DSLR mounting types pros & cons advice (1 Viewer)

I love photographing birds, though I'm not a professional by any stretch. I'd love to get a spotting scope, and it seems natural to get one that works well with my Nikon DSLR. I'm leaning toward either Celestron Regal M2 ED scope that allows a DSLR to connect to the eyepiece with a t-mount or something like a Vanguard Endeavor HD, which has an adapter that appears to connect to the camera lens and ... ? (edit: I thought it replaced the eyepiece on the scope, but trying to find more about it, it seems maybe it fits over the eyepiece? Not sure if securing via the filter threads is good with a Nikon D3200.)

Does anyone in the forum have any advice -- pros & cons-- for those two methods? My primary concerns are image quality and ease/speed of changing from eye to camera use of the scope.

Currently looking at the 65mm objective lens scopes, though I know if I can swing the price in crease, an 80mm would be better.

Thanks!
--Bryan

Any method of digiscoping where you remove the camera lens from the dslr and project an image straight on the ccd from the eyepiece will usually yield quite poor results. This is because eyepieces do not project a flat image. The resulting photos can be sharp in the centre but then tend to blur the rest of the image and it get more noticeable the further from the centre you go. Also chromatic aberration can be quite evident in the eyepiece projection method across the whole photo but worse in the blurred sections.

I managed to find a photo taken through the Celestron Regal M2 80ED with a Dslr and T-ring adapter and this shows perfectly what I'm trying to explain. Scroll down the page here http://sportoptics101.com/digiscoping-with-the-celestron-regal-m2-80ed/

I think the Regal M2 still uses the astro style 1.25" eyepiece fittings so there will be a vast array of eyepieces that could be tried out. Some eyepieces project much flatter images than the one supplied with the scope. Orthoscopic eyepieces for example can be ok for the projection method.

Photographing through the eyepiece with a smaller point and shoot usually works quite well. Then using a low power lens like a 24mm or 28mm on a dslr can work ok as long as the threads on the lens are strong enough. Using older, all metal lenses may be the way to go for the extra strength.

The 65mm scope may not let enough light through for the dslr, 80mm and up would be better.

Paul.

Thanks for your insights, Paul. (And what a gorgeous gallery!) I had run across that lousy photo on sportoptics101 before, but thought I had seen others that indicated better results were more the norm.

I came to the idea of trying a spotting scope after first considering an inexpensive 500mm reflex lens; then considering that a small telescope might give better quality results, and then thinking a spotting scope might be a happy medium, plus the ability to use it w/out the camera.

It seems most digiscoping sites I find refer to using point-n-shoot cameras and I'm beginning to wonder if I should even try with a dslr or will I end up with a small circle picture instead of full-frame.

--Bryan

From experience I'd say the photo on that website looks like it has been taken with the zoom eyepiece on minimum magnification. You are seeing 100% of the bad stuff along with a little vignetting. As the eyepiece is zoomed in you would see less and less of the bad stuff and just see the sharper center section being projected to the camera. Even though the center is sharper it's still not of that high a quality. I found a couple of photos on birdforum, both taken through a Celestron Regal 100 F-ED. The first is taken with a dslr mounted via T-ring and the second is a dslr with 50mm lens.

T-ring http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=381230&d=1335650734

50mm lens with eyepiece set to 22X http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=323123&d=1304726097

I'd give the 500mm reflex lens a miss. They are a mirror design and so will suffer from something called donut bokeh. Out of focus highlights tend to show up as small rings like this photo here.

A dslr lens photographing through an eyepiece usually works very well and usually there is no problem getting a full frame photo. Whichever scope you get you can just hand hold the camera behind the eyepiece to get a rough idea of how it would look before buying any adapters etc.

Paul.

Thanks again, Paul! I guess my decision is made for a through-the-lens style attachment. Now it's down to when I'm ready to drop the bank acct. balance a bit. Probably not too distant future.

--Bryan