In an earlier blog I discussed using my Samsung Galaxy S (I9000) smartphone for digiscoping in comination with the Outdoor club (Bauer/Olivon) T80ED spotting scope.
Together with the scope I have bought an universal digiscoping adaptor. This adapter however only fits small digital compact cameras which have a screw mount for a tripod or something similar. To use my Galaxy S with this adapter I had to make something myself that connects to the adaptor .
I made a simple plywood construction that kept my phone securely tied to the adaptor as can be seen in the pictures.
I found however that the complete Olivon adaptor construction with the hinge and the two positioning knobs is just not sturdy enough to keep the phone perfectly aligned with the scope’s eyepiece. Applying little force and releasing again to parts of the adaptor requires fiddling again to get back to the optimal position. Also finding the right position in the horizontal and vertical position was difficult as the contruction is not really accurate. I added one extra screw to align the phone exactly in parallel with the surface of the lens (there is no way to do this directly on the Olivon adaptor). This helped, but in the end I had to spend a lot of time aligning the camera with the eyepiece. This is not an attractive idea when I actually spot that bear in the far distance 🙂 He will for sure be gone when I am ready to shoot (that picture)
Maybe it is because small digital cameras that have optical zoom are able to zoom in enough to be less susceptible to positioning errors, I don’t know. But I was just not happy with the end result.
So I decided to get rid of the whole positioning construction of the Olivon Adaptor and build my own positioning method. I will make use of the screw on ring that came with the adaptor, and which is used to “squeeze” the rest of the adaptor on to with a sturdy metal ring / screw construction. I will show the progress and end result in a later blog..
zerodigit 
October 11th, 2012 → 1:41 am
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