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Attaching a digital slr to a scope (1 Viewer)

R

RonHW

Well-known member
Question - If I take a digital slr camera body and attach it directly to an 82mm scope (eyepiece removed), what exactly do I now have.

Shopping for cameras and trying to understand whether it's valuable to be able to attach the new camera to the current scope.

Thank you in advance for the lesson.

rw
 
It will depend on the scope I am sure, but the only times I have seen it tried it did not work well at all. The lack of eyeepice may well make it difficult or even impossible to focus it, I've alsy found that the auto exposure tends to go very wrong. If you want to use a DSLR with a scope I'd recommend looking at a direct SLR adapter (these are tubes that contain an optical element) or use an eyepeice on the scope and a lens on the camera and digiscope with it.
 
postcardcv,

I currently digiscope using a Poweshot A85 and my Fieldscope 82.

I've noticed that some manufacturers sell pricey adapters for slrs to scopes.

Nikon advertises that its Fieldscope Digital SLR Camera Attachment (FSA-L1) Fits Nikon SLR bodies and attaches to Fieldscope. 4 Lens elements, converts 82mm Fieldscope into a 1500mm f/12.2 camera lens, when including camera's chip size multiplication factor of 1.5x.

So, one question is what would be a likely application for a 1500mm f/12.2 lens?

The second question is how can I best find out if anyone else makes an adapter for the fieldscope or must I buy a Nikon slr?

Thanks again for your help.

rw
 
RonHW said:
So, one question is what would be a likely application for a 1500mm f/12.2 lens?

The second question is how can I best find out if anyone else makes an adapter for the fieldscope or must I buy a Nikon slr?
Click to expand...

The advantage of this is the huge magnification, 800mm is the longest lens you can buy over the counter. The downside is that it is manual focus and being f12.2 you'll need good light to make the most of it.

As far as I know noone else makes an adapter like the FSA-L1 for a Nikon scope, so if you want to attach a DSLR it would need to be a Nikon. Personally I prefer to use a compact for shooting through a scope and use lenses with my DSLR.
 
RonHW said:
I wonder if there are adapter rings to transition between the nikon and canon mounts?

rw
Click to expand...

You can get adapters to allow you to use Nikon lenses on Canon EOS cameras so I guess they would work fine with the FSA-L1 (never thought of it for this though I know peopel who use them for lenses). These adapters are fairly cheap (~£10 inc postage) on ebay so it could be worth looking into.
 
RonHW said:
Question - If I take a digital slr camera body and attach it directly to an 82mm scope (eyepiece removed), what exactly do I now have.
rw
Click to expand...

What you would have is a scope operating in prime focus mode at about f/6.2 giving you about 15x magnification. I can't say for sure because I don't know the exact native focal length of your scope so I'm assuming about 520mm for a typical 80mm spotter.

Also because you have lost the focal length of the ep you would lose focus at infinity and it would only give you close focus. And because you would have two prisms in the light path, one in the scope and one in the SLR, the image would not be correct - it would be upside down and left and right would be reversed.

I use my Pentax spotters this way sometimes and the image quality is very high but you are stuck with the incorrect image and the relatively low magnification and limited close focus range.

If you really want to attach a SLR to a spotter get a proper SLR to scope adapter. They are pricy, about $350, but work well. I use one on my Pentax spotters and it works well. It gives me the equivalent of 1910mm (38x) tele on my 100mm Pentax spotter with correct image and a normal focus range.

SF
 
Last edited:
Sout Fork said:
If you really want to attach a SLR to a spotter get a proper SLR to scope adapter. They are pricy, about $350, but work well. I use one on my Pentax spotters and it works well. It gives me the equivalent of 1910mm (38x) tele on my 100mm Pentax spotter with correct image and a normal focus range.

SF
Click to expand...

Right. Well that's my question/problem. How do I attach the Nikon scope adapter to my Canon slr?

rw
 
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