Taking pictures through binoculars

[ZeNiTh-PbArM]

Hi everyone,

Many birders i meet are digiscoping, i.e. taking pictures through spotting scopes, and some of their pictures are great. I never heard of anybody taking pictures through a pair of bins. It's difficult to hold both the bins and the camera steady but i managed to get a few nice pictures. Such a setup is not very useful and will not replace a high-magnification camera objective anyway.
However, i wonder if pictures taken through bins could be used as a benchmark for the quality of the bins, since fuzziness at the edge of the picture is clearly visible, along with geometrical or chromatic aberration.
Would such a technique be a reliable means of comparing optics quality between different models of bins?

All the best,
zp.

[Otto McDiesel]

Hi everyone,


However, i wonder if pictures taken through bins could be used as a benchmark for the quality of the bins, since fuzziness at the edge of the picture is clearly visible, along with geometrical or chromatic aberration.
Would such a technique be a reliable means of comparing optics quality between different models of bins?

All the best,
zp.

Those aberrations can also come from the camera lens.

[christineredgate]

One of our members ,Tanny,takes excellent shots through his binoculars,digi-binning.I have managed a couple of reasonable shots,but one does have to have a very steady hand,but it does work.

[Mickymouse]

I've been experimenting with DigiBinning and have managed some useful results, handy trick for when you haven't got your scope, you do need better light though.

Mick

[Joe H]

Greetings ZP,

I don't know if you would be able to tell much from the digi-bin photos about the quality of the binoculars. I believe the match-up between the bins and the camera is more important to good photos. My best results come from an old 3 mega-pixel point and shoot and my Swaro 8x32s. I believe this is because the camera lens and Swaro eye piece fit so well together. I have tried a much newer 5 MP camera but the results are poorer with the same bins. I've also tried the two different cameras on several other bins with less impressive results. I'm pretty sure the interaction between the two (camera and bin) would have a greater impact than the slight difference in binocular quality. Also, I almost always zoom my camera to two power which removes the edge anyway. So long as you get a shutter speed around 125, the results are pretty good. Good light, as you mentioned, is critical.

Joe H