As I said in a previous post I got a Pentax 10 mm ep to help with my
long distance field work.
My typical situation is to be set up at some vantage point and look for
raptors and/or waterfowl at distance. Typically more than .25 miles.
Usually I'm scanning the distant horizon for birds in flight either with
my bare eye or with binos and, when found, identify them in flight using
a widefield scope. So I'm constantly going from bare eye or binos to
scope and back again.
Anyway I sent the Pentax ep back for refund.
The sweet spot on the ep was just too sensitive for my purposes. I found
that I was missing identifications simply because it took too long to
bring the bird into my field of view using this ep. I think the military
have a good phrase for it- fast target acquisition. Eventually I reverted
back to using the 13mm stratus which has a very easy fast view and none
of the problems of the Pentax
At first I thought it might be simply a problem of using a high power
ep. But using the XW zoom at comparable power gives me no such problems
even considering the much narrower field of view of the zoom. The zoom
may have other problems but it has a fairly easy view at high power.
This is saying nothing about the other qualities of this ep but slow
"target acquisition" is a deal breaker for the kind of use I typically
put a scope to.
A THOUGHT: standard 1.25 inch eps are essentially narrowly developed for
the specific needs of the amateur astronomy market. I think with the
increasing interest in terrestrial wild life observation the ep makers
may be missing an important commercial opportunity by not developing
ep's specifically for the large terrestrial birding-nature observation
market. I wonder what kind of eps Pentax or Televue would come up with
if they developed eps specifically for the birder?
Good birding folks.
long distance field work.
My typical situation is to be set up at some vantage point and look for
raptors and/or waterfowl at distance. Typically more than .25 miles.
Usually I'm scanning the distant horizon for birds in flight either with
my bare eye or with binos and, when found, identify them in flight using
a widefield scope. So I'm constantly going from bare eye or binos to
scope and back again.
Anyway I sent the Pentax ep back for refund.
The sweet spot on the ep was just too sensitive for my purposes. I found
that I was missing identifications simply because it took too long to
bring the bird into my field of view using this ep. I think the military
have a good phrase for it- fast target acquisition. Eventually I reverted
back to using the 13mm stratus which has a very easy fast view and none
of the problems of the Pentax
At first I thought it might be simply a problem of using a high power
ep. But using the XW zoom at comparable power gives me no such problems
even considering the much narrower field of view of the zoom. The zoom
may have other problems but it has a fairly easy view at high power.
This is saying nothing about the other qualities of this ep but slow
"target acquisition" is a deal breaker for the kind of use I typically
put a scope to.
A THOUGHT: standard 1.25 inch eps are essentially narrowly developed for
the specific needs of the amateur astronomy market. I think with the
increasing interest in terrestrial wild life observation the ep makers
may be missing an important commercial opportunity by not developing
ep's specifically for the large terrestrial birding-nature observation
market. I wonder what kind of eps Pentax or Televue would come up with
if they developed eps specifically for the birder?
Good birding folks.
