 Nancy |
Telescopes mounted to old 35 mm cameras? I live near a Wildlife Refuge. I would like to purchase an appropriate telescope to photo birds, etc. I have two older 35mm cameras, a Nikon FG and a Canon A-1. What telescope and what adaptors do I need?
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robert G. Fately |
I won't advise you on what telescope to get, Nancy, as there are so many choices and it should go without saying that you should get the best optics you can afford. Catadioptric versus refractive is a non-issue - it's really a matter of what you can find. To connect a scope to your camera, though, requires that you get a so-called T adapter. These are available for most SLR bodies - I have a Nikon one for my Meade, and I'm sure they make them for Canon as well. The adapter is very simple - it's a tube that fits into the eyepiece holder of the scope (or, in the Meade reflector's case, in a hole designed for just this) and has a Nikon lens bayonet mount at the other end. Of course, there's no auto-anything - though you should be able to meter through the lens. More important is that you have a very very sturdy mount or tripod - with this much magnification every little shimmy creates noticeable blur. If either of your bodies can do a mirror lock-up, that's the one I'd recommend you use - because even the mirror slap can cause some vibration. You should also consider a remote release/cable release - so the pressure of your finger on the shutter release doesn't cause shake as well. Of course, locking up the mirror makes it more difficult to capture the exact moment - so at first you need to try your luck and see if that's going to be a problem, blur wise. That is, take a roll with the mirror in normal position and a couple of shots of a distant stationary object both with mirror locked and normal to compare and see if you can tell there's any blur. I hope that helps...
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Sharon Day |
I wouldn't like to discourage anyone, but I have a Bausch & Lomb Discoverer 15-60mm spotting scope I can connect to my Canon A-1. I have never gotten a decent image with it.
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John G. Clifford Jr |
Well, there's two ways to take pictures using a telescope as a lens. Digiscoping is the first way. This is a term that describes using your camera to shoot through your telescope's eyepiece. Many birders use this method as a way of verifying their spots, and the results are acceptable but not eye-catching in their sharpness. There are companies that make digiscoping adapters, or you can make your own from a cardboard tube. The only requirement is that it holds the camera reasonably steady in relationship to the telescope eyepiece, and the side benefit of a carboard tube is that it eliminates most external light thus increasing the contrast. The second way (the better way) is to get an adapter that allows your camera to mount onto the telescope as as if it were a detachable lens. You'll need two items here: a t-mount adapter for the telescope and a t-mount for the camera. The t-mount adapter attaches to the threaded/bayonet-mount hole in place of the eyepiece and has a male t-mount thread on the other end. The t-mount has a female t-mount thread on one end and your camera's mount on the other. The problem with using most telescopes as camera lenses is that unless your telescope is pretty expensive it will not have the optical quality of a comparably-priced lens. You can buy a heck of a good telephoto lens for most cameras for $1,000, and that lens will outperform a $1,000 telescope. The best, cheapest way to do this, in my opinion, is to get one of the Russian catadioptic (mirror) lenses. You can get them in 300mm (f/4.5), 500mm (f/5.6, f/8) and 1000mm (f/8, f/11) lengths, along with accessory eyepieces that turn them into a 60x or 120x telescope... or you can hook them up to your camera with an M42 adapter (similar to a t-mount but slightly different thread... same as a Pentax M42 screw mount to Nikon or Canon adapter) and the picture quality is surprisingly good for the money (at most a couple hundred dollars). Check this website for more info: Note that the website says you can't use these lenses with certain camera that have protruding flash housings or grips. Not true. Via the use of an M42 extension tube (cheap!) and after adjusting the focus range on the lens (easy) you can use them with any modern dSLR as well as any old 35mm SLR. I have a a Rubinar 300mm/4.5 mirror lens and for $150 or thereabouts it is pretty darn good, although it isn't as sharp as my $700 Sigma 70-200/2.8 EX. However, the Sigma may be twice is sharp... not five times as sharp.
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