Eagle Nest webcam through telescope? (1 Viewer)

[Isaac-1]

We have a pair of bald eagles building a nest in a tree about 300 feet behind the house, so far I have been using a ten year old 600mm equiv Superzoom camera to snap pictures of the nest, but even with this I need to crop the photos down a bit as even in portrait orientation the nest only takes up about 1/3 of the frame.

Therefore my thought is to use my 480mm Televue Pronto 70mm telescope along with an as yet to be purchased probably mirrorless digital camera with either a micro 4/3 or APS-C size imager to do prime focus photography of the nest. Selection to be based on a combination of budget (as little as possible), along with the desire for features like USB web cam mode, live clean HDMI mode with no timeout, and availability of a battery eliminator power adapter. This would allow me to set up the telescope and camera and watch the live view from TV's, tablets, etc. around the house as well as potentially record it.

Any suggestions on camera models to use? I am thinking perhaps something like a Panasonic Lumix GH3, the weather sealed body sounds nice if it will be left outside on the covered porch a lot. Any other models that I should consider, also what adapters will I need for prime focus photography with this setup?

thanks

 

[jring]

Hi,

prime focus with APS-C will not be a lot larger than your 600mm effective superzoom - 480*1.6=768... m43 with a 2x crop factor is better...

Joachim

 

[Isaac-1]

Those were my thoughts also, however it is not all about cropped image size, other features come into play here as well, sensor resolution, low light performance, stay awake timeout, etc.