What camera for a Zeiss diascope

[Spiff]

I have a Zeiss diascope 85, and I plan to start digiscoping. As an adapter, I think the spidertech adapter will do fine. Although these adapters are relatively expensive, I can at least get them easily in the Netherlands. As for the camera, I'm not to sure what to go for. I read somewhere that about 6 megapixels would be ideal, and that lenses should be small to prevent vignetting from occurring. I can imagine a large LCD screen to be an amenity. A 28mm filter thread is preferred for the spidertech adapter (conversion rings are available). That's more or less where it ends for me. Camera's seem to come and go rapidly, so I wonder what people more into this business than me would advise me for a camera.

[jourdaj]

Spiff,

Welcome to Birdforum. You'll find tons of great information here! and everyone is 1st class!

I use a Nikon P5000 with a homemade adaptor for my Zeiss 85 and 20-60X eyepiece. I love it. But check out Neil's posts of the P5100, Coolpix 8400, Canon A640 and Nikon Coolpix 4500. The Fuji F30 and F31 cameras are great, as well. Since my adaptor is homemade, I cannot comment on your choice, but wish you the best nevertheless!

Cheers,

[john-henry]

I have a Zeiss diascope 85, and I plan to start digiscoping. As an adapter, I think the spidertech adapter will do fine. Although these adapters are relatively expensive, I can at least get them easily in the Netherlands. As for the camera, I'm not to sure what to go for. I read somewhere that about 6 megapixels would be ideal, and that lenses should be small to prevent vignetting from occurring. I can imagine a large LCD screen to be an amenity. A 28mm filter thread is preferred for the spidertech adapter (conversion rings are available). That's more or less where it ends for me. Camera's seem to come and go rapidly, so I wonder what people more into this business than me would advise me for a camera.

Hi Spiff,
Don't know anything about the spidertech adapter but I too use a Zeiss 85 with the Nikon P5000, great camera would recommend it to anyone, there is also an adapter tube (UR-20) that screws onto the camera direct and has a 28mm female thread at the other end, might solve your problem.

Regards

John

[iporali]

And I can confirm that the Spidertech adapter indeed works very well. It is basically similar to the (even more expensive) Swarovski DCA, but with fixed filter threads. The thread diameter is 28mm and so it fits directly to the UR-E20. The Zeiss zoom may vignette slightly at wide end but should give a perfectly usable zoom range with the P5000. In this case I would recommend against the Canon A640 etc. - here (used with a filter adapter tube) the 4x zoom limits the usable zoom range significantly.

Best regards,

Ilkka

[Mike Penfold]

Another option is the SRB-Griturn digiscoping alignment collar, which is light, compact, quick, effective, and relatively inexpensive.

I use it with the 6 megapixel Fuji F30, which may give the best photographs with the current generation chip at this resolution, and has an anti-blur setting which can make full use of its very fast ISO in low light. While the F30 has been discontinued, the Fuji F50fd is worth looking at, with an even faster ISO, albeit at reduced resolution.

With the adapter in one jacket pocket and camera in another, going from birding to photography is seamless.

Mike

[Neil]

The updated Nikon P5000, now the P5100 is growing on me more and more and I'm finding I'm using it most of the time now for digiscoping. Have a look on the thread in this forum. Neil.

[Spiff]

Neil, I have already read the thread you started, and after some more research I decided that the P5100 is the camera I'm most likely going to buy. Thanks for your review.