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What in the Heck Is Digiscoping?

What is digiscoping?

In its basic form digiscoping is exactly what Lawrence Poh did—holding a digital camera up to the eyepiece of a spotting scope, viewing the scope image on the camera's LCD screen, and pushing the button.

The first people to get caught up in digiscoping were outdoor photographers: They immediately saw the advantages of using the spotting scope's image magnification that was then multiplied by the camera's optical zoom to form the final image on the LCD screen. For example, when held behind a spotting scope at 20x, a digital camera that has a 3x optical zoom (the lens equivalent to a 35 to 105mm lens on a 35mm camera system) actually magnifies the image 2x, and would yield a final image that was 40x bigger than life. That's like going out in the field with a 2,000mm telephoto lens!

However, it quickly became clear that physically holding a camera up to the scope eyepiece and taking a clear photo was pretty tricky. The first digiscopers invented their own solutions by cobbling various permanent and semipermanent "camera mounts." The picture quality got a lot better, but a subtle change had occurred—the spotting scope was now a photographic system as well as a birding tool.

Photographers use their scope as a telephoto lens. Digiscoping birders primarily use their scope for finding and studying birds in the field, but they also carry a digital camera. Every birder's dream is to find a rare or accidental bird and capture its image for proof, and we also like to record wonderful sightings—the white-eared hummingbird at an Arizona feeder or an osprey bringing food to its babies in Florida.

What cameras and scopes work best?

Prairie Falcon

Virtually any spotting scope will work for digiscoping—it's the camera choice that can be tricky. In general, a higher-quality spotting scope with a zoom eyepiece is the tool of choice among digiscopers worldwide. The Swarovski HD scopes seem to be the most prevalent, and the Leica APO and Zeiss FL models are also popular. However, even inexpensive spotting scopes will deliver good digiscope images.

The only way to be sure whether a particular camera/spotting scope combination works is to do a direct test or rely on someone who has already done so. The people at my local camera store are getting accustomed to my coming in with a scope and tripod in order to test out the newest camera models.

The first problem to deal with is "vignetting"-the photographer's term for a dark circle that surrounds the scope image and cuts off the corners of the picture area. This is a direct result of how well the scope eyepiece matches up with the camera's lens. When the camera's lens is at a wide-angle setting, the scope image will always be vignetted. Simply zoom the camera's lens to see if the scope image fills the LCD screen and the vignetting is eliminated. As long as the image itself is sharp and clear, the only bad thing about vignetting is that you will have to crop out the blackness when making prints, thus reducing the amount of pixels available for imaging. I have not found any digital camera with an optical zoom greater than 4x that will yield an unvignetted digiscope image when used behind a typical zoom-eyepiece spotting scope.

Blackburnian Warbler

So that means any camera with a 3x or 4x optical zoom will work for digiscoping, right? No. My general rule of thumb is that if the front lens of the camera has a diameter larger than a penny, chances are the camera will show vignetting behind the scope eyepiece. Lenses that extend out from the camera body when the camera is turned on are not necessarily bad for digiscoping. Again, test the camera behind the scope before purchasing.

The second problem is holding the camera up to the eyepiece or finding an adapter that will do it for you. I made a wooden "donut" that fit inside my Swarovski scope's eyecup and centered my Pentax nicely. Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology used the plastic top of a gallon milk jug, cut out to accept the lens of his Olympus camera. These innovations work fine. That brings up the next problem&#151at high magnifications, any movement of the camera while pushing the shutter button will be magnified, causing a blurry photograph. What's really needed is an adapter that will center the camera behind the eyepiece, hold it in place, and enable you to let go of the camera. The best digiscope adapters need a camera that will accept threaded photo filters (like Skylight or polarizing filters). They attach to the camera by screwing into the filter threads. Check out suppliers like Lens Plus, Eagle Eye Optics in the United Kingdom, and ScopeTronix in Florida.

A few spotting scope manufacturers have made digital camera adapters expressly for their products. Kowa Optimed has one that fits both their fixed-power and zoom eyepieces and works well. Nikon advertises adapters for their Fieldscope line, but they seem to be available only in Great Britain. Carl Zeiss Sport Optics has an "arm" attachment that holds the camera up to the eyepiece, eliminating the need for filter threads on the camera. Swarovski Optik has two adapter types—the Digital Camera Adapter (model DCA for fixed-power eyepieces and DCA Zoom for using the zoom eyepiece) for cameras with filter threads, and the recently released Digital Camera Base (DCB) for cameras without.

Few of the current crop of digital cameras on the market today have small optical zooms and accept filters. If you already own a camera that has no threads, there are adapters out there that will clamp onto the barrel of the lens, but I would be wary of damaging the camera or lens with such a device. An Internet search for "digiscoping adapters" will yield a pile of references, but I would recommend getting a few user testimonials before purchasing.

Field techniques

American Pipit

Before going out in the field with your digiscope package, practice setting it up and taking pictures in a controlled setting. Take numerous test shots—you can erase all the pictures after you are done. Practice attaching the camera smoothly, to keep from jarring the scope's aim.

Okay, you have a bird in view in the scope, and you want to get a photo of it. Most of today's cameras have pretty sophisticated autofocus systems. If you have the bird sharply focused in the scope view, the camera should be able to figure out the scene and get the correct focus on the bird, too. Many photographers use magnifiers to peer at the LCD screen because they can't easily detach the camera from the scope, so the only fine-focus reference they have is on the LCD screen itself. My Nikon CoolPix 4500 has a Focus Confirmation setting that highlights in red brackets the part of the picture it has focused on, and it usually agrees with what I set visually. For digiscope birding I trust the camera.

You want your first shots to record the bird well enough to be recognizable. If the camera has an "action" setting, use that to get as high a shutter speed as possible. Aperture-priority mode, if available, will allow you to dial in a wide-open f/stop to get the fastest shutter speed possible for the scene. Set your ISO high (200 or 400) if possible. Once you have a decent image (remember, this is digital—immediately post-view the images to check for sharpness, exposure, field marks on the bird, etc.), you can then work on setting a lower ISO for better print quality, or try a higher magnification. Take lots of pictures—the more you take, the better the chances of getting a great shot.

Because you will be using the camera's LCD screen a lot in the field, take plenty of batteries with you. The newer cameras are much more energy-efficient, but you don't want to have the batteries go dead at the wrong time.

What's new?

Digiscoping has until now dealt only with point-and-shoot digital cameras. I recently discovered that a full-size, digital single-lens reflex camera (D-SLRs) can operate behind a scope eyepiece just like the little guys. My Nikon D1 with a 50mm normal lens gives me a full, unvignetted view throughout the entire zoom range of my scope's eyepiece. Although a point-and-shoot digital camera might boast the same pixel count as a D-SLR, the image quality of the D-SLR is far greater and you don't have to squint at tiny LCD screens or deal with the shutter delay of many of the little cameras. a