[william j clive]

Unable to go birding last Saturday I messed around with my optics. Tried using my Swarovski 2x Booster on the scope and was getting 76x on the 38x eyepiece just by holding the booster against the eyepiece. I also have a 75x eyepiece which gave 150x with the booster. I then tried a 7x binocular against a 25x eypiece resulting in 175x. Repeating this on the other two eyepieces gave mags of 266x and 525x!

Needless to say, with each increase in mag whether using the booster or binocular, the brightness and resolution diminished markedly and shake increased in ratio. Probably the best usable combination was the 25x eyepiece combined with one tube of a Canon 10x30 IS giving 250x. With the stabilisation button depressed on the Canon the image was reasonably stable but quite dark.

Dont know whether I should have posted this on the scope forum, or whether anyone will find it of interest. And anyway, none of it is of any real practical use. I think I will stop there!

Clive Jones.

[henry link]

[
William, I'm interested and can give you an example of a practical use. On one occasion I found myself scoping a very distant phalarope with only a 30x eyepiece at hand. I placed my 8x binocular behind the eyepiece producing a shaky, fuzzy 240x, but with just enough glimpses of extra detail to be able to say red phalarope (your grey). At 30x it was just phalarope sp. Henry

[Hermann]

Originally Posted by william j clive

Unable to go birding last Saturday I messed around with my optics. Tried using my Swarovski 2x Booster on the scope and was getting 76x on the 38x eyepiece just by holding the booster against the eyepiece. I also have a 75x eyepiece which gave 150x with the booster. I then tried a 7x binocular against a 25x eypiece resulting in 175x. Repeating this on the other two eyepieces gave mags of 266x and 525x! [snip] And anyway, none of it is of any real practical use. I think I will stop there!

Actually, I'm not sure this isn't of any practical use. I got a Zeiss 3x12 including the two adapters for their binoculars at a price I couldn't refuse on Ebay a few months ago, and I've done quite a bit of experimenting with it. Not much use on binoculars I think, and I almost always carry a scope anyway or a stabilized Zeiss 20x60S Mono.

But I find the Zeiss 3x12 quite useful in combination with my Nikon ED. For instance, in woodland I usually use a fixed 20x eyepiece, and I've used the little Zeiss a few times to get a quick identification when I couldn't be bothered to change eyepieces. At 60x the image isn't very bright, but it's quite sharp and more than sufficient for a quick look.

I've also used it from time to time when the 60x of my zoom wasn't quite enough magnification. Alright, usually the air isn't really stable enough to use really high magnifications, but I got a few identifications with the booster and the zoom on 30x when the magnification of my 20-60x zoom wasn't quite enough. At 90x the image is still useable, no more than that, but it has quite a lot of detail. Of course, theoretically I should see all the detail a 60mm scope can provide at 60x at most, but in real life I find higher magnifications quite useful when I'm looking for one small detail on a bird.

Not sure though the 180x I'd get with the 3x12 and the zoom on 60x will ever be useful ...:-)

Hermann