The art of Digiscoping By Danny Porter. Hello all, Some of you will be familiar with me from my website “Dannys Digiscoping” But for those of you that don’t know me, my name is Danny Porter. Originally I come from south Norfolk, and was a keen birder for most of my early life. Then, like some, I kind of lost my way with winged things, as I discovered other pleasures in life. Now, after many years, and a few different locations I have fully re-kindled my passion for birds, beasts and all wildlife, and digiscoping! Firstly, let me be totally honest. In terms of birding experience, I am still very average, and I am not an expert in cameras, lenses or photography. I like to explain things in “layman’s” terms, and try not to baffle with precise terminology. Basically, I like to work things out as I go along!! Upon resuming my birding career, I noticed a few (not many) birders pulling digital compact cameras from their pockets, and taking pictures of birds with them through their telescopes! Wow, I though, “I’ve got a scope, and a compact camera”, “I wonder if I can do that??!!” So, that was it. I went home, and handheld my Sony compact camera up to the eyepiece on my Celestron Ultima 80, and took a few pictures of the birds in my garden. As you can see from the Greenfinch pictured below, it’s not very sharp, extremely noisy, and very dark. It wasn’t an awful start, but there was plenty of room for improvement!!

So, before I go too far, What is Digiscoping? Digiscoping in its most basic form is the ability for a person to take pictures through a telescope using a digital camera. Traditionally the camera should look through the telescopes eyepiece, but some modern DSLR adaptors have been designed to act in place of the scopes eyepiece. So whether digiscoping with a compact digital camera, or DSLR, the magnification created by the camera/adaptor and scope gives you a telephoto lens for a fraction of the cost of professional telephoto lens set up. Sounds great doesn’t it? Well, it is, but, like most hobbies, there are techniques to learn, but we’ll get to that later! Now we’ve established what digiscoping is, anyone thinking of trying digiscoping would want to know about the type of equipment they might need. There are many different cameras, scopes and adaptors. Some make good combinations, others don’t, and it’s very much a case of trying different combinations until you find a set up that works and suits you. Digiscoping with a compact camera The basics; Firstly pick a mid priced scope. I always think that Celestron Ultima scopes are ideal for learning to digiscope with, (assuming a better scope isn’t available,) as they are relatively inexpensive, have fairly good optics in them, and also the eyepiece had a built in “T thread, 42mm” which is very useful for direct camera attachment, but I’ll talk about that later! Secondly, most of us own a digital compact camera, which helps to keep set up costs down. Ideally they will have a full manual mode or perhaps an aperture priority mode, as this will help with controlling exposure, although using a camera in auto mode will work as well. Also ISO control is an important feature. Thirdly, an adaptor, or way of directly connecting your camera to the scope will be required. This can vary a lot, and it’s really dependant on what kind of camera you have. So, what was my first digital compact set up like?

The Scope; I purchased a Celestron Ultima 80 scope, basically because it was affordable for me. The “80” is the size of the scopes objective lens, and stands for 80mm. This is the minimum size ideally for digiscoping, as it lets in much more light than a 65mm scope. Light, as with all photography is the most important medium. No light equals poor pictures. The Camera; I already owned a Sony Cybershot compact digital camera that was fairly decent. At this stage though I didn’t really understand how to get the best out of the camera. This is something that will become important as the camera is the most important part of your digiscoping set up. The Adaptor; Knowing nothing of what I really needed I firstly opted for a “Visionary L” adaptor. It was a big, bulky contraption, with more adjustment controls than you needed. In theory the bracket seemed like a digiscopers dream, but in reality it was cumbersome, and had me constantly fiddling with it!

I then, by chance, stumbled across the adaptor that I was to use for some time. The humble and very simple, universal camera adaptor. This was ingenious I thought. Much simpler in every aspect of its use from ease of attachment to quick removal!

