DanC.Licks
AKA Daniel Bradley
Bloody good, if you ask me!
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Astroscope + DSLR = Gallery! (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter cango
- Start date
DanC.Licks
AKA Daniel Bradley
Hey Guys,
don't forget the monthly photo competition. Means nothing in its self, but it lets more people see your pictures and it might generate more interest in digiscoping.
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/433484
don't forget the monthly photo competition. Means nothing in its self, but it lets more people see your pictures and it might generate more interest in digiscoping.
http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/433484
Paul Corfield
Well-known member
I never used to bother with the digiscope competition as it used to be spotting scope only but I see they now include astroscopes as a viable method. In the past we used to be part of the digiscope forum but there were too many complaints from spotting scope digiscopers and we got turfed out into out own sub forum. That's fair enough but due to no digiscopers entering photos in their own competition we are allowed to join in just to bulk it out. :t:
Paul.
DanC.Licks
AKA Daniel Bradley
Yeah, let's hear it for the ALF! (Astroscopers Liberation Front)
:smoke
B
Hard for the digiscopers to keep up technically. Maybe that is why there are no digiscope entries to date.
:smoke
B Hard for the digiscopers to keep up technically. Maybe that is why there are no digiscope entries to date.
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I think, however, that it is a bit unfair competition - including astroscope (prime mode) and spotting scopes. I found it way harder to shoot through an eyepiece. (nikon p6000 and 8-24mm baader hyperion eyepiece and my celestron scope) . Not saying one is better than the other though. I've seen superb spotting scope disgiscoped pics here.
Paul Corfield
Well-known member
Digiscoping is a bit of a grey area these days. A lot of people attach camera bodies with no lens to spotting scopes via adapters and that is essentially a hybrid prime focus set up with a fixed focal length. Maybe that's why astro scopes are also included now.
Paul.
Paul.
Everyone has its own opinion, but I simply think that if you use a scope as a part of your photographic system, you are digiscoping.
For example, I frequently use an astro scope, but with eyepiece and a compact camera. Other times I work with prime focus... despite of the big differences between them, I feel that I'm digiscoping in both modes.
By the way, with a proper setup, digiscoping with a compact camera is probably easier than with prime focus mode. You can play with the zoom, in my case with a 3x focal range almost without vignetting, so you can frame the picture at your taste.
After that, when you half press the shutter the compact camera makes some fine focus adjusting, showing the focused areas, so when you finally press the shutter you get a very high final percentage of in focus pictures.
With my Sony DSC-W7, macro mode and multi point focusing it is really easy. I use a 14mm TV Radian that gives 34x with my scope.
For example, I frequently use an astro scope, but with eyepiece and a compact camera. Other times I work with prime focus... despite of the big differences between them, I feel that I'm digiscoping in both modes.
By the way, with a proper setup, digiscoping with a compact camera is probably easier than with prime focus mode. You can play with the zoom, in my case with a 3x focal range almost without vignetting, so you can frame the picture at your taste.
After that, when you half press the shutter the compact camera makes some fine focus adjusting, showing the focused areas, so when you finally press the shutter you get a very high final percentage of in focus pictures.
With my Sony DSC-W7, macro mode and multi point focusing it is really easy. I use a 14mm TV Radian that gives 34x with my scope.
Hyrax
Well-known member
Oskar Moilanen
Well-known member
Wow, beautiful all three of them. Mood setting warm light at the second one, I really like it.
Roy C
Occasional bird snapper
Nice shots, I really like the flight shot :t:
DadraFromFrance
Well-known member
:t::t::t:
Paul Corfield
Well-known member
You really need to break it down more.
Have a look at the old Olympus Zuiko 600mm f6.5 camera lens. It focuses exactly the same as a telescope does with a rack and pinion focuser, the Zuiko 400mm and 1000mm models use the same mthod. See here http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/olympusom1n2/shared/zuiko/htmls/600mm.htm
Look at some of the old screw mount or T-mount 500mm/600mm lens, they are quite like telescopes in their simple design.
