Acuter Scopes (Any good for digiscoping??) (1 Viewer)

Hi
I am a newbie around here but would like to ask a question if I may?
I would like to get into digiscoping, not just birds but wildlife in general, however, I am on a very limited budget at the moment so dont want to make an expensive mistake when it comes to buying a scope. I have seen (and looked through) a scope made by Acuter which has 20 x 60 zoom and an 80mm diameter lens, it is just about in my price bracket, the magnification looked great when looking through the viewfinder, but will it be okay for digiscoping?? I am not looking for prize winning pictures but would like to be able to snap clean, in focus images. Finally I have read that my current digicam a Canon Powershot G3 is totally unsuitable for digiscoping, despite being an excellent camera in all other respects, as my budget is small would it be possible to get round any vignetting that occurs using photoshop etc just until I can afford a more suitable digicam for using with a scope??
Sorry to be so long winded, hope someone can help with advice please.
Midge

Hi Midge and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdFoum.

I've never heard of the scope you are looking at but I am sure someone will be along that has. It seems to have so good specs. What about CA? The purple fringing you see around some obects? Did you notice any of that?

I have an Acuter, not bad for the price but I found the eyepiece connector a bit feeble but that might have been my particular one. My digicam is entirely unsuitable for digiscoping no fixed focus and the wrong shape but I have tried holding it by hand and taking a few shots and I think it shows promise, attached is a picture of a Woodpigeon I think taken from my backyard the bird was a good 200 plus yards away, I haven't done anything to the picture other than cropping it down for posting which also got rid of the slight vignetting, I would think you could get plenty good enough record shots with a better camera, that's what I am thinking of doing, hope this helps.

Mick

My girlfirend has that scope. It's pretty good considering it's cheap - although it is a bit on the large size and lacks a lens hood. Not used it for digiscoping though as i use a DSLR.

KC, Mick, Rezmole
Thanks for your input guys! It seems that the Acuter does indeed have some potential after all, and the bonus here is that since browsing this forum I have discovered that people are using Canon G series digicams succesfully for digiscoping! I'm hoping that the 80mm lens may cut down if not remove altogether the vignetting that has been reported for these cameras??
Thanks again
Midge

Vignetting is really something that happens at the other end, Midge.

It's what happens when in effect, the image presented to the camera by the eyepiece doesn't fill the camera's sensor: if it's a problem with a given scope/eyepiece combo, it'll be there whether you've got a 50mm or 100mm objective.

Vignetting is usually addressed (to a greater or lesser extent) by zooming in one or two notches with the camera's optical zoom (I can eliminate it entirely with my Canon Powershot A95/Zeiss zoom combo).

A little bit of vignetting isn't really a major problem in reality - just crop the image and lose it.

h
Thanks very much for your input mate, I obviously had the wrong end of the stick as they say! Coincidence that you live in Blyth, my in-laws live in Seaton Delaval.
Thanks again
Midge

If you are serious about digiscoping (i myself chose the DSLR and long lens - purely for quality), then you might want to look at Opticron. I noticed yesterday that they do a range of attachments at reasonable prices - and their scope aren't too expensive. They do an attachment for Nikon SLRs at about a fifth the cost of Nikons own attachment!

I own a Acuter 20-60 x 80mm A and find it not very good for digi-scoping as iI had to move the camera around quite a bit to get a full frame(hand holding camera not using a mount)Best resulst I got were on 20x so try that if you buy the scope...