This is a follow up to the previous quote and seems to be not surprising at all:

Most planets outside our solar system are not directly observable. They are discovered when they transit in front of their host star. That’s how the Kepler mission finds exoplanets. After that, their properties are inferred by their gravitational interactions with their star and with any other planets in their system. We can infer a lot, and get quite detailed, but studying planets with spectroscopy is a whole other ball game.

And in a somewhat related home video, this narrator says you can spot an exoplanet with just a DSLR.

Are they right or wrong?  Feel free to comment with any of your ideas regarding this and especially if you have a DSLR.

thanks to universetoday.com for the great info