A scope mounted direct to a dslr is just like any other camera lens on a dslr apart from the fixed aperture and the focusing is slightly different to the more common helical design, although there are scopes that use that method.
Adding a prism and an eyepiece turns the scope into a spotting scope and photographing through the eyepiece is therefore digiscoping. The definition of digiscoping is photographing through an eyepiece. That is why we split from the digiscoping forum.
You can mount a prism and an eyepiece to any dslr lens and use it for digiscoping. I've built systems like that in the past, you basically turn an old camera lens into a spotting scope. You wouldn't put the lens back on the camera and call it digiscoping though. It's better to take the word 'telescope' or the word 'scope' out of this and instead call it a 600mm prime lens. Optically, the only thing a telescope doesn't have that a camera lens does is the rear lens groups to correct various optical distortions like spherical or chromatic aberrations etc.
Taking the eyepiece off a spotting scope and mounting a dslr body is prime focus. You only need an optical adapter because the prism can't be removed. I think they need their own sub forum. 3
Paul.
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Paul, with your knowledge and adding some pieces I'm sure that you could convert your scope even in a microscope, but it will remain being a scope.
Glass is glass, and optic laws are the same for all of them, so you can use devices for different purposes for what they were in fact intended, but if you have not dissasembly them they remain being the original device.
So for me is easy: if you use a scope (spotter or astro, it doesn't matter) and a digital camera, you are digiscoping. You still have your scope, and can use it for what it was originally intended.
I've been beside a guy with a Canon 600mm F4.0 EF L lense, and it was heavier and bulkier than my scope, and even with a longer focal length. But that guy and me had no doubt about that... I was using a scope, and he doesn't.
I understand your reasons, but I tend to use Occam's knife approaches to complex questions.
It's just my personal view.
Glass is glass, and optic laws are the same for all of them, so you can use devices for different purposes for what they were in fact intended, but if you have not dissasembly them they remain being the original device.
So for me is easy: if you use a scope (spotter or astro, it doesn't matter) and a digital camera, you are digiscoping. You still have your scope, and can use it for what it was originally intended.
I've been beside a guy with a Canon 600mm F4.0 EF L lense, and it was heavier and bulkier than my scope, and even with a longer focal length. But that guy and me had no doubt about that... I was using a scope, and he doesn't.
I understand your reasons, but I tend to use Occam's knife approaches to complex questions.
It's just my personal view.
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Paul Corfield
Well-known member
A scope that incorprorates a prism and eyepiece and photographing through it using a camera that has a lens attached is the only definition of digiscoping which goes back to the 1990's when the term was invented.
A scope and camera body is not digiscoping. Other methods have different names, it's that simple.
Paul.
A scope and camera body is not digiscoping. Other methods have different names, it's that simple.
Paul.
Paul Corfield
Well-known member
The equipment housing the lens may look different but the principle in how the two create the image is exactly the same. You wouldn't say you were digiscoping and he wasn't. Neither of you were.
Paul.
Paul I don't find your definition a simple one.
You assert that the only definition of digiscoping is: "A scope that incorprorates a prism and eyepiece and photographing through it using a camera that has a lens attached"
In my years of "digiscoping" I have "digiscoped" through the next systems:
- A Seben 90x1200 Mak with dual port, connecting a compact camera with an eyepiece to the upper port, which has an integrated diagonal mirror (not a prism) inside the scope. Applying your definition that's not digiscoping.
- A Seben 90x1200 Mak with dual port, connecting a compact camera with an eyepiece to the back port, and a diagonal mirror outside the scope. Applying your definition that's not digiscoping.
- A Seben 90x1200 Mak with dual port, connecting a compact camera with an eyepiece to the back port, and a erecting prism outside the scope. Applying your definition that's not digiscoping because the scope didn't incorporate the prism.
