Digibinning with Olympus SP-800 UZ (1 Viewer)

[NhazUl]

Hi there. I'm relatively new to birding and especially bird photography. I haven't bought a professional camera due to lack of time for regular shooting (2-3 times per month is not worth it) so I have an Olympus SP-800 UZ. It performs fairly well when the lighting is enough and the bird is close (3-6 meters), but otherwise it greatly decreases the quality of the picture. So I had a thought about digibinning, since I have an old pair of binoculars with one prism dislocated, e. g. no longer usable. The binoculars (JL Breaker 7x50) can be attached to a tripod.

However, due to the wide lens of the Olympus attaching it to the binoculars would be quite the problem. Fortunately, it has an option to macro at focus length of 1 cm, giving an image of its maximum resolution (14 megapixels at 50 ISO, while when I use the 30x optical zoom, the res drops to 8 megapixels and also the ISO is set automatically, most oftenly to 200 at bright sunlight). So I think it would be an improvement, provided I can effectively attach the camera. However, I doubt that such an adapter exists in the first place. So most probably I'll have to construct one. I will need any tips and advices you have to offer. Thanks in advance.

P.S. Hmm, I made a test with the binoculars. I used the camera of my cell phone, without any kind of adapters. It's a weak 1.2 megapixel (1280 x 960) camera. The object was at ~30 m distance. So, what do you think, would the quality be enough if I attached the Olympus instead? Should I proceed?

 

[digitalbirdy]

Hi NhazUI

I don't visit the forum much now, but I still do a fair bit of both digiscoping and digibinning. If you align the Binoculars and the 800uz correctly you should get some good results. I do not have that camera, so it is possible that internally the lens may retract away from the front when you zoom, if so you may end up shooting thruogh a dark tunnel. Canon G11 and G12 are not very suitable for the same reason. But my fuji's and wifes old olympus work well.

I can still get better results with my old Fuji F11 and Opticron 66mm ED scope than I can with thousands of pounds worth of DSLR cameras and long lenses.

Best wishes.