This little adaptor was perfect in every way. It was cheap, and so easy to use. It clamped around my scopes eyepiece and most importantly it kept the camera perfectly aligned with the scopes eyepiece. This is so important. Swing away brackets sound like a good idea, but in reality I found that I was never sure if the camera was realigning in the correct place, and after a few trips, re-adjusting the camera alignment became annoying, so the universal mount was a real revelation! This set up worked well. The camera, scope and adaptor were all very compact, and everything was aligned when I turned the camera on. I produced a few good pictures, the highlight being this Avocet at Cley Marshes back in 08. This picture was by far my best up to that point and with such limited experience wasn’t too bad!!

It is worth mentioning that there are some different things to look out for when setting up your first compact camera digiscoping rig. The most common of these is “Vignetting” Vignetting is a dark area, generally around the outside of the centre of the view on your compact cameras screen. Here is an example;

In most cases it is a simple problem to overcome. Simply zoom in on your target and the area of black should disappear as you restrict the field of view. Hopefully any vignetting will be removed and then you will be ready to take pictures. Another set up tip (if you are using a digital compact camera) would be to make sure that you only turn the camera on when it is away from the scopes eyepiece. Many of todays modern cameras have lenses that extend from the camera. If you turn your camera on and it’s too close to your scopes eyepiece then you could risk damaging both pieces of equipment. Make sure you turn the camera on before you align it with the scopes eyepiece. Another pointer is to make sure you turn the cameras flash “OFF.” You won’t need to use the flash, and it won’t aid your digiscoping at all. Big flashes in dark hides don’t tend to go down with other non digiscopers too well!! Digiscoping with a digital compact becomes more difficult in bright sunlight as it reflects on the LCD screen. This can cause problems as the LCD screen acts as the viewfinder. There are shades that can be bought for most sizes of screens. Failing that a baseball cap help, or even the traditional blanket over the head works well. Sunlight on the LCD make things difficult, but it’s not impossible to overcome. Overall, its quite simple to digiscope with a simple set up like this one. The adaptor should fit over the scopes eyepiece, the camera (in auto mode to start) should attach easily to the adaptor, and once aligned with the scopes eyepiece and any vignetting has been taken care of it should be possible to take good quality pictures. There is more to digiscoping with a compact camera than this though. Here are some technique tips!! As with all photography, light is key to any success. The sunnier and brighter, the better. It is important to remember with digiscoping that the more zoom applied, the less light is available. Also, the more zoom applied the sharper the focus has to be. To keep this simple, try focusing using the scope on a small magnification, and then try again on a greater magnification. You should find that the more you zoom the harder it is a get a good sharp focus. You should also notice that at high magnifications the scope will feel every last little bump or tremor. It is important to apply this to all aspects of digiscoping. It is still important to get as close as you can to your target, so that the detail of the target can be picked up, and that by being as close as possible means that you will not require really fast shutter speeds to produce really sharp looking pictures. This also means that you can significantly reduce the amount of camera shake. Put basically, even though digiscoping is telephotography, it is still good to get as close as you can to your target.

Digiscoping with a compact camera is definitely done best in bright conditions. The sunnier the conditions, the better your shutter speeds will, and hopefully the sharper your images. On less bright days, the ISO (amount of white) can be adjusted up on your camera. This can help increase shutter speeds, but does increase the amount of “Noise” in your picture. Noise is like a white haze that appears on your pictures. ISO adds white to each of the pixels on the picture. This effect is lessened on cameras with higher MP sensors, as the white is more distributed, so the noise on a picture taken at high ISO on a 4.1MP sensor camera will look a lot worse than the same picture taken on a 15.1MP sensor camera. A good ISO for most days is between 200-400. I always remember a little saying, which is “When its bright, take out the white,” basically meaning on a sunny day keep the ISO as low as possible. But so as not to rely on ISO as a way of increasing shutter speed it is better if your camera has a full manual mode. I found a camera with manual mode to be much better for digiscoping. Most modern cameras have this ability to be able to control the shutter speed and aperture (the f number.) How do I know what the right exposure is I hear you ask? Well, most cameras with a manual mode will have a digital exposure meter that appears in this mode. In most cases when the meter is in the middle that is the time to take your picture. Aperture or the “f” numbers is the amount of light that the lens will let through. Basically f1.8 would be a large aperture, and would therefore let lots of light in, whereas f10 would be quite poor and not let so much light through. A bigger aperture should lead to faster shutter speeds, which as we know are important for detail and for freezing motion. Most digital compacts have auto focussing features nowadays. Because of this when digiscoping it will be necessary to focus the camera and the scope. The technique for this is simple. Set the auto focus to centre point focusing. The reason for this is simple. Ideally you would want the cameras focus to be on the target, which is generally in the centre of your frame (viewfinder.) Having the camera in multi point focus means that the camera may focus on areas that surround the target, resulting in less sharp images. When it comes to taking pictures firstly focus with the scope to get a clear, sharp image. Then half depress the shutter button on your camera to activate the auto focus. Then when the camera is ready you can either take the picture or re adjust the scopes focus (whilst the camera is still focused) to really fine tune the picture. This can work very well. It is also a good idea to use the self timer on the camera. This can help reduce camera wobble, hopefully resulting in sharper images. This is all part of the digiscoping technique, and does work very well with practise.

