Friday, June 30, 2006

Dreaming of Digiscoping (or even a camera)

It's official: I've begun my search to find a cheap way to set up a digiscoping rig. Mind you, I have no digital camera, no spotting scope, and no experience with real photography. However, I view these facts as irrelevant. Don't go getting in my way with the facts, people. Mere obstacles have never stopped me for long.

I've visited more digiscoping and photography sites in the last few days than I can remember, but probably the most interesting and promising to a financially challenged person such as myself was http://www.pbase.com/roygoh/homemade_digiscope, in which a homemade spotting scope is constructed from surplus-store lenses and some PVC pipe, all for less than $25. Now THERE'S some ingeniuity!

Now the camera--that's going to be a little more difficult. I would love to fork over a few hundred bucks and get a Nikon CoolPix of some sort, as it seems to be the most used camera among the digiscopers I saw online. But--that will have to wait for some pennies from heaven, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, I'm checking out the surplus lens web site (www.surplusshack.com), trying to find the appropriate lenses (and to even figure out just what makes a lens appropriate). It's slow going.

Any suggestions out there? Help? I'm poor, I'm completely uneducated about terms like "focal length," and I don't have a camera—but I'm efforting these things as we speak! Any help would be appreciated.

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