Our featured photographer of this month is Richard Ford from www.digitalwildlife.co.uk.
Not only he is a pro digiscoping enthusiast but also an avid DSLR photographer. this interview is a great resource for those stuck wether to buy digiscoping gear for those long shots or stick with DSLR cameras for wildlife and outdoor photography. you can visit Richard's artwork at his website Digital Photography of British wildlife.

Hare - Digiscoped with a Nikon Coolpix 8400
Copyright © Richard Ford - www.Digitalwildlife.co.uk

1- We believe that your area of specialty is digiscoping. Your artworks are mostly related to wildlife photography, macro and specially birds. Now what scope do you use? Do you use different scopes for different scenarios? If true then what models and brands works for you? How about eyepieces? How often do you change eyepieces for different cases?


Many scopes are available and work well for digiscoping my personal choice is a Swarovski ST 80HD the high definition glass in this and other scopes is likely to produce the best result with digiscoping. Other scopes from Swarovski, Leica, Zeiss and other manufactures will give good results. Mine is on older Swarovski model but still highly regarded amongst digiscopers. The new Swarovski eyepieces can be used with this older scope, I own and use the new 30x WD (wide angle) Swarovski eyepiece, but often stay faithful to the 20-60x eyepiece which is very good. It also gives flexibility for framing as you can zoom in and out using the eyepiece as well as the camera, though I rarely use it above 20x as the more magnification you use the more light you need or to put it another way the lower you shutter speed will need to be for the correct exposure. You need more light with the 30x so staying at 20x will give you better shutter speeds for freezing movement.

2- Do you use digital camera for digiscoping or 35mm or both? What models? Are you planning for an upgrade? Please give us your reasons why you’ve chosen this equipment and not other brands that come close to yours.

There is a large range now of digital point and shoot style cameras that are suitable for digiscoping I have used several models mostly Canon and the Nikon Coolpix range, currently I have a Canon Powershott A95 which for me is the benchmark for all other digiscoping cameras. Vignetting (dark corners to the image caused by the eyepiece, a sort of keyhole effect) disappears with the 20-60x eyepiece after just a few clicks on the camera zoom. Its easier to use than many others and has a very useful flip out screen and a built in magnifier. Above all the images are sharp when focused correctly and at ISO50 (another feature not available on many other cameras) there is very little noise. Its also available used for around £100 now.

I also own a Nikon Coolpix P5000, which has some nice features over the A95 such as 10 million pixels, a nice big clear screen and vibration reduction (VR) built in. There is something I don’t like about the representation of colour in this camera and other Nikon P&S (point and shot) cameras. I always seem to prefer images out of a Canon camera. Having said that this camera has everything most people would want from a digiscoping camera.

I always have my eyes open for the next suitable camera available but at the moment there is nothing that has tempted me to change either of the two mentioned.

Canon A95 connected to swarovski