Opticron Is 60 (1 Viewer)

Hi to everyone I’m new to birding and have just got a new OPTICRON IS 60 as it was all I could afford as I only work part time I paid £220 + £25 for a tripod, with a (40918s)18-45x eyepiece, I’m very happy with it at low magnification at 20x but would like to know if a more powerful fixed eyepiece say a 72x (40861s) or a 50x (40817s)would work well with the IS 60 better than the (40918s)18-45x eyepiece so I could do a little star gazing as well, thanks mark.

PS, what are your opinions on the IS60, is it a good scope.

I don't know about star-gazing, but I think you have a fine scope for birding. Hope you find plenty with it! Opticron scopes are great value and offer a very clear image.

The IS60 is a cracking little scope to start out with - a nice light scope with excellent optics. I would say that neither of the fixed lenses you'd mentioned would be any good for birding - the magnification would be too high you would get a lot of shake and the light gathering would be poor. A fixed eyepeice with a mag of about 25x may be useful as the field of view will be wider than on the zoom, which is great for general viewing (and also digiscoping).

it's a great light scope that won't get on your nerves weightwise as you carry it round.

eyepiecewise, you might like to try a fixed mag at 20x or 30x if Opticron do one - it's always a temptation to want a high magnification but they nearly always become redundant as people prefer the larger brighter image of the lower fixed mag.

Tim Allwood said:

eyepiecewise, you might like to try a fixed mag at 20x or 30x if Opticron do one

Click to expand...

If? We are talking about Opticron here !! They do loads!! There is a dedicated IS fixed lens 25x BUT you can buy one of the HR or HDF lenses for the IS60 (&50). You need to buy an adapter to use these lenses costs £3.

btw the zoom is 18-54x on the 60 and 15-45 on the 50

And the HDF eyepieces are the bee's knees, I hear.

is60 scope

I was looking for a lightweight alternative to my Kowa 823 which altho8ugh optically superb was starting to become heavilly tiresome on long birding days. After testing several models I plumped for the IS60. I think it offers the best looks, feel, weight and performance for the price, and despite being outsold by the mighty midget I feel beets this model hands-down. I have recently changed the IS 18-54 zoom (which I felt was a little stiff to use and had a narrow field of view for spectacle wearing) to the 15-48 HDF. This seems to suit the IS60 really well with great performance throughout the range, only marginnally falling off above 40x, but still with a very usable image. Also this eyepiece has greatly improved the poor close focus of the original eyepiece which snow eems to be down to about 4-5m or so from the original 11-12m.

Also I have complimented it with a new travel tripod from Velbon Delta. This is really a superb bit of kit which although will never outperform a standard heavy duty tripod, is a great lightweight alternative that can be used with a straight through scope up to a height of about 5' 10". It folds to about 400mm long or so, so can easily be packed with scope into a rucksack or the like, and is really usable in hides!

hope these comments help.