Digiscoping – Tuesday 27 January
Paul Hackett, a local man from Offerton, presented this talk on Photography through a telescope. Paul gave a comprehensive overview of the subject - what it was; what gear is needed; and the sort of results to be expected. It became clear that the Digiscope system took over where the long focal length zoom lens of the SLR left off. Equivalent focal lengths in the range 1800 to 5000mm were quoted as typical.
Paul quoted Laurence Poh as the “father” of Digiscoping. Apparently Laurence purchased a Nikon 950 digital camera in 1999. As an avid birdwatcher he used telescopes (so called “spotting scopes”) to observe birds from a distance. He soon made an adapter to fix his 950 camera to the telescope and digiscoping was born.
The digiscope is thus valuable to bird-watchers who want to get and record a view of this relatively small creature from a distance – occasionally 100 yards or so. Paul interspersed his images of birds with comments on his equipment. He emphasised that the right equipment is important. There are lots of digiscope adapters available to help one connect the items together. Depending on camera and scope you either use a universal adapter which doesn't connect the camera to the scope, but rather aligns the two ( ideally suited to cameras with external zoom lenses) or use the standard adapter which physically connects the scope to your camera (ie screws into the camera). This latter type of adapter is suited to cameras with internal zoom lenses or cameras which can have filters attached to their lenses.
The camera ideally has flexible shooting and focus modes (Program, Aperture Priority or Manual) since using cameras in full auto mode generally produces disappointing results. The camera should also have, say, a 3x optical zoom to eliminate vignetting (the black circle surrounding your image that the camera picks up from the scope eyepiece). A sturdy tripod to keep the system stable is a must plus a good tripod head to help locate the subject matter. A remote shutter release cable for the camera helps to minimize camera shake. Paul found the screen on digital cameras not helpful in focussing images, preferring a good eyepiece for focussing. He had used the tiny Contax SL300T to good effect. It was a 3.3 Mpixel camera, small and lightweight and easy to set up, with an internal x3 zoom. He had also used the Nikon 950, 990 and 4500 cameras. These all had swivel bodies so that the screen could be oriented independently of the lens.
He had been consulted by Zeiss on the requirements for a good digiscope and out of this had come a digiscope system with video camera for under £1000. The latest version was the Zeiss Photoscope 85T*FL about to be launched with a focal length range 600mm to 1800mm. This system enables the simultaneous viewing and capture of faraway and small objects. The magnification is in the range x15 to x45.
In his vote of thanks Gordon Robson noted Paul’s obvious enthusiasm as both a “twitcher” and a “digiscoper”. We had been impressed by Paul’s professional presentation and by the range of equipment he had brought to back it up. A round of spontaneous clapping from the audience backed up these remarks.