[TopQ]

Hello all
I hope this is the right place for this post.
Since I don't see many Sony's 717 and brandon digiscopes maybe some of you might be interested in this set up.

Sony 717 pros:
-It has an internal zoom mechanism
-the body swivels to accommodate a large number of viewing angles.
-Optical zoom is 5X (which can help out with identification although the picture quality is compromised a little)
-Can take good quality movies (up to 45 at the highest quality with a 1 gig memory stick)
-Battery last almost 4 hours.
-it has manual everything if required.

Cons
-Body doesn't swivel 180 deg
-Bulky (large body)
-large lens that most likely requires 2"eyepieces (not commonly found in birder scopes)
-Kind of heavy so a good tripod is a must

The setup is really good. It is very rugged. The focuser is solid. No danger of damaging the focusing mechanism (I am sure it could take 2x the current weight load without any problem.) The connection to the camera with the Spectronics II (2") eyepiece is also very solid.

Because the eyepiece is a 40 mm, the scope works at 11X (450mm/40mm) at lowest power, which means a very large field of view making detection of birds easier.

Scope can focus extremely close (about 4 feet)

The scope is light (at least compared to astronomical scopes with the option to use 2" eyepiece)

The picture quality if good. I read some reviews about this scope and it is supposed to be an apo but it is optimized for low power observing. I can confirm that at low power false color is none existent but at medium power (60X)color is more evident.

Ill hope to write a more comprenhensive review of this setup in the future

Bruno

[normjackson]

Thanks for that Bruno.

I remember being quite intrigued by this scope and its history when I first found out about it. Unfortunately I don't think it's available in the UK anywhere. What you say seems to confirm what I'd read, that this is really a good quality spotting scope rather than an armoured astro scope.

You may have seen the posts by Widowmaker in an earlier thread about giving up on trying to use one of the big Zeiss lens Sonys for digiscoping. You may be about to prove something here; though I think the Brandon is probably a bit outside the price range he was looking at anyway as a first-timer.

Am looking forward to reading more on this, and maybe seeing a few pictures in the gallery?

Best regards.

[RonR]

Very interesting as I have a F707 - now lets see some pictures - am headed to the gallery now and see if you have posted. Great setup.

[kolibri]

Hello,

I own also a sony F707 and was wondering if I could find adaptors for a Swarovski telescope (80).

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[mpedris]

Any ideas if the 717 can be fixed with a BINOCULAR?

[yossi]

I've used the 717 with the Swarovski scope. I used Scopetronics Maxview eyepiece in a plossl adapter. Magnification was ~X11-12 but there was quite a substantial amount of vignetting and I had to go into digital zoom a bit. At that point, magnification was too much already and the image quality was not very good. The front element of the 717 is just too big for a 1.25" eyepiece.

Originally Posted by kolibri

Hello,

I own also a sony F707 and was wondering if I could find adaptors for a Swarovski telescope (80).

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance