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Which Spotting Scope (1 Viewer)

rustynut

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I have a finepix 7000 and i'm considering buying a spotting scope to match, if there is one that does match that is, lol. Could anyone please help me as i'm new to all this. many thanx Russ.
 
Hi Russ I don't know your camera but hopefully some one on here does. Other than that your best bet is to go along to a shop/outlet and try your camera on various scopes.
If you want a scope primeraly (is that spelt right?) for birding the best suggestion is get the best you can afford preferably HD glass and this will and this will help with digiscoping if you go down that route.

Hope this helps

Pete
 
Hello again, Rustynut.

I guess you mean the s7000. I have the baby brother of the family, the s3000, which is structurally not too dissimilar - I've pretty much given up on finding a scope that will work with it for digiscoping.

I've realised that one of the main "good digiscoping camera" attributes is a physically small lens, which - preferably - zooms internally, rather than the lens moving in and out of the body of the camera.

Our cameras have a physically large lens, and alignment with the exit pupil of the scope is a nightmare, and I can't find a workable adaptor set-up.

Plus (and this is where it gets confusing - anyone should feel free to put me right) with a small lens camera, the CCD and camera are set up to work well together: the CCD will be "filled" by the information coming in through the small lens.

While this also applies to large lensed cameras, it does mean that the CCD in camera like ours "needs" a bigger amount of light/information coming through the lens to fully use the CCD; the tiny amount that comes in from the exit pupil of a scope is not enough to fill the CCD, which is geared up for a bigger image reaching it.

Or something (hopefully you get the gist of that garbled nonsense!)

Bottom line is: the Nikon Coolpix 4500 and the Contax SL300RT are excellent digiscoping cameras in no small part because of their tiny lenses.

This thread is about the s5000, but everything in it applies to our cameras:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=182493#post182493

and you might also want to read:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=19128

to see where I'm coming from about the small lens advantage.

The Fujis are cracking cameras, but just not ideal for digiscoping...
 
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rustynut said:
I have a finepix 7000 and i'm considering buying a spotting scope to match, if there is one that does match that is, lol. Could anyone please help me as i'm new to all this. many thanx Russ.

I have the same camera and been using the CrystalVue LX, it's a cheap scope (US189$) but have give me decent results as you can see on my gallery on this site, the first 4 pics were shot with the CV lens.
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/10035

Of course this is a cheap lens so expect a lot of vignetting and chromatic aberrations, all this is workable with PP but you must be wiling to do so.

There's another choice, but it's much more expensive, you can use a 40mm eyepiece (like the one on the CV lens) sold from scopetronix.com , (look for maxview 40 under scopetronix eyepieces) it's sold with a diferent mount for all the top brands of scopes.

I'm allmost sure from the results I have from the CV+S7000 setup that with a 40mm eyepiece and a decent large front lens scope there will be no vignetting at all. I say this because the 40mm lens does not induce any vigneting on the camera I took some pics with the eyepiece alone and there was no vignetting until about 3/4 zoom.

Regards
 
Actually they are rather good, Fernando - I was speaking mainly from the point of view of the hardware options readily available in the UK.
 
blythkeith said:
Actually they are rather good, Fernando - I was speaking mainly from the point of view of the hardware options readily available in the UK.

Ok, so the only thing you have to do is find a 40mm eyepiece and try it on diferent scopes on a local store and see if you find one that fits the S7K well, or you can order the eyepiece online and buy the scope in the UK. Don't bother trying this with the regular eyepieces on scopes because it won't work, the 40mm eyepiece is a must.
And if you find a scope that works well with the S7000 don't forget to tell me, cause right now I'm looking for a better scope to use with the S7K, I've been considering the Pentax line because of the 1,25" eyepieces (I will be able to use the CV eyepiece on it) but the price is a bit too steep for me.
 
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