Digiscoping

Hello,

I would like to take pictures of wildlife, birds etc and have been looking into digiscoping as opposed to buying an expensive telephoto lens. I was thinking of marrying up a Camlink CSP60 Spotting Scope with the Pentax K-R - has anyone tried digiscoping or can offer any advice?

You can probably get good advice from those shops at some WWT sites - there's a helpful guy at Martin Mere, for example.

For adapters, look to SRB Griturn, who can adapt almost anything to almost anything else. Sometimes, but not always, at a price of course!

I'm looking into this as well .... this forum has tons of great information : link

I think digiscoping is fine, but you'll get better results with a second hand telephoto lens.
used sigma 400 with the kr would beat the image quality of even the best scopes for about the same money.

I'm not sure that is not all true Don. I've seen killer shots where you can count the feathers taken at 900mm, 1200mm and 1700mm. Check out that site I posted the link to above. Sensational.

Yes I agree too. When using the correct setup you can get stunning results in fact.

I think both views being expressed are peobably true. You certainly can use a cheap scope - such as the camlink plus adapters but the results may be disappointing.

Attaining the "correct set up" should certainly deliver excellent results at 1000mm+ but this is not cheap - e.g. for the best results on a Pentax - it may make sense to buy Pentax. You would need a Pentax CA-35 K mount adapter - £300+ and a Pentax quality scope - the Pentax Pf80ED for instance is over £500 - and this is not one of the expensive ones - the Pf100Ed will set you back over £2000!!!

Carl

true but incomplete..with the correct set up & the right circumstances would be more accurate to say ...
I just think there'd be more flexibility and options in using a lens or a lens + teleconverter and having the control and options of both aperture and shutter speeds...
I agree you can have fun, experiment, and get results.... but to get consistently good results under varying conditions, I would expect the telephoto lens will outperform the spotting scope rig, just as surely as a proper macro lens will outperform a reversed lens set up...try using a reversed lens with p-ttl flash for eg... hacking something together is fine, but from my perspective, since I don't already own a high quality scope, it would not make sense to buy the scope over a used telephoto lens.

Don is right in saying "flexibility & under varying conditions" as a spotting scope / telescope is far less portable than a 400mm + TC and can't be reduced to a 400mm only for other uses ..... though the IQ is way better digiscoping and there is no way a 400mm can be made to reach 1,000 - 1,700mm plus without unacceptable IQ degradation. So if portability (or using it hand held) is essential then digiscoping isn't the way to go (though of course you can still relative easily transport the set up to your preferred location for birding/sky/stars whatever).

I've just about settled on the Skywatcher Black Diamond 80 ED (as recommended on the Bird Forum) for my digiscoping needs (around £450 or £600 including all the bits and pieces) - and ordering this week means it should be delivered within the next couple of weeks. Price-wise this compares very favourably to a Pentax 1200mm

I wonder how a 400 mm lens + adaptor + Q would perform....

A lot of digiscoping is done with P&S cameras ... so the Q would probably do very well !

digiscoping with night vision scopes would have some practical value for war journalists..