New to Videoscoping - advice requested re:NVGS400 (1 Viewer)

Hello all.
I´m Alex, from Spain. I´ve just join to the forum trying to get some answers about videoscoping and read everybody´s mesages to learn everything I can.
In this first mesage I would like to ask you about the best way to record birds with my videocamera. I have panasonic NV GS 400 and Zeiss diascope 85, with 20-60 eyepiece.
I don´t know how to adapt it to get good recordings (you know, the problem of vigneting). I think that I need an astronomical eyepiece (becouse my camera´s lens diameter is big).
But I´m not sure if adapting the camera to the telescope is the best way to record, becuse I´ve read (I don´t know where) that there are conversor lens for videocameras thas have factor 5x. This would be very good, I think, becouse, as the camera has 12x optical zoom, this would transform it in 60x (the same as the telescope).
The thing is that I don´t know where to find this conversos lens, becouse pansonic only has 2x one, which is not enough.
Anyway, does anyone know if it´s better to get this lens or get an astronomical eyepiece and adapt the camera to the telescope?
Which method would get more image cuality?
Does anyone use this videocamera? How do yo do it?

Thank you very much.
Alex.

AlexanderGarcía said:

Hello all.
I´m Alex, from Spain. I´ve just join to the forum trying to get some answers about videoscoping and read everybody´s mesages to learn everything I can.
In this first mesage I would like to ask you about the best way to record birds with my videocamera. I have panasonic NV GS 400 and Zeiss diascope 85, with 20-60 eyepiece.
I don´t know how to adapt it to get good recordings (you know, the problem of vigneting). I think that I need an astronomical eyepiece (becouse my camera´s lens diameter is big).
But I´m not sure if adapting the camera to the telescope is the best way to record, becuse I´ve read (I don´t know where) that there are conversor lens for videocameras thas have factor 5x. This would be very good, I think, becouse, as the camera has 12x optical zoom, this would transform it in 60x (the same as the telescope).
The thing is that I don´t know where to find this conversos lens, becouse pansonic only has 2x one, which is not enough.
Anyway, does anyone know if it´s better to get this lens or get an astronomical eyepiece and adapt the camera to the telescope?
Which method would get more image cuality?
Does anyone use this videocamera? How do yo do it?

Thank you very much.
Alex.

Click to expand...

Hola Alex!

The first thing you need to do is find out the diameter of the lens at the front of the camcorder? You then need to buy an adapter to connect the camcorder to the scope, The adapter thread may not be the diameter of your camcorder, so you need to buy "Step Down" or "Step Up" rings to match the diameter of the camcorder lens with the adpater.

You can Purchase the adpaters and rings from two UK companies, "Eagleeye" or London Camera Exchange ( LCE) There are other adapters by Zeiss, this i think is on their website, but you then need to look how strong your tripod and tripod head will now stand upto this extra weight, and the balance of all this equipment together will now be much different?

Simply, yes it will work but you may find that the vignetting is present for most of the optical zoom (0X - 8X) and the vignetting only dissapears at say 9X - 12X magnification? which means you have very high magnification, Comprendo?

The 5X lens is made by Eagleeye but you still have to connect them together, and if the thread on your camcorder lens is different to the 5X lens, you will have to purchase step up or step down rings to join them together, This is the cheapest option for you

There is also information on this website regarding Vidoescoping, if you look from the home page you should find it under Digiscoping?

Hope this helps?

Best Regards

Paul

AlexanderGarcía said:

But I´m not sure if adapting the camera to the telescope is the best way to record, becuse I´ve read (I don´t know where) that there are conversor lens for videocameras thas have factor 5x. This would be very good, I think, becouse, as the camera has 12x optical zoom, this would transform it in 60x (the same as the telescope).

Click to expand...

your camera looks like the lens may be too large in diameter to match the scope without vighnetting - my panasonic NV-GS38, had a 37mm filter thread and vignetted a little even at the best setting. The only way to find out is to try, since the internal elements of a video camera lens move meaning sometimes you can only clear vignetting at max zoom.

Using an add-on lens is MUCH easier to work with in the field, the combination is much more sensitive to light as the scope is about f/11 where the camcorder plus (in my case) 2x add-on lens runs about f5.6. You can get a camcorder with add-on lens onto a bird in about half a minute if you have it mountred side by side on your tripod liek I have. That's a lot quicker than get scope onto bird and then camcorder + scope onto bird. That's the good news.

The bad news is that camcorder add-on lenses lose a lot of quality - the eagle-eye 5x lens is of a similar quality to a beer-bottle. You lose contrast, you gain flare, you gain chromatic aberration. A 2x lens is a lot better, but even my Sony 'high grade' HG 2037X flares shockingly and loses contrast and definition. There is no filter thread on the front so you can't attach a lens hood, which is one accessory that add-on lenses really need.

I have the same scope as you, and the quality of the video image through the scope is vastly better than an add-on lens, on those subjects where you have enough light. The Zeiss quck camera adaptor, though incredibly expensive, does allow you to use both the scope for direct viewing and with your camcorder without too much fuss. But you have to check your camcorder with the scope - I think you will have too much vignetting to be useful.