I realise that I have gone on a bit about things to remember, but they are really points that you will learn more about the longer that you are digiscoping. I didn’t have any idea of these areas until I’d digiscoped for some time. The most important thing is to keep going out, getting pictures whilst learning how to get the best out of your equipment.

Digiscoping with a DSLR; The Basics. It is possible, quite easily, to digiscope with a DSLR. This is my preferred means of digiscoping. Again, you will need to consider the same three pieces of equipment, the camera, the adaptor and the scope. Most DSLR’s are connected directly to the scope using an adaptor. Quite often this adaptor replaces the eyepiece of the scope for a direct attachment. When digiscoping with a DSLR the scope becomes the cameras lens. It acts as a replacement for a traditional DSLR lens. Most DSLR’s make good cameras for digiscoping, so really the main choice is the adaptor. In my case I use a Swarovski scope. Swarovski make a dedicated adaptor for DSLR’s. Nikon also make a dedicated DSLR adaptor for some of its higher end scopes. These

adaptors connect into the eyepiece socket on the scope body, whilst the DSLR attaches to the other end, making a camera and telephoto lens set up. Other DSLR’s attach to adaptors that either fit on or over the scopes eyepiece. Canon EOS DSLR through Swarovski adaptor to scope

In this set up the adaptor replaces the eyepiece Nikon DSLR connected via lens through eyepiece to scope

© Barry Woodhouse

In this set up the camera is connected to the scopes eyepiece via the cameras standard lens.

In most cases it is easier to mount a DSLR directly. Sometimes DSLR’s will warn that there is no recognised lens attached. If this happens to you it is worth trying a different operation mode, such as manual or aperture priority. If this doesn’t work then you will have no choice but to mount the camera using a lens first, as the picture above shows.

Why choose a DSLR for digiscoping? In my opinion it is much easier to digiscope using a DSLR. All of the points that I mentioned before about ISO settings and distances apply the same, as these are basic functions of photography, not just digiscoping. But it’s the little points that make a massive difference for me. There is no vignetting if the camera is connected directly through an adaptor. When digiscoping with a DSLR you have to look through the viewfinder of the camera as most DSLR screens are only used for looking at pictures once they are taken. I find this much easier to see my target, and also the detail of the target making it easier to focus. This eradicates the sunlight on the LCD issue that can be experienced with digital compact cameras. Speaking of focus, with a DSLR you only need to focus the scope, even if you have your camera attached via the cameras traditional lens you would still only need to focus the scope, which does make the technique much easier. If you are attached using a traditional lens then you must turn that lens to manual focus. The reason for doing this is so that the focus motor in the lens doesn’t burn out as you can’t use auto focus with a DSLR. DSLR’s are generally more expensive, but they are a more professional camera, with much greater capabilities than a compact digital camera. One slight drawback of DSLR digiscoping is with straight through adaptors. Generally, as there is no lens for the camera to recognise, the camera has to be set in aperture priority. This in itself is no problem, but it means that your set up would have “fixed aperture” as the aperture could not be adjusted. My set up, for example, is fixed at f10, which isn’t great, so I have to use my cameras settings and the conditions to get the best results possible. All in all digiscoping with a DSLR can be much easier, but does have slight drawbacks, aperture and cost. They can also make the scope very “back heavy.” Quite often a balance rail is required. This is an adjustable plate the attaches in between the tripod head and the bottom of the scope, allowing the scope to be moved back or forth to offset the extra weight, effectively finding a centre of gravity where the weight of each end of the set up is equally balanced.

