Marcus,
It sounds to me like the "adapters" you heard about might be what others and I call a "bushing" rather than an adapter that mounts your camera to your scope.. because you say "hand-held." I've made myself a more substantial "bushing" than those you mention, by turning PVC plastic pipe on a lathe (this is simply a doughnut-shaped ring to snug inside the eyepiece eyecup that cradles the lens barrel in its inner opening, which nearly perfectly centers your camera, reducing vignetting to the optical minimum, and making it quicker to properly set up the camera and snap the shot.) BUT... I did NOT find it satisfactory compared to hand-holding my external focusing cameras (my only digitals); here's why: after a number of blurry shots for each sharp shot, I figured out that my unsteady hands, no matter how slightly, transferred camera movement through the bushing to the eyepiece, and moved/shook the scope. If you're not too discerning about picture quality you can do as well as many shots that get posted.. but as you begin to master digiscoping your standards definitely go up over time, and I literally could do a better job with "pure" hand-holding, at which I developed the touch to calmly "float" the lens fairly well centered as well as optimize the distance back from the lens to minimize vignetting.. lets call that place the "sweet spot" just as we do on our tennis racquets when we hit the optimal part of the stringbed.
Then finally.. I resorted to designing and building a true adapter that mounts the camera from it's 1/4" threaded mounting socket. There are not many of these "universal" adapters out there, and we're considering selling mine, but I suppose there'll be a glut of choices if I ever get there!! Totally objective about it, I find hand-holding preferable in some instances and the adapter better in some, probably most instances. I have it so you can swing the camera away and back with relative but not total ease and convenience. And I want to add that while I've been doing "hand-held" digiscoping longer than the term "digiscoping" could be found on the web or maybe existed, I've seen other digiscoped photos in these galleries stating "hand-held" that are at least as good as my own results. This is not an unobtainable goal.. but how your camera fits to your scope would make a big difference.. the small diameter lensed cameras like my two go inside the eyepiece eyecup providing shade to the camera, and making centering and spacing, more manageable, than a larger barreled camera would. Some scope-camera combos might require even a small lensed camera be held rather far back, say an inch or so... again making hand-holding difficult to do well. So be aware. Whatever you choose, digiscoping is a phenomenal hobby and experience, and I wish you all the enjoyable hours you can spend with it.
