Olympus c7000 - Will it work with Swarovski ATS80? (1 Viewer)

I was looking at buying the Canon A95 because I know it works with the Swarovski ATS80 but I am wondering if the Olympus c7000 might work as well.

The main reason for my curiousity is because the c7000 comes with a 5x optical zoom.

So that brings another question. Is the 5x optical zoom of any value for digiscoping or is there too much light loss and/or picture quality reduction. BTW the c7000 is a 7 mp camera.

I'm not familiar with the C7000, but the 5x optical zoom may not be much use in digiscoping as it will likely be too strong for the scope optics leading to soft grainy images. Even the trusty Nikon CP4500 has to be used at around 3x maximum and yet the camera does zoom to 4x.

One of the advantages of the A95 is the vari-angle LCD which can be flipped out and turned for easy viewing so that when the camera is mounted on the scope you don't have to bend double to view it.

That's good news.

I don't believe that I need anything greater than 5mp but was thinking the A95 would get trumped by higher optical zoom cameras in the future. If a 3x optical is all that is truly useable I will probably buy the A95.

The camera by itself is sweet, tiny and outputs very good pictures at both edges of the zoom setting. I was amazed by the quality of the pictures. One of my friends gave it to me for a couple of days to play around with it for and test it for digiscoping.
I've tried the C7000 last week with my Leicas - bad news!
It behaves very similar to the 8080 I own - severe vignetting at almost all zoom settings.
Only at certain points of different focal length combinations of the camera and the Leica zoom eyepiece - vignetting is minimal. It was very disappointing, as in most other aspects - it's the ideal digiscoping camera. I guess it has to do with the optic structure of the C7000 lens.
I'll continue my search for the ideal digiscoping camera...

Good point yossi, no doubt the C7000 will be a very good camera on it's own, but maybe not for digiscoping.

I have an interest in such things and currently the A95 seems to be the best contender for the discontinued Nikon CP4500, which to be honest I still prefer from the results I have seen. When I have to replace them as of this moment it's the A95 I'd be buying.

Thanks to both of you for you input. I guess the olympus cameras are just designed differently. I have a C5050Z and the vignetting is severe.

I ordered the adapter tube for the A95 from Lensmate near Seattle Washington.
http://www.lensmateonline.com Their 37mm tube looks like it will adapt to the DCA on the Swarovski ATS80 without needing a step ring with should work better. I heard that a typical step ring doesn't have a stopper and can interfere with the camera lense if it is screwed in too far.

So far I'm very pleased with the Nikon CP8400. It's only useful at the edge of the zoom range - between 70-85mm, and the combined focal length is almost half of the CP4500, but still, with the Leica 62 and the zoom eyepiece one can reach 4000mm, good enough for most purposes.
What I like the most in this camera is the EVF. It is excellent for daylight shots where the LCD becomes totally useless, especially here, with the harsh sun. Another trick I discovered lately (maybe it's discovering America to some people here...) is the ability to do selective focus, a task that was impossible with the CP4500.
It goes like this: you can aim at a flower field or a group of birds, half-press the shutter release button. This locks exposure and the focus point. While still half-pressed, do some fine refocusing with the scope (the Leicas have two wheels for that - excellent!). In this way, I'm able to focus on one flower in the field or one specific bird in the group. Without the EVF (which gets a bit dim during this action) I wouldn't have done it.
I use a standard SLR cable shutter release with a $3 simple adapter. Works like a charm.
So far, this camera is the best for digiscoping in my collection (CP990, 4500, Sony-717 and Oly 8080). The 8 mp allows cropping or making large posters. At iso 50, the pictures are very clean of noise. If Nikon would have installed a 28-150mm lens in this camera, preferably with IF, this would have been the ideal digiscoping camera.