Nikon D50 or Olympus SP550

[greensnakeman]

I've narrowed down my choices to a Nikon D50 with a vanguard VSR 75
or an Olympus SP550. I would prefer the Nikon but I don't know much about attaching the VSR 75 to it, have any of you had any experience with this. Any info would be great. Thanks

[ikw101]

Just wondering why you'd want to attach a poor quality scope to a reasonably good DSLR.

The human eye is incredibly forgiving and will make the most out of a bad job - even when looking down a poor quality scope (all optics that specify the use of a roof prism without mentioning phase corrected are dubious). A good quality DSLR is far less forgiving and will accurately record every defect the scope has.

You'd be far better off either buying a used camera lens eg, a Nikon 300mm F4 or investing in a better scope. If your budget is low buy the largest, high qualitysecondhand scope you can preferably with a 80mm objective and attach it to a Fuji F30/31 compact camera.

[greensnakeman]

Instead of the spotting scope I was also thinking of these lenses Sigma 600-1000 zoom lens off ebay or a Phoenix 650-2600mm lens.
Which would you prefer?

[ikw101]

Instead of the spotting scope I was also thinking of these lenses Sigma 600-1000 zoom lens off ebay or a Phoenix 650-2600mm lens.
Which would you prefer?

Be very careful with both of these I suspect you'll be dissapointed with the results see http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Mocu

In general if you're after distance and you haven't got an unlimited supply of money the best options for the D50 are:
the Sigma 50-500mm aka Bigma,
used Nikon ED 300mm/f4 plus Kenko Pro x1.4 tc
new Nikon AFS 300mm/f4 plus Nikon E series teleconverter
the last one is the most expensive but will give you the best results.

The other option worth considering is a Fuji F31 compact camera and the highest quality 80mm plus scope you can afford. If going down the scope route make sure you get a low power lens with it eg. x16 rather than x60. More info on digiscoping is available in the digiscoping section.

Good luck