Telescopes used as telephoto lenses.

[K815Robert]

Hi,
I am always facinated by long distance photos, to be able to see people on a ship or read the number plate of a distant car or wild life at a distace of more than 400 mtrs and be able to recogise a person. I recently purchased a 1200- 90mm telescope from Hong Kong and in trying it I wasn`t impressed by the results. My camera is the Olympus E330. But I olso think that due the weather and the heat is play a part in the result. Can someone please agree or help.

Thank you.

Robert.:blush2:

[livin4lax09]

if you're trying to take photo with a telescope and failing its because its a telescope not a lens. A camera lens has many different elements in it that are designed specifically for cameras that a telescope does not. The human eye and a digital sensor work much differently so it is not surprise that simply putting a camera up to a telescope doesn't yield nearly the same results as if you bought a canon 1200mm lens.

[mjs1973]

I hooked my DSLR to my telescope last year, and the results were not good at all. The rig I used was too long to keep steady, and focusing was next to impossible.

[mwfanelli]

Hi,
I am always facinated by long distance photos, to be able to see people on a ship or read the number plate of a distant car or wild life at a distace of more than 400 mtrs and be able to recogise a person. I recently purchased a 1200- 90mm telescope from Hong Kong and in trying it I wasn`t impressed by the results. My camera is the Olympus E330. But I olso think that due the weather and the heat is play a part in the result. Can someone please agree or help.

Thank you.

Robert.:blush2:

You can get OK shots with a telescope but it takes some doing.

Put the telescope/camera on a sturdy tripod, not a lightweight wimpy one. Make sure you have a solid connection between the two using a t-adapter. Be aware of common problems with long lenses of any type: thermal gradients blur the image, DOF is super small, use as high as possible shutter speed.

A telescope is a lens regardless of what people say. It just isn't, in most cases, photographic quality. But you can still get good results with some work. For serious stuff, you'll need a super-duper telescope with very high quality optics.

[mjs1973]

This thread has a photo of the setup I used last year. I still have everything, so maybe I'll give it another try.

Knight: How did your digiscoping setup turn out?

[freygr]

To get good photos out of a telescope, you need the EYE piece adapter for your camera, anything else equals poor photographies. The eye piece adapter makes the telescope and camera one unit. You focus using the focus knob of the eye piece.

Most good reflectors are sharper than any camera lens made and can resolve factions of a second. If the telescope is a lens design it's most of the time not worth the time or money to even purchase the eye piece adapter as you should purchase a real camera lens (most of the time these are very cheap!).