Swarovski ATX/Olympus OM EM1 Mk2. Digiscoping is it worth the money? (1 Viewer)

I have loved watching birds for the past 50 years. I have reached the time in my life when I can afford to take photographs of birds.
I have got an Olympus OM EM1 Mk2 and I love it. Last year I hired a 300mm Olympus Pro lens and I got some amazing photos of birds at RSPB Bempton.
I have just bought a Swarovski ATX scope and again I am delighted with it for what it is.
I would like to think that I can marry the EM1 mk2 and the ATX together to get some amazing images as Swarovski lead me to believe that I can using their adaptors. But can I?
Should I buy the Swarovski adapters and see what I get (because I have never seen any images that are proclaimed to be wonderful? Or should I buy an Olympus f4 300mm pro lens with a 1.4x teleconverter?

Heya Dennis, The Oly EM-1 mk2 will be an excellent choice for digiscoping with the ATX. I used to use a Swaro STX85 myself with the Oly EM-1 mk1. Some results of mine can be seen on my Flickr account....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/56987879@N06/

My personal choice would not be one of Swaros digiscoping adapters though. But if you were to go that route the APO23 is the one for your setup. I though, would go for:

http://www.digiscopeadapter.com/styled-7/

You would need one with DRX sleeve which is currently $360 US. If you were to go this route you would also need a lens and this is the one to use:

https://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/black-panasonic-20mm-f1-7-ii-aspherical-lens.html

That should get you started. Sorry for the late help, but I hope this helps....

B Lucky

Gary

Gary,

I was thinking of the same setup like yours too. Does the camera perform better on low light?

The OM-D E-M5 mk 2 might also work about as well. The main upgrade in the EM1m2 is the phase detect auto-focus, which is useless for digiscoping. The EM5m2 does focus peaking very well. I use it on a manual focus 800mm f/5.6 lens.

There may be low-light ISO differences. I normally shoot the EM5m2 at ISO 400 - 800 through the 800mm (1600mm equivalent) and get good results. Sometimes I venture up to 1000 - 1250 ISO.

Marc

Marc

dennisr said:

Should I buy the Swarovski adapters and see what I get (because I have never seen any images that are proclaimed to be wonderful? Or should I buy an Olympus f4 300mm pro lens with a 1.4x teleconverter?

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I think that mostly depends on whether most of your shooting involves birds at some distance, whether you want to lug a tripod around, and don't mind being limited to shooting with it. You won't need a tripod with a 300mm and TC. Also, don't forget about the Panasonic-Leica 100-400mm zoom. I have both it and the Oly lens and the EM-1 mkii; I really prefer the lighter weight of the PL lens, and the image quality between it and the Oly prime is very close.

My prediction is that you'll probably end up trying both eventually. ;-)

Jim M. said:

I think that mostly depends on whether most of your shooting involves birds at some distance, whether you want to lug a tripod around, and don't mind being limited to shooting with it. You won't need a tripod with a 300mm and TC. Also, don't forget about the Panasonic-Leica 100-400mm zoom. I have both it and the Oly lens and the EM-1 mkii; I really prefer the lighter weight of the PL lens, and the image quality between it and the Oly prime is very close.

My prediction is that you'll probably end up trying both eventually. ;-)

Click to expand...

Hi all!
Thank you for your replies. After much deliberation, I bought a Swarovski Apo 23 complete with a micro 4/3 adaptor. It's obvious that using a telescope as a lens will only produce a fixed aparture. I do not understand what the aperture is though. I set my camera to manual and selected the shutter speed and altered the live view image by using the auto ISO. The images that I have had have been mediocre to say the least.
Could someone advise me what camera settings I should be using?
Regards Dennis

dennisr said:

Hi all!
Thank you for your replies. After much deliberation, I bought a Swarovski Apo 23 complete with a micro 4/3 adaptor. It's obvious that using a telescope as a lens will only produce a fixed aparture. I do not understand what the aperture is though. I set my camera to manual and selected the shutter speed and altered the live view image by using the auto ISO. The images that I have had have been mediocre to say the least.
Could someone advise me what camera settings I should be using?
Regards Dennis

Click to expand...

Normally I set it at Aperture mode with the TLS APO. So far so good.