Help from F30 Users?

[swamp_rattler]

I have attached my F30 to my Zeiss 85 via a Zhumell Universal Digiscoping Adapter, but I have trouble getting the camera to "see" the image through the scope. It often shows the eyepiece glass itself (if that makes any sense). What settings do you F30 owners use when digiscoping?

Thanks!

[john-henry]

I have attached my F30 to my Zeiss 85 via a Zhumell Universal Digiscoping Adapter, but I have trouble getting the camera to "see" the image through the scope. It often shows the eyepiece glass itself (if that makes any sense). What settings do you F30 owners use when digiscoping?

Thanks!

It sounds like your problem is the scope and camera aren't being aligned accurately enough. I can get this problem with a swing-away adapter if I don't return it to the scope eyepiece centrally, (and it also loses a fair amount of light that should be reaching the camera).

Try hand-holding the F30 to the scope eyepiece, zoom out to lose any vignetting and then gently move the camera so it's at an angle to the eyepiece and you'll see what I mean.

If you're stuck for settings here's what I use and find they work OK for me:

Standard colours.

Normal autofocus, Centre.

Spot metering.

6Mpix and F (fine) - might as well get the best quality you can out of it and cards are reasonable these days.

Aperture Priority to help give the best shutter speed for available light.

I set -1/3EV as standard and increase this to -2/3 or -1EV if the bird has white on it that I can't meter, I find the F30 over-exposes whites and this helps stop the whites from being blown-out, (this only applies to sunny days of course).

Auto White Balance.

ISO, set to the lowest but good enough to give you a reasonable shutter speed.

Other things like top3, bottom3 etc. I select when I need them.

I Don't use digital zoom or focus assist lamp.

Regards

John

[jourdaj]

John has pretty much said it all. I'll add that distance between camera and eyepiece is also critical. Zoom the eyepiece to 20X and the F30 to its widest (8mm) zoom and adjust camera/eyepiece distance until the vignetting is sharp. This should be your ideal camera/eyepiece distance. Then, zoom the eyepiece to 60X and center the camera to the eyepiece while depressing the shutter half-way - the bright spot should be centered as much as possible. I've found that the camera can appear to be centered over the eyepiece, but the image will disappear when the shutter is depressed. These alignments will then allow you to use your camera and eyepiece zoom at all mags.
Good luck,

Jerry