iPhone 14 Pro Digiscoping Review (1 Viewer)

[jourdaj]

I picked up an iPhone 14 Pro and PhoneSkope adapter and compared digiscoping quality with my Full-Frame Sony a9 and 40/2.5 digiscoping rig, and to my professional Sony a1 and 600/4 rig. In short, the iPhone 14 Pro does an impressive job of creating high resolution images that are easily croppable, which is necessary since the 48 Mpx is only available when the camera is at 1X magnification. All other magnifications drop resolution to 12 Mpx. At 1X there is a significant vignette circle but it disappears at 2X. Cropping a 1X image to 2X will result in a 12 Mpx image that is equal to the impressive 2X, 12 Mpx images. 4K video is very good. Overall, this camera is an excellent digiscoping option for those who wish to avoid the larger camera/adapter route.

Digiscoping w/ the iPhone 14 Pro - 26 Nov 2022

 

[kimmik]

Cropping to 2x is 12MP i would have thought. Iphone is great for scope photos agree, they do excellent motion compensation.

 

[jourdaj]

Cropping to 2x is 12MP i would have thought. Iphone is great for scope photos agree, they do excellent motion compensation.

You are correct, kimmik - it should be 12 Mpx. My bad...

 

[Femtiofyra]

Thanks for making this comparison, the iPhone images look great! It appears there is more CA in your Sony a9 image than the iPhone 14 pro. Here are some image crops to demonstrate (top iPhone, bottom Sony a9):



My question is: where do you think this is coming from? Is it coming from the scope but the iPhone camera software is pre-processing it out? Is it some kind of misalignment between the Sony a9 and the eyepiece? I assume it is not coming the camera alone.

 

[Jason Bugay Reyes]

I picked up an iPhone 14 Pro and PhoneSkope adapter and compared digiscoping quality with my Full-Frame Sony a9 and 40/2.5 digiscoping rig, and to my professional Sony a1 and 600/4 rig. In short, the iPhone 14 Pro does an impressive job of creating high resolution images that are easily croppable, which is necessary since the 48 Mpx is only available when the camera is at 1X magnification. All other magnifications drop resolution to 12 Mpx. At 1X there is a significant vignette circle but it disappears at 2X. Cropping a 1X image to 2X will result in a 12 Mpx image that is equal to the impressive 2X, 12 Mpx images. 4K video is very good. Overall, this camera is an excellent digiscoping option for those who wish to avoid the larger camera/adapter route.

Digiscoping w/ the iPhone 14 Pro - 26 Nov 2022

Excellent results as usual!

 

[gregbaker]

Which of the three lenses on the back iPhone 14 pro are you using for digiscoping? It looks like the right lens is the telephoto lens however I've had mixed results with it.

 

[bobwhitebarry]

You download an app from Phone Skope and it dictates which lens. It also stops auto focus and many other control items like display brightness, switching to video, etc. It's great for someone like me that hates figuring out what I need and what needs to be turned off. I have a couple of bluetooth remote shutter controllers. The one from Phone Skope costs more and is obnoxiously oversized. But charges up using a micro USB and it does connect and work better than my others. I guess I would recommend it over any other I have tried. I kind of feel like a Phone Skope billboard walking around with a 3"x1.5"x1/2" remote. My others are 1 3/4x3/4x3/8" and black instead of white with a big Phone Skope logo. They do a good job of marketing anyway they can I guess.

 

[TomFG]

Hello, everyone. I just joined this forum because I had been looking for information about digiscoping. An interest in eventually trying to digiscope is what lead me to buy the 14 pro and I see from the prior posters that it's a viable approach. Now, the next thing is a scope and I thought that I'd ask for ideas here, since I'd like to pair the as-yet-unpurchased scope with the new iphone. I'm assuming/hoping that, between the purchase of an adapter and the downloading of Phone Skope that I'll have enough information to figure out digiscoping. My interest is digiscoping is probably the same as everyone's - to extend the range of what I can photograph. Case in point: there are recent reports of a Eurasian Widgeon within a reasonable distance from where I live but it's about 200 yards from the edge of private property - a flooded farm field. My Olympus is not cut out to deliver much more than a very basic diagnostic photo at that range, so the option of digiscoping would have been fun.

 

[jourdaj]

Thanks for making this comparison, the iPhone images look great! It appears there is more CA in your Sony a9 image than the iPhone 14 pro. Here are some image crops to demonstrate (top iPhone, bottom Sony a9):

View attachment 1481447

My question is: where do you think this is coming from? Is it coming from the scope but the iPhone camera software is pre-processing it out? Is it some kind of misalignment between the Sony a9 and the eyepiece? I assume it is not coming the camera alone.

Most likely the CA is coming from misalignment of adapter on the scope. I was working fairly quickly in changing light so I may not have critically aligned the adapter on the scope. The next thing to explore, though, is whether the sensor size has a correlation with amount of CA we find when digiscoping?

 

[jourdaj]

Hello, everyone. I just joined this forum because I had been looking for information about digiscoping. An interest in eventually trying to digiscope is what lead me to buy the 14 pro and I see from the prior posters that it's a viable approach. Now, the next thing is a scope and I thought that I'd ask for ideas here, since I'd like to pair the as-yet-unpurchased scope with the new iphone. I'm assuming/hoping that, between the purchase of an adapter and the downloading of Phone Skope that I'll have enough information to figure out digiscoping. My interest is digiscoping is probably the same as everyone's - to extend the range of what I can photograph. Case in point: there are recent reports of a Eurasian Widgeon within a reasonable distance from where I live but it's about 200 yards from the edge of private property - a flooded farm field. My Olympus is not cut out to deliver much more than a very basic diagnostic photo at that range, so the option of digiscoping would have been fun.

Hi Tom,
You will do well with any of the scopes from the names like Swarovski, Kowa, Zeiss, Leica and Vortex. You can check out the adapters available at Phoneskope.com to make sure you purchase the right scope/eyepiece that would fit one of their adapters. Price will dictate which models you are ultimately interested in. If you are anywhere near the Biggest Week in American Birding Festival (May 5-15) you can check out a bunch of scopes in the optics tent that will be set up.

 

[TomFG]

Hi Tom,
You will do well with any of the scopes from the names like Swarovski, Kowa, Zeiss, Leica and Vortex. You can check out the adapters available at Phoneskope.com to make sure you purchase the right scope/eyepiece that would fit one of their adapters. Price will dictate which models you are ultimately interested in. If you are anywhere near the Biggest Week in American Birding Festival (May 5-15) you can check out a bunch of scopes in the optics tent that will be set up.

Thanks, jourdaj. I will make a note of the festival - maybe next year.