Digiscoping: Spotter vs Binos

[Crews]

Just getting into the Phone Skope thing, really interested in capturing what I see in the field on my phone so I can share with the family.

Assuming tripod is present; is there anything about a spotter that’s inherently better for digiscoping than a pair of 15x56 binos?

 

[GreenMushroom]

I've only used my binos free hand and found it to be too awkward of a package. I use a kowa 553 angled spotter and it works great. I use a small I think what would be called tabletop tripod. Sitting down with the screen angled up you have an excellent view and access to all the controls and it would work similarly standing with a larger tripod. I upgraded to a Samsung s20 ultra and its amazing.

 

[Crews]

for some additional context, I’ve messed with it on a pair of 15x56 Steiners. It seemed like I had to do a whole lot of piddling with it every time I set it up. In all fairness, I did have the universal adaptor and not the specific one for that size.

 

[GreenMushroom]

Novagrade Universal Double Gripper Digiscoping Adapter for Smartphones

Buy Novagrade Universal Double Gripper Digiscoping Adapter for Smartphones featuring For Mobile Devices up to 4.3" Wide, Dual Grippers for Improved Stability, Works with 39-60.75mm Eyepieces, Anodized Aluminum Construction, Polymer Compression Ring Set. Review Novagrade null

www.bhphotovideo.com

This is the one I settled on. Its not perfect but is somewhat repeatable once setup correctly. I tried the celestron one as well and the adjustments are nice but it does not clamp on strongly enough to hold the phone sideways. I pretty much only use my spotter with the phone on it now. Its nice shooting prone with 2 people you can have the spotter between you and both people can view the screen. Having the screen angled upwards with the phone sideways seems like the way to go but I don't really have anything to compare it to. I haven't tried the phone skope models and would be interested to here from people with 1st hand experience.

Eta the celestron model works fine if the phone being vertical doesn't bother you or with light weight hand held devices like pvs14s or daytime magnified monoculars.