Scope/Camera Combination

[Ichthos]

Hi All,

I spoke with greendale the other day and he told me about this site.
Looks good! What a great idea to have something like this for our local community!

Also nice to see a few familliar faces.
My camera is a 2 megapixel Kodak DC5000.
I have tried before to shoot pics through my binoculars and never had very good results.
After reading this topic and doing a bit of research on 'digiscoping', I decided there must be a way for me to get better results from what I was doing.
Yesterday I picked up a 37mm filter for my camera lens, took the glass out and mounted it solid ( read epoxy!! ) to my binoculars.
I waited overnight for it to dry, and though the weather is terrible right now with hardly any light, I decided to give it a try this morning.
I took a couple of shots through the kitchen window, which my wife keeps wonderfully clean! ;D
Here are the results, and I must say I'm quite pleased:

No zoom:

members.shaw.ca/Ichthos/Digiscope experiment1.JPG[/img]


Through my 7x50 Bausch & Lomb binoculars, mounted on a tripod and using a timer for the shutter release:

members.shaw.ca/Ichthos/Digiscope experiment2.JPG[/img]

Now where's all those feathered little dudes hiding?

[greendale]

Welcome aboard and for the first post on this forum for 2006. Nice work on the digiscoping experimental shots as well.

I did not have my camera with me today and missed what could have been some nice shots of swans that were very close to the road edge at Hopedale Road.

[Gord]

Buckeye, a very good experiment with good results. That's a good crisp shot even in the miserable rain and low light. The filter doesnt interfeer too much with using the binos? My camera lens isnt threaded so I guess it wouldnt work on my scope anyway.

You could almost read the instruction manual on that cherry picker thing. Might be handy knowledge to be able to use such a thing to get over and beyond the crowds on your favorite run.

No more 5am rush to be first...your spot is always there.

Anyway, welcome to the site!

[Ichthos]

Thanks Gord

I actually removed the lens from the filter, keeping only the threaded ring, which I mounted to the binocular eyepiece.
In order to avoid vignetting I had to bring the eyepiece of the binocular into the camera lens barrel about 10 mm.
Sounds odd that you can not add a filter to the end of your lens. ??

I tried a few shots yesterday:






Not too bad I suppose, but I'm hoping better light will bring better results.

Too bad I missed what could have been a beauty shot of a Double-crested Cormorant, it was badly out of focus. Sure need to hold things still for a decent shot!

Cheers,
George

[Gord]

Those are both nice shots! That mallard with the reflection is sweet, and the wood duck framed by the branches is appealing as well.

Look forward to seeing more, and also seeing your set up. I think Im confused. Maybe you can take a picture of what you did to your binoculars?

The closer the lens of the camera is to the scope/binocular eye piece the better Ive also learned.

[JeffOver]

Hi everyone. I'm looking at a CF350X Portable Refractor Telescope. Here are the details. Let me know what you think.
Telescope Standard Accessories:
70mm fully coated, achromatic objective
Focal Length : 350mm
Kellner 9mm Eyepiece
Kellner 25mm Eyepiece
2x Barlow Lens
Bulid-in Compass
5x20 Star Finder Scope
Portable "Instant Use" Mini-Tripod
Padded Carry Bag with Shoulder Strap
Dust Free Eyepiece Cleaning Cloth
Detailed Specifications:
Objective Mirror: Multi-coated achromatic
Lens Clear Aperture: 70mm
Focal Lenth: 350mm
Focusing: Rack and pinion focusing
Primary Tube Length: 14 inches
1.25" K9mm & K25mm Eyepieces
Magnification: 80x & 28x (2x Barlow Lens)
Exit Pupil Aperture: 1.5mm & 5mm
Visual Field: Apparent: 40 & 43

Thanks, Jeff

[Gord]

Jeff, I have no experience with this type of scope, but it sounds like something you can use for birding and star gazing.

Some things that come to mind.

Is the magnification fixed? 80x and 28x depending on the eyepiece? One thing that is nice is the ability to zoom, although some really nice scopes are fixed magnification (often 40x). If this is the case, you might find that 80x is too much a lot of the time and that 28x, while the one you'd proably use more, wont offer a closer view if desired. Maybe swapping eyepieces isnt too hard but often birds wont give you time to do that.

I might try to find sites on the net where these products are discussed by experts (be careful of the so called experts or self proclaimed ones) or people with some experience. They can be very helpful in pointing out things you might not think about until you've had the scope for a few days.

Also, Id really suggest using the scope and all the parts. Hook it on and off the tripod, change eye pieces. Look through it and see how it focuses and the ease of getting it on target. Dont mix up a problem you discover with the scope. It might just be inexperience with the scope, or it might be a real problem.

Have you looked into the Celestron series? I would suggest having a look at some to see what they are about.

[Ichthos]

A little better explanation of what I’ve done:

Please excuse the poor image quality, it's the webcams fault.

There is a 37mm threaded filter on the end of my camera lens barrel:





I would like to keep this original filter, so I decided to purchase another matching one to mess around with.
I removed the glass from the new filter, keeping only the threaded metal ring.
The rubber eyecups on my binoculars are threaded onto the body with a steel ring:



It seems most replacement filters have both sides threaded, one side male and the other side female.
I would assume this is so you can add more than one filter to your lens at the same time, but for me this may work out perfect. The threads look like they're a pretty close match to those on the binocular eyepiece!
It turns out it's not quite so simple, the threads on the binoculars are about 36.5mm.
Somewhat disappointing but hey, nothing a little epoxy won't fix! ;D



After letting the glue dry it's time to fit things together:



This setup seems to work not too bad. The distance from the binocular eyepiece to the camera lens at full zoom is just small enough to avoid vignetting, and it certainly didn't end up costing me very much!

I know I know, it takes a high-speed camera to catch a dutchman with his wallet out.

There are a few things I don't like about my setup though:

I should have paid more attention to the position of the binoculars in relation to the camera when I glued the filter ring on. When the threads are tight the binoculars hang down, and when I try to shoot at a downward angle they hit the tripod.

Also this camera zoom lens extends to the wide angle position when it is turned on. In order to avoid vignetting the eyepiece of the binoculars needs to be inserted into the barrel of the camera beyond the point to which the lens extends. So I need to remove the binoculars from the camera each time before I turn the camera on to avoid burning out the zoom motor or worse.

The viewfinder on this camera is not through the lens, so focusing needs to be done using the LCD, which is not really good enough.

These issues caused me to miss some shots of a flock of Northern Flickers I ran into on Saturday.

My next camera will be a 400mm + zoom I think.

Cheers,
George

[Gord]

Ah, good explaination! You did a good job before...I was just a bit slow. I found a few little annoyances as well similar to yours with focusing and making sure I dont leave the camera left on the 'platform' of my adaptor as after a while it will turn off and the lens will retract and sometimes get hung up and harm the camera. Also, there is always the 'set up time' of placing the adaptor on the scope eyepiece, digging out the camera and getting it on and the settings correct.

I was talking to Thor and he priced out some professional adaptors that cost as much if not more than the camera you use. These adaptors will certainly cut down on many, if not most, of the problems we've encountered.

But with that in mind and the results obtained to date, for the price, our innovations are excellent.

I know I know, it takes a high-speed camera to catch a dutchman with his wallet out