What eye piece for es80ed digiscoping (1 Viewer)

Hi all,
I feel i will be getting the Opticron ES80ED and take warehouse express up on there offer of hide clamp and bins.
However what would be the best eye piece for digiscoping?
Will also use for bird viewing in general but will often want to take a pic of what i see.
Thanks as ever,
James

James_Death said:

Hi all,
I feel i will be getting the Opticron ES80ED and take warehouse express up on there offer of hide clamp and bins.
However what would be the best eye piece for digiscoping?
Will also use for bird viewing in general but will often want to take a pic of what i see.
Thanks as ever,
James

Click to expand...

If you can afford it get either the HDF zoom eyepiece or betterstill the fairly new SDL eyepiece.

What camera are you using ?

Geoff Brown said:

If you can afford it get either the HDF zoom eyepiece or betterstill the fairly new SDL eyepiece.

Click to expand...

I use the 40862 HDF zoom eyepiece, it's a twist up eye-cup design about 50mm in diameter which my cameras lens accesory tube fits over nicely.

I can't imagine using a fixed magnification eyepiece BUT.... I view in dense woodland and also over huge areas of water - I sometimes use a doubler for even more range.

The zoom eyepiece is easy to use, I view with and without glasses and once you learn where to rest the eyecup on your nose there is no blackout at max zoom.

I'll be buying a bigger scope and if it's an Opticron I'll buy another HDF or SDL zoom.

James_Death said:

Hi all,
I feel i will be getting the Opticron ES80ED and take warehouse express up on there offer of hide clamp and bins.
However what would be the best eye piece for digiscoping?
Will also use for bird viewing in general but will often want to take a pic of what i see.
Thanks as ever,
James

Click to expand...

For digiscoping you need an eyepiece with at least 17mm of Eye Relief ( 20mm plus would be better as it would give you more choice of cameras that would work without vingetting). As a Swarovski user I find the 30x eyepiece to be the best dual use as the Eye Relief is better than the zoom and it's marginally sharper. Neil.

Henry B said:

What camera are you using ?

Click to expand...

I will be using an old cannon sybershot A70.
If that will influence the advice?
Thanks again, all advice welcome.
James

I can't offer any advice on digiscoping as it's not something I do, but I've got that scope and use the 32x HDF eyepiece, which I find excellent. It might be nice having a larger image sometimes which a zoom would offer, but I wonder in practice how much more detail would be seen.

The A70 looks like it should be ok for digisicoping with the 3x zoom. You should test it on the scope eyepiece by holding as close as you can and zooming the lens out to check for vignetting.Neil.

2 eyepices tried so far ...

Hi James.

I am a serious photographer who has just started birding.
I recently bought an opticron IS60 (Non ED) and a 40810 HDF eyepice - about x18 mag on my scope and it is very good, allowing me to get some great photos from up to 20yards/20metres away. These will produce excellent 9x6 photos. On your 80mm ED this would fer better and have x23 magnification.

As I then wanted to shoot birds further away I next bought a 40858 x32 eyepiece (On my 60mm, but x44 on an 80mm ED.). The results are disapointing. Although it has a wide field of view and good eyedpth, my Opticron IS60 (non ED glass) lets it down badly. The images are big, even from 45yards/45meters away, but are too soft for my fussy photographic eye.

I think that on your 80ED scope the results should be very acceptable, due to the better OG lens.

I am using it with a Fuji F10 which has a fairly small diameter lens - but it is a very sharp lens. This allows me lots of flexibilty to position the camera, eitrher close or far from the eyepiece. But I have no experience of you r cannon.

Both my eyepieces are the high quality HDF types, and I bought Prime lenses as opposed to a zoom, because I am a bit of a quality fantatic. I am now saving for an 80mm ED opticron.

Here is an example shot from about 45 feet away. It has been reduced to about third size. The original is large photo is stunning.

http://www.t1000.co.uk/camera/bird_5080sgnd_vse.jpg

It doesnt quite have the bite of £2500 pounds worth of pro SLR gear. But at a total of £400 its more than okay.

Hope it helps.

Thanks for everyones insights and help, the more the merryer.
Can anyone explain about this sdl eye piece, im new to this so not gend up.
Thanks again,
James

The SDL zoom is Opticron's new 'top of the range' zoom eyepeice. It's supposed to be much better than the rest, but personally I'd go for the HDF instead - I'm not convinced the SDL is worth the extra money.

Generally digiscoping is easier at lower mags and with fixed eyepieces, a fixed eyepiece of about 25x should be ideal. That said as a birder I far prefer zooms so have always used a zoom for digiscoping and found them to work fine.