tripod?

[Sylvia]

Hi, everybody.

I'm looking for advice on what tripod to buy, now that i've finally purchased my very first scope (angled Eagle Optics "Raven" bought from Wild Birds Unlimited). (I'm still waiting for my $100 rebate to arrive...)

I'm really hoping to get a nice durable, lightweight tripod for less than i paid for the scope!

Anybody have one they LOVE? One they HATE? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

[normjackson]

The de facto standard here seems to be the Manfrotto 055 series tripod with 128RC head available as a kit. In the USA this kit is the Bogen 3178WN.

www.eagleoptics.com/index.asp?dept=1&type=9&purch=1&pid=2619

Digiscopers sometimes choose a slightly more advanced head and dedicated walkers sometimes go for the lighter but more expensive carbon fibre options. But I'd guess you wouldn't go far wrong with this choice.

[Lewis]

Woohoo! I've just bought my very first scope too. What specs are your scope? How did you decide? I had a terrible time trying to decide. Was it easy for you to decide?

[Sylvia]

Nope, it wasn't easy to decide. I went YEARS thinking it would be years more before i could afford to buy a good scope (Leica, Swarovski, Kowa). Every now and then i'd read reviews and read other people's emails who asked for advice on what was important.

I already knew Eagle Optics is a good brand / company, because i've had their Swift Audubon 8.5 X 44 binoculars for a few years now. So when i heard that they'd come out with the new Raven scope, i paid close attention, then tried one out at my local Wild Birds Unlimited store. There was so much i liked about it, so since they were also offering a $100 rebate and i had some income tax refund money, i bought it! Now, i just need a tripod and practice...

The Raven has a fully multi-coated objective lens of 78mm, with a focusing range of 17 feet to infinity and a focal length of 420mm. (I'm copying this right out of the owner's manual; it's pretty much Greek to me!) It came with a a 20-60X zoom eyepiece, and is waterproof and nitrogen-purged. It also came with a cordura cover.

What scope did you get?

[Lewis]

Neither could I afford a top of the line-or even middle of the line- scope. I ended up getting the Nikon Fieldscope III angled - non-ED with a Bogen Jr. tripod and, like yours, a 20x60 eyepiece. Please note that I literally JUST ordered these and haven't received them yet. The total cost for everything was about $850. I wanted a larger-i.e. more light-gathering-objective lense. I simply was not sure about eagle optics equipment, not because I've ever heard anything bad about their products; simply, I am scared of off brands and was scared of spending too little. I have heard specifically that zoom lenses tend not to be the best quality, but that the Nikon zooms are very good.

It was between the equivalent Kowa, with a 66 objective but a plastic (okay, not plastic but 'carbon something-something) body and a less appealing focusing setup.

Although I have this fear of buying off-brand on the rare occasions I spend a load of money, sometime back I got a pair of Orion Savannah binocs, which were definitely off brand and which I knew many companies were selling.

To prove even greater silliness on my part, I've never even tried this scope. Haven't been birding with anyone who has a scope recently and most of my friends glaze over when I mention the word 'bird.'

Without a tripod, have you been able to use your scope yet? What is the first thing you plan to do, the first environment you'll trot it out in? It would be great to hear about your first experience with it in the field, how it compares to being without one.

l

[Lewis]

Scope just arrived. Isssss sooooo pretty! The tripod is monstrously big! Put it together in the living room, counted the veins on a pink flower a few yards away, threw away the styrofoam packing stuff put the scope in its casetookashowernowihaveto LEAVE. No birding time today. Off to help a friend put a moden in her computer (I know nothing about putting modems in computers...) and then to work. TOMORROW TOMORROW...hope to get to Arch Rock off the Cliff House and look for reported baby black oystercatchers. The test drive. Did you get a tripod yet?

The Bogen Manfrotto Jr. is easy to use...big but i imagine it has to be. 90-some dollars at b&hphoto in NY and most other places. Seems like it would be useful to have a tripod carrying case. But I haven't left the bloody house with the thing yet.

Used the scope yet?

cheers
l

[Sylvia]

How exciting that your scope and stuff arrived! Hope you can get the chance to go out with it soon.

Nope, i haven't used mine lately. Hopefully, i'll be taking it to a nearby lake to see what i can see, once i get a tripod, that is. I haven't even taken the time to price the Bogen's yet. Geesh. It seems like your $90 isn't so bad. My husband Randi has bought stuff from B&H before; he's a photographer.

So... after you get the hang of using your scope, are you going to take the step to digiscoping???

Have fun!

[Lewis]

Geez, have you used your scope yet? (When earlier I said I looked at a flower a few yards away, I meant a few backyards away.)

Oh, I think getting into digiscoping is more than I can handle. A scope is as technological as I want to get.

The only thing I want to get now, I think, is a fixed magnification wide angle lense. This is because my spouse wears glasses and I think the zoom is not good for glasses wearers.

Want to leave work, go birdwatching at the water. Go see the Farallones. Wonder what the moon looks like. Brought the manuals to work to tide me over (pun intended). Tomorrow...

[Sylvia]

Yes, i have used it. I borrowed one of my husband's tripods and we set it up on the back porch and saw birds CLOSE UP! Later, we took it up to a hawk migration spot about an hour's drive away on Lake Ontario called Derby Hill. This was the only time so far i've really used it. And it was hard! There's a huge range of focusing on the wheel, and it took me FOREVER to get one of the hawks in the field of view and in focus.

I'm anticipated an easier time of it when i use it on a more stationary subject! SOON!!

[Lewis]

One hour before the scope leaves the house on its maiden voyage (I work 'til midnight and THAT"S why I gits up so derned late). Then my wife and I will meet when she gets off work and head over to a park in Berkeley for voyage deux: the search for scaup.

Have you visited Pt. Pelee, the southern-most tip of Canada?

[Sylvia]

No, i haven't been to Pt. Pelee. I think i read a little something about it being the very best place in Canada to see birds? It might've been a forum post by Beverly Baynes...

Why?

[Lewis]

Exactly because it is an infamously wonderful place to birdwatch and you mentioned going to Lake Ontario. Pelee is in Lake Erie and quite a bit further away, but, living in where you do, I thought you might have been. We went there in March...only for about four hours...and it was wonderful. Being with extended family we couldn't stay long and couldn't hunker down and slowly take in everything, but it was clearly a jumping place. We saw a bazillion mergansers at the very tip of the point. At one place on a sandy beach a short distance from the (pretty leafless) forest, there was a small, gnarled piece of driftwood sticking out of the sand like you'd see on any other beach. Except that for some reason it attracted chipping sparrows (my first), a woodpecker, some kind of flycatcher...it was a strange scene with all of them looping around this one piece of driftwood on the sand.

And it 's so so quiet there.

Since I didn't REALLY get to spend a lot of time there, I wondered if you have.

Baby black oystercatchers were *spotted* yesterday scampering after their folks on the offshore rock. The scope works!

[Walther Loff]

Hi Friends:
Reading your posts and thinking about my self April of 2002 being in the same boat, never did any birding before all new to me and now I am having a ball, I didgiscope... find a spot, set things up and let the birds come to me.
I have been this year with a local birding group on 4 field trips, this was most walking driving and counting birds wiht no time and to many distractions to photograph birds... but I learned where to go alone and setup my stuff with great success :-)
I wish you both a great time and have lots of fun.
Visit my webpage and see how I started out and also see the results at www.walther-loff.com
I have just received my CrystalVue 8X32 Sharpshooter telephoto lens to be mounted on my Nikon Coolpix5000 as an in between camera and spotting scope. it works great
take care
Walther in Canada eH :-)