Digiscoping with a Digital SLR

The Concept

As a concept, digiscoping is as simple as it gets. Put your camera up to a spotting scope's eyepiece and take a picture of what the scope is focused on. However, we often find that in practice things are not as easy as they seem. It's been my experience that one of, if not the biggest challenge of digiscoping, is to get the right mix of scope, camera, and adapter that can easily and effectively be assembled as a complete, photography-ready unit. Why is this?

The Problem

I think the biggest hurdle here is the camera to adapter interface. In today's point-and-shoot camera market there is no uniformity in regards to shape, size, and features. It turns out that camera makers could care less about their products' suitability to digiscoping. As a result, the manufacturers of scopes and digiscoping adapters are forced to come up with intricate, highly adjustable, and often complex universal adapters to fit the plethora of cameras offered to consumers. I'm not interested in making digiscoping any more challenging than it already is. I'll always opt for the route that is fast, simple, and effective.

Pictured above are some of the "universal" digiscoping adapters. Large and mechanically intricate, they offer a less than optimal solution.

The Adapter Solution

The best hardware for digiscoping is that which requires the least amount of forethought or effort to put into use. In regards to camera adapters, the simple tube-style adapters on the market fit the bill perfectly. These tube adapters are simple, both in design and functionality. The premise is a hollow tube screwed onto the front of your camera lens that can slide over a scope's eyepiece, effortlessly centering both lenses at the proper depth. Not only are these adapters easy to deploy, they are compact and lightweight. Question: what's not to love about this type of setup? Answer: it doesn't work with a lot of cameras.

Pictured above are "tube" style adapters offered by Kowa, Vortex, and Swarovski

The Camera Solution

Very few point-and-shoot cameras have the functionality to attach adapters, filters, or boosters to the front lens. The absence of this feature is a design trend that seems to be picking up momentum, and as new models are introduced each year, fewer and fewer of them support filter thread attachments. Here is where a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) fits the bill nicely. Almost all DSLR camera lenses are inherently designed with filter threads that easily adapt to those wonderful tube style adapters. Warning: not all DSLR lenses are suitable for digiscoping. The best lenses are the short focal length lenses. Both Canon and Nikon make 50mm f/1.8 lenses that are relatively inexpensive and perfect for digiscoping. If you're shooting with a Pentax DSLR, you will want the Pentax 40mm f/2.8 “pancake” lens. When using a DSLR for digiscoping, you will need to disable the auto-focus, put the camera on its full manual settings, and set the lens aperture wide open. You will also need to adjust the camera's shutter speed to obtain the proper image exposure.

An exploded view of a full DSLR digiscoping rig, minus a tripod.

Nothing's Perfect

Using a DSLR for digiscoping doesn't come without compromise. DSLR benefits include universal adaptability via a threaded lens and the ability to use, and compose images through, a viewfinder. The drawbacks to DSLR cameras are the inability to use the lens' auto-focus and working with a bigger, heavier camera body. Because of a DSLR's size, I would NOT recommend allowing the camera body and lens to hang unsupported from the spotting scope for any extended period of time.

My current digiscoping set up: Leica 82mm APO Televid with Swarovski DCA and Pentax DSLR

What Are Your Options?

If you've got a DSLR or point-and-shoot camera that uses filter threads, and you need a good digiscoping adapter, I would take a look at the Swarovski DCA, Vortex Razor Digital Adapter, and Kowa DA10 adapter. These three brand-specific adapters accept rings to accommodate various lens thread sizes. I have had some limited luck getting some of these adapters to work with other brands of scopes. For instance, I'm currently digiscoping with the Leica 82mm Televid and, much to my delight, found that the Swarovski DCA adapter fits nicely around the new Leica eyepiece. Be prepared to get creative; if you are going to try to mix and match brands of adapters and scopes, you might need to make your own bushings or modify the adapters in one way or another.

New Swarovski ELs

Update on this blog post (10/22/09): Swarovski has officially introduced these new binoculars. Information on pricing and pre-orders can be found at Eagle Optics here.

There has been a bit of buzz in the optics business as of late about a newly designed, high-end binocular from Swarovski. Rumblings from the rumor mill and speculation began early this summer and I didn't pay much attention. Since my friend and fellow blogger John Riutta let the cat out of the bag, I'll post what I know here.

The redesigned EL (pictured above) doesn't look entirely unlike the current version that many birders and naturalists have come to love. It's my understanding that under the hood, it is a completely different machine. Judging from my first impressions, I would have to concur. This is very much a new binocular.

Other than minor differences in the binocular's trim, the newer EL distinguishes itself from the current generation with a substantially larger ocular lens, as Clay Taylor proudly points out. It's my understanding that design change facilitated the superb edge sharpness, minimal field curvature, and very generous field of view (approx. 400ft@1000 yds).

New Swarovski ELs on the left, current model on the right

They don't look too different from the outside.

Did I mention that it has a 5 foot close focus???? Corey was impressed. So was I.

I think one of the big questions on the minds of optics nuts and avid birders is "What's this little dandy going to cost me and is it worth it?" I don't know the pricing on this yet, as it hasn't been officially introduced to the US market. I would count on it to be more expensive than any of the competition's glass. These are likely the final days of being able to purchase a Swarovski EL for under $2000.

A Visit to Swarovski Optik

Above is an image from a clandestine gathering of the United Council of Birding Bloggers. This is a small but influential group of individuals who meet in secret to plot the course of the birdy blogosphere. They are to bird blogging what the Federal Reserve is to US monetary policy. Needless to say, I found myself in some good company.
At this meeting, we were invited to Swarovski Optik's US headquarters to share our insights on blogging and other "new media" with them. I won't bore you with the details here, but read ahead for a virtual tour of Swarovski's technical facilities in Rhode Island.

Here we are, vacating the insides of an SLC binocular of your run of the mill air and replacing it with nitrogen. Once sealed, this will insure that the inside of the binocular remains free of water vapors, making it internally fog-proof.
Corey from 10,000 birds took advantage of an opportunity to upgrade his own eyes to 8.5 power using this patented binocular vision machine. After this, his pupils were topped off with Swaro-Bright coatings to enhance color contrast and low light performance. Now he can bird without needing any binoculars. The downsides are he can no longer drive a vehicle and is only able to focus on objects 10 feet away or further.
This machine directs a laser into the binocular's lens system to calibrate the optic's prism alignment.
Here is what a $2000 binocular looks like before it's put together.

I've heard it said that a binoculars prism is the heart of the optical system. This piece of mirrored glass accounts for a great deal of the performance birders experience with fine Austrian optics. Stay tuned for a sneak peak at the newest addition to the Swarovski Optik catalog....