With more and more people carrying cameras with them everywhere, ‘digiscoping’ has increased in popularity. Digiscoping is the practice of pointing a phone camera or digital camera through a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope to increase the zoom and take photos of birds that are really far away.
Trying to do this by holding your phone up to a scope or binoculars is very difficult and tedious. It often requires the cooperation of two people: one to hold the camera and position it properly, and the other to find focus and press the shutter button.
After some research to try to find ways to make digiscoping easier, I came across phone binocular adapter cases that work with both binoculars and scopes. This type of case works all iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Google phones. The case itself is comprised of two pieces: a monocular and a phone mount that attaches and allows you to secure and line up the phone’s camera.
Here are two photos I’ve taken through scopes using this case. My regular camera wouldn’t have been able too zoom in this far to get the shot! (UPDATE: this was several years ago and phone cameras have improved dramatically, so your photos should come out even better).
The good
- Once set up you don’t have to worry about constantly fidgeting with the camera.
- The alignment is spot-on and it you get a clear shot through the binoculars every time.
- The monocular can be used both with and without the phone attached.
The bad
- This type of setup is not super quick to setup and you need to take a few minutes to get it all ready and lined up properly.
- Pictures can easily be blurry unless you hold the phone very still or use a tripod.
Overall, I would (and have!) recommended this case to others. Being able to take a photo through a scope that someone has positioned is awesome. Even with the drawbacks, I still have found this product very useful and people always ask me about it when I’m using it on bird walks.
[button link=”http://amzn.to/2m9AnxO” type=”big” color=”green” newwindow=”yes”] See this case on Amazon[/button]
The Gosky Titan Monocular/Binocular phone adapter is around $60, but there are other similar options on Amazon you can check out.
