Sony Camera to Nikon scope

[chrisduval]

I have a Sony DSC-F717 - can it be reliably used with a 82mm fieldscope for digiscoping?

[Graham Osborne]

Hi Chris - I have only just seen your post - I haven't logged on to BF for a while.

I would think it is possible. I am not sure about the specific model of DSC you have - I think the model numbers ae different in UK. There is a DSC-W17 (7.2 megapixels) perhaps it is the same? I have a Nikon Fieldscope EDIII with old style eyepieces, with which I use a Sony DSC-P200. However, I do not use an adaptor to fix the camera to the eyepiece. Instead I have found a suitable 'shim' (a rubber washer from a plastic plumbing fitting) which I have cut to size and glued to the inside of the rubber eyecup of my 20x eyepiece. (see attached picture).The camera lens slides snugly inside this to allow pictures to be taken hand held. I reckon I get as good, if not better results now than I did with my CP 4500, adaptor, remote shutter release etc - it is so much easier to get onto your subject as you can use the scope in the normal way to do so. Plus I can now easily mix birding with digiscoping. Please see the attached sample shot using this setup.

I cannot claim this to be my own idea, having copied it from a fellow UK birder. I will never go back to using an adaptor fixed to the eyepiece.

Good luck
Graham

[JCraig]

I have a Sony DSC-F717 - can it be reliably used with a 82mm fieldscope for digiscoping?

Hi Chris

I have been through a similar dilemma myself being new to digiscoping. I have a Nikon FSIII scope and two digital cameras, one camera is a Nikon 5700 and the other is a Canon Ixus 400.

Initially tried to connect the Nikon 5700, being the better camera of the two, which are far as I am aware is similar design to your Sony DSC-F717. I found that this was not very successful due to the size of the objective lens of the camera being significantly bigger than that of the Nikon scope eyepieces, as a result the initial trials were not very good. I then tried the Canon Ixus 400 due the objective being a lot smaller. This I found to give a lot better results. Since then I have purchased a Baader camera mounting adaptor which works extremely well with the Nikon eyepieces and Canon camera.

I have done a lot of research and tests of connecting a camera with a large objective lens to a Nikon eyepiece and not had any success. Hence may efforts have now been concentrated on using a small compact camera which gives a lot better results.

I wish you the best of luck and if you do manage it please let me know and I will try the same method with my Nikon 5700. But time and time again I see in this forum that small compact cameras are the way to go.

[horukuru]

nice picture graham