I am just back from 5 days in Yellowstone National Park, where Melissa Pinta and I taught a ZEISS digiscoping workshop for the Yellowstone Forever Institute. These are from our first wildlife encounter in the park (not counting the Elk on the lawns at the entrance in Gardner). We were headed for the Lamar Buffalo Ranch where the workshop was to be held and came on this small group of American Bison in the beautiful light of late afternoon. As we watched, the sun came over the group and we had to unpack the ZEISS Harpia spotting scopes and tripods from our luggage and set up…it was after all, a digiscoping weekend. 🙂 The first shot is with my Sony a5100 and the 18mm equivalent ultra wide before the cloud moved, and the second shot is digiscoped with the ZEISS Harpia 85mm and the Sony a6500 with the 20mm f2.8 (kindly provided by Sony for the workshop). The two images were taken from the same spot. Digiscoping, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the art of taking a photo with a digital camera through the eyepiece of a spotting scope, generally using some kind of mount or adapter to hold the camera (even your phone) centered over the eyepiece. ZEISS provides such an adapter for Mirrorless Camera Systems, like the Sony aXXXX series. The equivalent focal length, and magnification, can be much greater than you can get with a conventional camera lens, and, of course, especially if you use your phone, it is quick easy once you have the scope set up to just grab an extreme telephoto view. The way I do it is still Point and Shoot…since I let the camera do all the work of exposure and final focus. 🙂