iPhone 5 might be good (1 Viewer)

RJM said:

It puzzles me why Swaro did not launch an iPhone5 adapter. It's pretty clear smartphone cameras are taking over the entry photography niche. Kowa saw this trend and has responded. Of course, they will need a new adapter to fit the iPhone5 now. But these look relatively cheap/easy to produce so hopefully someone can step up if the scope OEMs drop the ball.

Click to expand...

I played around with the iPhone 5 camera specs in my spreadsheet today and was suprised to see it achieves the max focal length/largest aperture possible for digiscoping.

Specs:
Sensor size 3264x2448 = ~8mp
fl=4.13mm (33mm effective) F2.4
Base ISO 50

It is a fixed focal length lens with only digital zoom available so it is best to use a zoom eyepiece on the scope. You want to zoom the eyepiece so the exit pupil is <= the 1.7mm physical lens aperture (4.13/2.4).

On the Kowa 88x, zooming the eyepiece to ~50x+ magnification (~1.7mm exit pupil) yields a focal length of ~1700mm @ F2.4. That's nearly a full stop faster aperture value than what other cameras can achieve at that effective focal length!

I don't use an iPhone so can't test this but I would be curious to learn if shutter speeds would be faster than a typical P&S at its base ISO in this scenario. Volunteers?