Samsung TL 500/EX1 ? (1 Viewer)

After much gnashing of teeth, i'm ordering a Samsung TL 500 this week to see if it will match up with my Zen ED2 20-60x82mm scope.
Looked hard at the Panasonic LX5, Olympus XZ-1 & the Canon S95, but the tilt screen & the 24-72mm 1.8 lens won me over. Even if it doesn't work, the price drop to $300 makes it a no-brainer as a back up to my DSLR's.
I was really hoping my Canon G10 would work but the GF claimed it, so i was on the hunt for a good digiscoper P&S. There doesn't seem to be a lot of options in a quality 3-4x zoom range, but this one stood out, & i've got all my fingers crossed that it will work with the 20-60x Zen eyepiece.
I hope i'm not the only one on this forum (to be) using this camera & that it has worked with somebody elses rig. Zen-Ray sent me their Raptor Universal ds'ing attachment which is an armful of adjustable bars & joints, so i have no idea if all this scaffolding will work, but i'm having fun juggling all this stuff...

(With fingers crossed) Anybody out there with the TL 500/EX1 in the field?

Review;

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/samsungtl500/

Pics seem to indicate it is a thicker camera than the LX3 with lens extended so don't get your hopes up.

My understanding is that a 3-5x digital p/s camera in the 28mm to 135mm range would work depending on the eye relief & focal length of the scope eyepiece. The 20-60x Zen ED2 has an eye relief of 20-18mm (which seems good), so i'm hoping that the 24-72mm lens of the TL 500 won't be a problem. I do expect to get a 30x WA eyepiece when they become available, which would make it even easier to digiscope.
Either way, the samsung camera looks like a great buy at $300.

The ideal range is 35mm-105mm to minimize vignetting on the low end of eyepiece magnification. This tends to optimize the angle of view of the lens with the angle of view with the eyepiece AND keeps the focal plane of the sensor within the distance of the eye relief point of the eyepiece.

HOWEVER, as we saw with the LX3 and to some extent with the S90/95 when the makers start adding control rings around the lenses it pushes the sensor focal plane further back beyond the eye relief point of the typical eye piece.

Hope it works for you though as we are in desperate need of new digiscoping friendly cameras!

I'll be interested how this turns out as I thought this an intriguing camera,

It's comming any time now, so i'll take pics of the whole procedure to see if it works. I guess a list of cameras for digiscoping would be impossible due to all the different spotting scopes & eyepieces available. When Zen-Ray sends me their 1.25" threaded adaptor i plan to buy the Baader 17mm eyepiece to see if that opens up the possibilitys for adaptation to p/s lenses.
I hope Zen makes an adaptor for DSLR's like the Vortex ones - gotta D90 & D7000 dieing to get behind this beautiful piece of glass.

I am also very interested in how this camera would work together with a spotting scope. I have a Zeiss 85 TFL.
This camera also has a remote that makes even more suitable for digiscoping.
Please keep us posted here

So far, with the 20-60x Zen ED2 eyepiece, I am getting vignetting, but cropping has produced some usable images. I'm waiting for the new Zen 30x WA eyepiece to arrive this week & will post a more detailed review with pics once I have a chance to see if I can get everything to work together. Aside from digiscoping, the TL500 is a beautiful camera that I plan to keep anyway - very high quality all metal body & i love the 1.8 lens.

Hi Bob

How are you getting on with the camera? Any chance of some sample shots to see the extent of the vignetting?