- A Skywatcher 90x1250 Mak with an eyepiece directly attached to the back port, and a compact camera connected straight without any diagonal nor prism.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a diagonal mirror, an eyepiece and a compact camera.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a straight extension tube, an eyepiece and a compact camera.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a straight extension tube and a Canon 1000D body without eyepiece nor lense.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a straight extension tube, barlows, powermates and a Canon 1000D body without eyepiece nor lense.
With your strict definition, I've never digiscoped. And maybe you're right, but I doesn't have felt the same in this years of "digiscoping".
If you also put in consideration prime focus with a spotter and a photoadapter, ufff... a photoadapter is not very different of an eyepiece... or the new "prime focus" of Swarovski with the TLS APO... which is in fact a lense, or the Kowa varifocal TSN-PZ 680-1000mm photoadapter... difficult to classify, or eyepiece projection systems... it's a complex matter to stablish the red line between which is and which is not digiscoping with that criteria.
You assert that the only definition of digiscoping is: "A scope that incorprorates a prism and eyepiece and photographing through it using a camera that has a lens attached"
In my years of "digiscoping" I have "digiscoped" through the next systems:
- A Seben 90x1200 Mak with dual port, connecting a compact camera with an eyepiece to the upper port, which has an integrated diagonal mirror (not a prism) inside the scope. Applying your definition that's not digiscoping.
- A Seben 90x1200 Mak with dual port, connecting a compact camera with an eyepiece to the back port, and a diagonal mirror outside the scope. Applying your definition that's not digiscoping.
- A Seben 90x1200 Mak with dual port, connecting a compact camera with an eyepiece to the back port, and a erecting prism outside the scope. Applying your definition that's not digiscoping because the scope didn't incorporate the prism.
- A Skywatcher 90x1250 Mak with an eyepiece directly attached to the back port, and a compact camera connected straight without any diagonal nor prism.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a diagonal mirror, an eyepiece and a compact camera.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a straight extension tube, an eyepiece and a compact camera.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a straight extension tube and a Canon 1000D body without eyepiece nor lense.
- A Televue 76 refractor with a straight extension tube, barlows, powermates and a Canon 1000D body without eyepiece nor lense.
With your strict definition, I've never digiscoped. And maybe you're right, but I doesn't have felt the same in this years of "digiscoping".
If you also put in consideration prime focus with a spotter and a photoadapter, ufff... a photoadapter is not very different of an eyepiece... or the new "prime focus" of Swarovski with the TLS APO... which is in fact a lense, or the Kowa varifocal TSN-PZ 680-1000mm photoadapter... difficult to classify, or eyepiece projection systems... it's a complex matter to stablish the red line between which is and which is not digiscoping with that criteria.
Paul Corfield
Well-known member
The key thing is photographing through an eyepiece with a camera that has a lens is digiscoping or afocal photography if we want to use the proper term. I didn't realise we needed to specify the exact erecting method, it's just that spotting scopes use them. Obviously on a telescope we can leave out the erecting method and that is the way I personally prefer. Everything has it's own name, if you want to lump it all under one umbrella then that's up to you. I used to call everything digiscoping too. When we were part of the digiscoping forum and a few of us started posting prime focus methods there was nothing but moaning from spotting scope users who were digiscoping purists. The digiscoping name was coined when birders started putting P&S cameras on the back of their spotting scopes to photograph through the eyepiece and that's what the term is best used to describe. Photographing through an eyepiece on any other type of scope is probably best called afocal photography. To add everything outside of photography under just one term confuses the matter.
Photo adapters to allow the use of a camera body on a spotting scope is basically prime focus. They are mainly there to invert the image because the scopes prism can't be removed. Whether they can vary the magnification like the kowa does is probably irrelevant.
Paul.
Photo adapters to allow the use of a camera body on a spotting scope is basically prime focus. They are mainly there to invert the image because the scopes prism can't be removed. Whether they can vary the magnification like the kowa does is probably irrelevant.
Paul.
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