I ordered this today...Did I Go Wrong? (1 Viewer)

I just ordered an Alpen 788 spotting scope with an adapter for my camera. I have a Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS ELPH digital point and shoot camera that I plan on using for my photography work.

Is this a good setup to get started in digiscoping? I also have a Canon t2i 550 DSLR camera. I know how to take pictures but I haven't tried digiscoping before.

Any help that you can give me will be appreciated.

The reason that I bought this scope is because of the reviews and the price. I did not want to break the bank and not like digiscoping

Welcome ofwiah,

The scope looks good enough in reviews but it's lacking the ED glass that digiscopers like. That doesn't stop you digiscoping with this scope but you may experience purple, blue or red fringinging around high contrast areas in the photos and this is because it doesn't use ED glass. The easiest way to try out your combination is to set the scope up on various targets at around say 20-30m. Hold the camera up to the eyepiece and take some photos, try various camera modes and compare results from standard mode and macro mode especially. As you are hand holding the camera then using the image stabilisation will also help for the tests. Hold the camera as close as possible to the eyepiece to stop any stray light getting in or use a piece of tube to shroud the gap between camera and eyepiece. Also try various zoom settings on the camera to reduce vignetting. An example of vignetting here. Zooming the camera in will get rid of the black area. If the scope has a zoom eyepiece then try various zoom settings on that too with low to medium zoom being better for letting in more light. See how you get on. It's a simple test just to see whether it's worth spending extra on digiscoping adapters and stuff.

Paul.

Paul Corfield said:

Welcome ofwiah,

The scope looks good enough in reviews but it's lacking the ED glass that digiscopers like. That doesn't stop you digiscoping with this scope but you may experience purple, blue or red fringinging around high contrast areas in the photos and this is because it doesn't use ED glass. The easiest way to try out your combination is to set the scope up on various targets at around say 20-30m. Hold the camera up to the eyepiece and take some photos, try various camera modes and compare results from standard mode and macro mode especially. As you are hand holding the camera then using the image stabilisation will also help for the tests. Hold the camera as close as possible to the eyepiece to stop any stray light getting in or use a piece of tube to shroud the gap between camera and eyepiece. Also try various zoom settings on the camera to reduce vignetting. An example of vignetting here. Zooming the camera in will get rid of the black area. If the scope has a zoom eyepiece then try various zoom settings on that too with low to medium zoom being better for letting in more light. See how you get on. It's a simple test just to see whether it's worth spending extra on digiscoping adapters and stuff.

Paul.

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Thanks Paul,

I will give your suggestions a try after my scope arrives. I should have it by Wednesday of next week. Do I understand you correctly with the adapter part. Different adapters make a difference in the quality of the picture? Also I don't understand about the ED glass part.
This is all new to me. I am looking forward to taking nice close up pictures of the birds. I just hope that the equipment that I purchased will allow me to do this.

Paul Corfield said:

Welcome ofwiah,

The scope looks good enough in reviews but it's lacking the ED glass that digiscopers like. That doesn't stop you digiscoping with this scope but you may experience purple, blue or red fringinging around high contrast areas in the photos and this is because it doesn't use ED glass. The easiest way to try out your combination is to set the scope up on various targets at around say 20-30m. Hold the camera up to the eyepiece and take some photos, try various camera modes and compare results from standard mode and macro mode especially. As you are hand holding the camera then using the image stabilisation will also help for the tests. Hold the camera as close as possible to the eyepiece to stop any stray light getting in or use a piece of tube to shroud the gap between camera and eyepiece. Also try various zoom settings on the camera to reduce vignetting. An example of vignetting here. Zooming the camera in will get rid of the black area. If the scope has a zoom eyepiece then try various zoom settings on that too with low to medium zoom being better for letting in more light. See how you get on. It's a simple test just to see whether it's worth spending extra on digiscoping adapters and stuff.

Paul.

Click to expand...

Here are two pictures of my first attempt at digiscoping using the setup that I had asked the question about. The camera that was used is a Canon Power shot SD1300 IS ELPH P&S. The cardinal was shot using 1600 ISO and the Dove was shot using 100 ISO. I was standing in a sun room shooting through a patio door on a cloudy day. The Cardinal was 40' away on a bird feeder. The Dove was 80' away on top of a fence. I photoshopped them a lot.
Comments welcomed. I feel that the pictures are horrible

I have the same scope when taking pics of the moon I get green fring around it. Scope is great at the price point but I am looking to upgrade. I like the alpen products

tazzilla said:

I have the same scope when taking pics of the moon I get green fring around it. Scope is great at the price point but I am looking to upgrade. I like the alpen products

Click to expand...

This is the first time that I even looked through a scope. If you breath on it it shakes. I bought the Alpen adapter for digital cameras and I guess that has helped a little. I also have a blue area around the birds that I cannot remove with photoshop. I didn't realize that there were two different types of glass in the scopes until after I bought it.

For Photoshop download an action called Purple Fringe Killer. It will get rid of all colour fringing, not just purple, but that's what they called it lol.

This link has a page showing what it does and there also a link at the end of the article to download the action. After running the action you will end up with a photo as good as you would get with ED glass with regards to any stray colour. Any other problems will be down to a combination of the camera and the scopes eyepiece. The zoom eyepiece might not be as digiscoping friendly as a fixed magnification eyepiece but I doubt that can be changed.

If you have the scope/camera on a tripod then make sure you turn off the cameras image stabilization as this will likely cause image problems like blurred detail. Image stabilization is designed to always expect to see some sort of vibration and the cameras sensor moves to counteract this. If it doesn't see any vibration then the sensor will still move as it looks for it and this will blur the image.

Try things like scope on high mag and camera on low mag and compare that with scope on low mag and camera on high mag. Compare camera in macro mode with camera on normal mode. They don't always look different but sometimes the camera focuses better in macro mode with digiscoping. Use the countdown time to eliminate any vibration. If the camera is in auto ISO then maybe try a fixed ISO to reduce any noise. All sorts of things to try which may help towards a better image.

http://blog.lorrifreedman.com/index.php/2008/07/30/hdr-and-the-purple-fringe/

Paul.