A bit on Tripods and other parts. To me, one of the most important discoveries I made was completely by mistake!! Whilst looking for a good quality tripod I bought a cheap one from the Internet. I was looking for something sturdy to support the weight of my rig. But, in the end the most important discovery was the “fluid” filled tripod head that came with it! Before this discovery I had struggled with the traditional style of tripod head, but had always bemoaned how in accurate they were. Now I had a fluid tripod head. Smooth pan and tilt controls were backed up by pin point accuracy. Basically this meant that when I tightened the tripod head in the position I wanted that it actually stayed there!! Now, I would recommend that a good fluid tripod head is worth so much in terms of making digiscoping easier, and it really is a must. I use the Manfrotto 701HDV which is an excellent tripod head. There are however, plenty more fluid tripod heads to choose from, so take time to make the right choice. This leads straight on to tripods…. The reason a good tripod is important is generally because of weight. Carbon fibre is by far the lightest and sturdiest material that they make tripods from! Prices of carbon

fibre tripods may still be quite expensive, but the extra cost is justified as a long haul around a reserve with a heavy set up can be quite miserable. It sounds like money, money, money doesn’t it?!? Well, to start with it is, but I like to think “spend once, spend well,” so that hopefully the equipment that is bought will be the only equipment that you will need for a while. It is worth remembering that most optical related equipment tends to hold its value quite well, so its not a disaster should you need to sell equipment to upgrade or replace. T2 rings and Stepping Rings These are little adaptors that digiscopers use to attach various cameras to various adaptors. T2 adaptors are for DSLR’s to attach to other adaptors. One side of the adaptor will match the lens mount of your cameras design. For example a Canon EOS T2 mount will fit a Canon EOS camera body. The other side will have a 42mm female thread, that then attaches to a male 42mm thread, such as a T thread on the eyepiece of a scope. This thread could also fit onto a 42mm stepping ring. For example, your digiscoping adaptor may have a 52mm thread, so a 52-42mm stepping ring would be needed to attach camera to adaptor. If attaching a DSLR using the traditional lens you would firstly need to find the size of the filter/lens cap thread. Here is an example;

To attach this lens you would again need a 52-??mm stepping ring. The ?? would be the size of the thread on the adaptor. Things can vary with compact cameras. If you would prefer a direct connection instead of the universal adaptor method, means of attachment would have to be determined. For example, some compact cameras have manufacturer’s adaptors that will have been designed specifically for a range of cameras. In other cases items such as adaptor tubes are used, see this example;

This camera has an adaptor tube fitted to a thread on the cameras body. The adaptor tube creates a 52mm thread. This camera and adaptor can then be fitted to another stepping ring or thread using this 52mm thread. Digiscoping, a conclusion Digiscoping is a fascinating past time, that when practised can produce some great photographic results. Remember, Choose your equipment carefully. Practice, Practice, Practice!! Don’t expect to go digiscoping for the first time and come back with bags of incredible pictures, it won’t happen!

Its very much trial and error whilst learning about your equipment and how to get the most from it. The good pictures will come along, but expect lots of rubbish ones along the way. If you have the patience to make digiscoping work for you it can be so rewarding. Getting those magical pictures is such an incredible feeling, capturing the birds you see forever, knowing it was worth all the hard work. There’s lots to learn, but lots to enjoy too. Good Luck!! Danny.

www.dannysdigiscoping.com