Digiscoping with Canon Digital Rebel (300D) DSLR (1 Viewer)

Hi, just this week I acquired the following the following equipment for digiscoping with my Canon 300D

Bushnell Elite 20-60 X 80mm spotting scope (Waterproof, ED Glass, Rainguard)

Bushnell Elite Camera Adaptor for SLR or DSLR Cameras

Manfrotto 190CLB Tripod

Manfrotto 141RC Tripod Head

Canon RS-60E3 Remote Switch

Connected to my Canon Digital Rebel (300D)
(Requires a T-Adaptor for Canon EOS mounts)

I have jut begun to experiment with it. It is apparent that successful photo's with the setup require as high a shutter speed and as low an ISO speed as lighting conditions will allow. This can be a challenge in BC during the winter where gray cloudy winter days don't always provide a great deal of light. The mirror slap of the camera still causes miniscule movement (even on a very solid tripod & head). I think at times I will need to sacrifice light on the exposure (to be rectified later with Photoshop) in order to get the release speeds sufficiently fast that the image is not disturbed by the mirror slap.

If anyone has other experience with similar setups I would appreciate any tips or advice that you could provide?

Many Thanks,
BCBirder

BCBirder said:

I have jut begun to experiment with it. It is apparent that successful photo's with the setup require as high a shutter speed and as low an ISO speed as lighting conditions will allow. This can be a challenge in BC during the winter where gray cloudy winter days don't always provide a great deal of light. The mirror slap of the camera still causes miniscule movement (even on a very solid tripod & head). I think at times I will need to sacrifice light on the exposure (to be rectified later with Photoshop) in order to get the release speeds sufficiently fast that the image is not disturbed by the mirror slap.

If anyone has other experience with similar setups I would appreciate any tips or advice that you could provide?

Many Thanks,
BCBirder

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I would not be too particular about keeping the ISO speed down too low, I frequently use an ISO of 800 with my Eos 300d which is coupled to my Nikon ED78 with the Nikon FSA1,2 and 3 adapters, hand supported ( because I don't fancy the weight of the camera on the eyepiece ) and a hand operated shutter. The noise on pictures at that level is not at all apparent, though on the one occasion I used an ISO of 1600 at extreme magnifications the noise is apparent. Conversely the high ISO numbers help to allow me to use an aperture of 5.6 and a speed of 1/400 which helps to prevent camera shake.

Mirror slap can be countered by a bean bag on top of the camera/lens or by resting your free arm on the camera.

Canon 300D - Mirror Slap

Chris Oates said:

Mirror slap can be countered by a bean bag on top of the camera/lens or by resting your free arm on the camera.

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Thanks for the tip, I will try that...

This can be countered by the Digital Rebel hack which includes MLU, mirror lockup delay.

valzuniga said:

This can be countered by the Digital Rebel hack which includes MLU, mirror lockup delay.

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Thank you, I found and downloaded the firmware hack you refer to and indeed it enables MLU and MLU delay, which I am very hopeful will minimize blur during digiscoping efforts!

BCBirder said:

Thank you, I found and downloaded the firmware hack you refer to and indeed it enables MLU and MLU delay, which I am very hopeful will minimize blur during digiscoping efforts!

Click to expand...

I liked your photos on the flickr web site, especially the heron. Keep shooting!
I'd like to know if you or anyone out there has compared a Bushnell Elite 80 ED with a Pentax PF-80a ED. I'm uncertain about which scope to buy (my first). The swarovskis and leicas are very good, but I feel their asking prices are obscene. I've looked through the pentax (overall, I thought it was very good) but not the Bushnell. I've seen the Bushnell online for $700 U.S. The Pentax always seems to be around $999 U.S. birdwatchersdigest.com has a scope round-up chart which has the Pentax scoring an "18" for 60x resolution while the Bushnell scored a "16". I'm not sure if this difference in resolution would be noticeable in the field. Is a 2 point improvement in resolution score worth $300 U.S.? What do you think, folks?