Gear Review
CELESTRON NEXYZ SMARTPHONE ADAPTER, £49
A smartphone adapter for photographing birds and a camera bag tested
If you’ve got a smartphone, sooner or later you’re going to try to take some photographs of birds on it, even if they’re only of the record shot variety. Now you might just be able to get some usable pictures simply by holding the phone against the eyepiece, but if you’ve tried it, you’ll know that the hit rate is roughly one in a hundred. The patience of a saint is absolutely essential if you’re going to get any sort of results with this method. Which is why you’ll also eventually probably want an adapter, to enable you to fix your phone to your spotting scope (or even your binoculars). Trouble is, there are plenty out there, some of them designed for specific optics or phones. What if you want something that’s interchangeable? Celestron’s NEXYZ adapter promises to work with any smartphone (even with the case on), as well as any 1.25-inch or 2-inch eyepiece on scopes, binoculars and microscopes. Fitting the phone to the adapter is simple and quick, and the phone is held securely in place – no need to worry about it dropping out as you move around. You then adjust the phone’s position using the X and Y axis knobs – this too is easy and relatively quick. Finally, the Z axis knob enables you to lower or raise the phone to eliminate vignetting (the black surround that you get on digiscoped and phone-scoped pictures if you’re not careful). This all works well, leaving you to get on with the difficult part of phonescoping – getting the subject in focus. For that, you need to make sure that your optics are really stable, focus them in, focus the phone, perhaps tweak the optics’ focus again, and then shoot. It is, it’s fair to say, quite time-consuming, so it works best with an obligingly stationary subject. But that’s always been one of the limitations of digi- and phone-scoping, and the NEXYZ at least ensures that the initial setting up is speedy. Walking from hide to hide with the adapter and phone attached was fine – it’s a solidly built piece of kit, and withstands the odd knock here and there. Still, whether because you want to use the phone’s other functions, or because you want to make carrying easier, you’ll probably detach and refit the adapter several times during the average birding expedition, and even if you don’t, you’ll probably have to take a few moments to check that everything’s still properly in
place before you resume shooting. It’s fair to say that it doesn’t pack down particularly small in a rucksack or camera bag, being a slightly awkward shape (although it’s certainly not heavy), but it’s still a more compact option than lugging a bridge camera or DSLR around. It’s a great option to have if you’ve got a smartphone with you anyway – try it and see.