spotting scope reviews, camera reviews and user reviews can be useful, and can act as a good guide or pointers to help you make your decisions. Such review sites such as DPreview (www.dpreview.com ) can be very helpful for camera reviews.

Adapter

A good sturdy adapter is certainly recommended, as trying to hand-hold a camera up to a scopes eyepiece to take a picture will rarely result in a usable picture, and is more likely to produce blurred, unsharp, and badly composed shots due to camera movement, and not setting up the scope or properly focusing and misalignment of the camera and scope.

There are primarily two ways to mount a digital camera to a spotting scope. A Universal (or similar) type adapter allows the camera to be attached to the eyepiece. The advantage of this way is that it can be relatively quickly set up, or removed. The second is an eyepiece /mount that replaces the existing eyepiece. This can produce better results, but it is generally not as convenient, and takes longer to set up /remove.

Tripods

It is almost imperative to have a good sturdy tripod. A sturdy tripod greatly helps to eliminate camera shake and also frees your hands to make necessary camera and spotting scope adjustments and composition. A heavy duty tripod and securely attached adapter are recommended to firmly hold both the scope and camera. Ideally a tripod head with a nice fluid movement is good for following moving subjects and aids shot composition. If it is easy to move and adjust with one hand it makes it easier to operate the shutter and to focus the camera or the spotting scope.