Digiscoping

Just wondering if anyone has any experience shooting through a spotting scope. I've been contemplating a Leica 10 mp point and shoot/Zeiss scope set-up that is considerably less expensive and lighter to pack, than a 400 3.5 Nikkor. The Leica will record in RAW, and is said to have little noise at higher ISO. Sounds pretty sweet...

I think you would be greatly disappointed...This setup would not even come close to the image quality of your D2x and 400 Nikkor, if you were able to get the shot at the right time in the first place considering the shutter lag (I assume you are looking at using this for wildlife).

Thanks, Tim - that's what I needed to know. Sounded like it might worth a look, but I hadn't thought about the shutter lag on p&s cameras.

Bill,

In general I agree with Tim, however, I have seen some exceptional photographs taken with digiscope systems. With the continued improvement in P&S cameras I expect quality will continue to improve.

Laurence Poh is recognized as the pioneer of digiscoping and took many excellent photographs before his untimely death a couple of years ago. Here is a link to his site and on his links page a trip to Andy Brights site is worth a look.

http://www.laurencepoh.com/

This link will take you to some of my digiscoping work. I started digiscoping about the time the Nikon Coolpix 990 was introduced. five or six years ago, and before I could afford my long Canon lens. This link will give you some more of my experience with digiscoping.

http://www.pbase.com/dlee/ds2007

Hope this info is helpful? My recommendation is that if you already have a good quality spotting scope and P&S camera...give digiscoping a try before you write it off.

Regards,

Dick Lee

Thanks for the links, Dick. Since I have neither a scope nor a good p&s that records in raw, I'll probably just wait until the D3 prices go down, and stick with the 400mm that I already have.