Way back in the fall of 2008, I got the nature geek’s equivalent of the Holy Grail: a digital camera with an adapter for a spotting scope. Thus began the era of digiscoping on Benweb. The camera was a Nikon Coolpix P5100, a 12-megapixel wonder with more shooting modes than anyone could possibly know what to do with: video, stop motion, all the standard shooting modes (P, M, S, A), etc. But the two things that really made it exciting were that it had a strong, light magnesium housing (lightweight cameras don’t overbalance the scope as much as heavier ones do), and that it had a threaded front lens(thus allowing a simple connection to the adapter for my spotting scope).
I was able to shoot the moon and terrestrial subjects with equal ease, enjoying the superb depth of field and ability to focus provided by the spotting scope; all I needed the digicam to do was get out of the way, which it usually did. I usually left the camera attached to the scope so I wouldn’t have to search for it when I wanted to go out and make some pictures. All in all, it made for a portable rig that was easy to just grab and go.
But the other night I paid a high price for that convenience: I was trying to be stealthy, keeping the lights off sso as not to wake the baby I’d just spent an hour putting to sleep. I’m obviously not cut out to be a cat burglar, however, because in my stealth I managed to bump into the tripod, knocking it over right onto the delicate camera connection
Result: a still-working camera, but one that was no longer capable of digiscoping with the adapter: the screws that formerly held the lens thread ring onto the camera face were wrenched right through the (in hindsight relatively weak) magnesium housing.
Note the large scratch to the left of the lens, and the empty screw-hole where a crack not unlike a sinuous rille on the moon begins and winds it way up and to the right, near the flash. No more front lens threads; no more digiscoping with this camera!
This is disaster. Without a digiscoping rig, my two-year-old moon project is over; my long-distance dragonfly shots will be at an end; I’ll never be able to capture all the images I’ve spent years learning how to make (and I’m finally starting to achieve a modicum of success; i.e., I’m getting in-focus images with the lighting nearly right). What’s a guy to do?
Ebay to the rescue! While the prices for the P5100s were a bit out of my league, I was able to get a pretty good deal on a used P5000, and the seller even happened to be in Florida, so the shipping only took a day! The P5000 was the predecessor to the P5100, with silver trim instead of black and “only” 10 megapixels instead of 12, but essentially the same camera, same controls, same lens, same housing. So I wouldn’t have to learn a whole new menu system or anything.
As you can see, the face looks similar:
Here is a close-up of the all-important threads for the adapter:
And the pretty silver trim on top:
