Not too long ago, I was chatting with someone who had a company that made a camera app for iPhones. They told me how their app allows you to use your iPhone headphones as a remote shutter release. I said, "Well, the camera app that comes with your iPhone does that already." They looked at me with surprise.

I've mentioned this to a few other people and discovered that very few people know this. So, if you have an iPhone digiscoping set up with your spotting scope and your iPhone is secured to the scope with an adapter, you can plug in the headphones that came with your iPhone and use the volume up and down buttons to take photos. Here's a very short video that demonstrates it:

http://youtu.be/hlWgWaKTOhM

Here are some of the photos that I took while I was making that video:

Here's a shot of the female red-bellied woodpecker and house sparrow. The iPhone 4s already does a great job in low light conditions but this is another way you can make sure your photos are in focus. This technique won't work as well if you don't have an adaptor to secure your phone to your scope.

I currently only have adapters for my iPhone that work with my old ATM spotting scope and this was the last video I made with that scope before I sent it back to Swarovski to get cleaned up for the contest winner. I'm trying to find someone who make one to go with the new ATX...but I'm finding it frustratingly difficult...especially since I enquired with a company who claims that they will custom make cases.