[XeoX]

As I was sitting at my desk, I noticed a crow sitting on my neighbours' house roof. The distance is about 20-30 meters. I know there's no way I could capture a shot of a crow with my 3x zoom Canon, so I took my old binoculars and placed it in front of the camera lens. After doing this I had to set my camera to macro mode, to get AF to focus correctly. Though, I had some troubles holding my binoculars still, if I would like to test more, I think I have to work out a tripod for binoculars, too.

Here are some testshots for you to take a look at:

#1 A shot with binoculars and 3x zoom

As my left hand was shaking quite hard, the AF couldn't focus the way I would liked.

#2 A shot using ONLY 10x digital zoom


#3 A shot with binoculars and 3x zoom of a man walking down the steet. The distance was about 10-15 meters.'


I think I have to manage with my 'invention' until I can afford myself to buy a new camera. : P

[adam]

Looks like you've got a temporary solution! hehe, infact, I was watching some concert videos on the 'youtube' site yesterday, and there was a video taken with the ixus put to the binoculars, you could see that the top corner was a little dark, but it worked well!!

[Don Schaeffer]

It's wonderful to experiment like this. Especially when you come up with some success as you have. You can get camera mounts to binoculars or telescopes or make them you know.

I can recommend the Kodak Z740 at less then $400 ($339 to $375) Canadian if you want an inexpensive ultrazoom. I'm very happy with it.

[XeoX]

I kind of like this experimenting and things. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a mount to this certain model of binoculars, because I think they are older than me. I know I have an extra binoculars somewhere, too. They should be from the times of World War 2.

Thanks for the suggestion, Don, but I have my eyes on Olympus C-770 UZ already and I hope to buy it in March for about $350. I used it when taking photos of a dancing event and I was very satisfied. You can see them HERE. (Though the page is in Estonian, I think you can manage)

[shuttertalk]

Hey that's pretty cool... bonus points for creativity there!

You'll obviously get less optical quality than a dedicated zoom lens, but as you say, it's a makeshift solution... although shot #3 seems to be pretty good!

Do you know what magnification the binoculars are?

As you discovered, you'll have to take into account the extra focal length, so tripod definitely will help. I'm not sure how the apertures and all that are calculated in this fashion, but you'll probably get quite a bit of light falloff too.


But what you've done is pretty cool if you ask me!

[NT73]

Last October I added some 10x25 binoculars to my fuji and came up with this in the night sky. I have named it Isis.







Actually it was a shot of a pattern on the tablecover and just blurred a little.

[shuttertalk]

Looks like a planet... or a giant eyeball...

[XeoX]

Yes, NT73 it really looks like a planet to me, too. Interesting one.