Digiscoping with and Olympus camera

[NoSpringChicken]

I have an old but good Olympus C3020Z camera and an Acuter ST16-48x65 zoom scope. I was considering trying some cheap digiscoping as an experiment.

I have a CLA-1 filter adapter for the Olympus which terminates in a 43mm thread and after discussions with sherwoods-photo.com they can provide a photo adapter tube and 43mm adapter to connect the scope and camera for about £55. They have since added the items to their website which was quick work!

After searching on this site I see that Olympus cameras like mine are not recommended for digiscoping due to vignetting problems. Does this mean they are completely hopeless or just not ideal?

I don't want to waste my money if the idea is a non starter but I would be interested in experimenting if there was some chance of modest success. Any advice would be most welcome.

Ron

[RAH]

Ron,
You don't need to have the guy make the adapter for you to try it out. Just hold the camera up to the eyepiece and take some pictures (very steadily!). When you do this, you will immediately see the problem - you are holding a large-diameter lens up to a small-diameter opening - just like shooting thru a keyhole. This is why you'll get vignetting. I suppose you might be able to zoom the lens in and eliminate some of it, but you'll still have some. So you'll always have to crop out the surrounding halo from your pictures and the results will be pretty low resolution.

[NoSpringChicken]

Ron,
You don't need to have the guy make the adapter for you to try it out. Just hold the camera up to the eyepiece and take some pictures (very steadily!). When you do this, you will immediately see the problem - you are holding a large-diameter lens up to a small-diameter opening - just like shooting thru a keyhole. This is why you'll get vignetting. I suppose you might be able to zoom the lens in and eliminate some of it, but you'll still have some. So you'll always have to crop out the surrounding halo from your pictures and the results will be pretty low resolution.
Thanks RAH. Coincidentally I tried that indoors last night and the results were not very encouraging for the reasons you give. It's a pity but I will probably wait and find out a bit more about the black art of digiscoping to see if there are any other cameras which take my fancy.

Ron

[Neil]

Looking at this camera I think it should work (is the 3020Z similar to the 3020?). Olympus lens have been very "digiscoping friendly" over the years. The 5060 and 7070wz were top of their class when they came out and they seem to have a similar lens to the 3020z. It will depend on the eyepiece they are to be matched up with though and I'm not familiar with yours. As RAH suggested test it against the eyepiece (leave the rubber eye cup on ) and move it in and out at wide zoom until the vignetted circle is the biggest and then zoom the lens. If vignetting disappears by full zoom you will be able to use it as it is not a long zoom. Neil.

[Paul Corfield]

I've been using my Olympus C-5050 for a number of years for digiscoping. I started off with some real basic equipment but have built up to some better stuff recently. I currently have a 20 year old Optima 60mm spotting scope that I picked up a couple of weeks ago for £18 on ebay. Today I mounted a Meade Series 4000 Super Plossl 26mm eyepiece to the scope. This eyepiece has a fairly big glass area and it's good quality. The eyepiece cost me £13 on ebay. I also got the digiscoping adapter on ebay for around £15 so for very little outlay I've got quite a good set up that takes great pics. I already had a CLA-1 adapter. The digiscope adapter mounts to the CLA-1 via a step up ring. The 3 screws on the digiscope adapter screw down onto the eyepiece of the scope and it's all very solid. See photos.

Paul.

[Neil]

Paul,
Well done. Quality looks good and no evidence of purple fringing. You might be in line for the best,cheapest setup of the year award. Keep the images coming, Neil.

[Paul Corfield]

Paul,
Well done. Quality looks good and no evidence of purple fringing. You might be in line for the best,cheapest setup of the year award. Keep the images coming, Neil.

Yeah, the scope was a real find. Since I won it on ebay a few weeks ago I done some research and the same scope still sells in second hand shops for around £120 here in the UK so the £18 that I paid was a bargain. I guess not many people bid on it as it's old and not a well known maker. The eyepieces that came with the scope were rubbish so I just modified an old 25mm telescope eyepiece which is what I used to take the photo of the Dunnock in my last post. I attached a couple more that I took with that eyepiece last week. The new Meade eyepiece that I fixed to the scope today is even better but there were no birds about today to try it out on. Just trying it out around the garden though I can see it's going to better. Just shows you don't need to spend a fortune.

The Peacock was at a range of around 5m and the Squirrel was around 30m.

Paul.