Bridge-Camera (1 Viewer)

Hi all,
I'm very new in this forum and joined it because i want to start with digiscoping very soon. Up to now I use cameras DSLR for simple pictures. I'm not sure weather to use these cameras even for digiscoping or better to use a compact camera or one of these new bridge cameras. Can anybody help me with this??

Thanks in advance
Heinz

Heinz, welcome to birdforum!

There is another section of birdforum devoted to digiscoping, so you may want to look there as well: http://www.birdforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=243

If by bridge camera you think about a P&S with a built in superzoom (18x - 35x), those are usually not recommended for digiscoping, more for photos on their own.

As I do not do much digiscoping anymore, I will leave the rest of your questions to others.

Niels

Cameras

Thank you Niels,

when I'm thinking about bridge-camera I mean: Panasonich Lumix FZ-100 or Fuji FienPix HS20 or Nikon Coolpix P500 or Canon Powershot SX 30 or others like that.

Understand what I mean? These are kind of advanced cameras - not just a compact digicam.

best Heinz

Another approach

maybe I should try another approach to the problem. Most contributions to the discussion of what is the right hardware for digiscoping are talking about compact digcams - very few about DSLR. Where another difficulty is to be seen.. makes a difference to mount the camera (body) to the spective or the lens. Makes it not easyer for me.. therefore i asked the bridge camera, which is between those two as I think.

Heinz

For successfull digiscoping the eye-piece of a scope must send the light into the lens of the camera in such a way that the lens can then focus it on the sensor. To have this happen in a way that does not produce a narrow circle of image and a lot of unused sensor, empirically it has been easier to achieve with a compact P&S that does not have more than 3-5x zoom (others, please correct me if that limitation is no longer in existence). Likewise, if using a dSLR, they have usually been used with a lens that has internal focusing (front lens does not move to focus) and with a small lens again without much zoom (look at this thread).

Therefore, Bridge cameras are good used on their own but not really for placing behind a telescope.

Niels

This has been a useful information - makes things more clear to me! Thank you for that, Nils.

Heinz

I have a bridge camera, for record shots. Which it is very good at. However, can't digiscope for life with it!

Before I bought I would definately make sure the camera is compatible with digiscopping equipement because otherwise you will be left with a nice compact but not much else. I have a compact Konica which also doesn't work with my digiscoping equipement which means I have never used the digiscoper nd rarely used the camera......