Swarovski Objective Lens Filter? (1 Viewer)

YellowBudgie · Dec 29, 2006

I was curious since Swarovski has provided threads in front of the objective lens on their scopes if any type of filters exist for various reasons, photography or spotting with your eye. The STS 80 HD provides such a great light source the times I have used it for spotting and not digiscoping I ended up with a headache possibly because the image was so bright. I know you can keep both eyes open and this may help with headaches but I was just wondering if filters were ever produced for the Swarovski objective lens.

Thanks,

YellowBudgie · Dec 29, 2006

YellowBudgie said:
I was curious since Swarovski has provided threads in front of the objective lens on their scopes if any type of filters exist for various reasons, photography or spotting with your eye. The STS 80 HD provides such a great light source the times I have used it for spotting and not digiscoping I ended up with a headache possibly because the image was so bright. I know you can keep both eyes open and this may help with headaches but I was just wondering if filters were ever produced for the Swarovski objective lens.

Thanks,

I answered my own question. I always put the wrong words in a forum search but then find the birdforum archive on google.

Jessops has 82mm filters that seem like they will fit the STS 80 HD.

Here is the link for the 82mm filters if anyone is interested. I would be curious if anyone has reduced sun glare with any of these filters when digiscoping.

http://www.jessops.com/Products/SearchResults.aspx?searchword=82mm filter

Thanks,

stuart C smith · Dec 31, 2006

YellowBudgie said:
I answered my own question. I always put the wrong words in a forum search but then find the birdforum archive on google.

Jessops has 82mm filters that seem like they will fit the STS 80 HD.

Here is the link for the 82mm filters if anyone is interested. I would be curious if anyone has reduced sun glare with any of these filters when digiscoping.

http://www.jessops.com/Products/SearchResults.aspx?searchword=82mm filter

Thanks,

[to reduce glare] you might like to try skylight 1a or 1b filters to possibly [very, very, slightly] reduce glare / light input. also you could try a very small weak neutral density filter nd 1 or nd2 at the eyepiece end as used on astro eyepieces etc they might fit, or could be adapted.

YellowBudgie · Jan 1, 2007

stuart C smith said:
[to reduce glare] you might like to try skylight 1a or 1b filters to possibly [very, very, slightly] reduce glare / light input. also you could try a very small weak neutral density filter nd 1 or nd2 at the eyepiece end as used on astro eyepieces etc they might fit, or could be adapted.

Thanks for the information Stuart,

Are these 82mm filters used mostly for astronomy photography?

The lens glare is pretty intense so I think I have to move the setup when the sun rises and produces a glare on the lens. I've been doing this and I end up with a different angle on my photos, so it's a good thing anyway. I can compensate at first by raising the spotting scope higher but once the sun comes up to a certain point I need to move.

Someone needs to make a giant 82mm Lens Hood

I'm glad to have found the 82mm filters online and they are available.

I could call Swarovski and ask if anyone has had headaches and have added a particular filter they know of.

Thanks!

andrew_s · Jan 1, 2007

Decent quality big filters are expensive (eg B+W 82mm UV, ca £70), and cheap ones can apparently affect image quality.
It's quite common to use UV or skylight 1a to protect the objective lens

However, if you do get one, think about getting a polariser instead of nd1 or nd2. It would also be handy at reducing glare off water.

stuart C smith · Jan 1, 2007

YellowBudgie said:
Thanks for the information Stuart,

Are these 82mm filters used mostly for astronomy photography?

The lens glare is pretty intense so I think I have to move the setup when the sun rises and produces a glare on the lens. I've been doing this and I end up with a different angle on my photos, so it's a good thing anyway. I can compensate at first by raising the spotting scope higher but once the sun comes up to a certain point I need to move.

Someone needs to make a giant 82mm Lens Hood

I'm glad to have found the 82mm filters online and they are available.

I could call Swarovski and ask if anyone has had headaches and have added a particular filter they know of.

Thanks!

aah !! do you get the glare then with the scope hood fully extended ? side light etc ? if so you could make a card or black rubber mouse mat rolled up extension tube to extend the hood. if you have to view with prescription sunglasses now and again does that help ? i will look out for a 82mm lens hood for you. :bounce: p.s. some on ebay item 160052215352 metal. £3.49 post £1.99 uk. in ebay usa rubber. item 30065519262 £6.12 post £3.00. [i use a rubber hood on my nikon ed50 to stop glare works very well, and folds back over the scope when not in use]

PAULBOY · Jan 1, 2007

It's also worth trying E Bay which might be cheaper. Just type 82mm filter into the search box and they all appear. As always be careful when buying as there are scams about. I recall somewhere on this forum that someone tried a filter - but took it off as it was continually misting up on the inside face. Might not be a problem in summer however.

stuart C smith · Jan 1, 2007

PAULBOY said:
It's also worth trying E Bay which might be cheaper. Just type 82mm filter into the search box and they all appear. As always be careful when buying as there are scams about. I recall somewhere on this forum that someone tried a filter - but took it off as it was continually misting up on the inside face. Might not be a problem in summer however.

thats good advice.
its strange, i have to say, i have used filters on all my scopes over the last 10 years or so winter and summer, i have never had a problem with misting. maybe i am just lucky, its all down to temperatures / metal / plastic scope bodies / s.o.c./s weather variation. who knows the exact cause ? its problem, but its part of the fun .

YellowBudgie · Jan 2, 2007

stuart C smith said:
aah !! do you get the glare then with the scope hood fully extended ? side light etc ? if so you could make a card or black rubber mouse mat rolled up extension tube to extend the hood. if you have to view with prescription sunglasses now and again does that help ? i will look out for a 82mm lens hood for you. :bounce: p.s. some on ebay item 160052215352 metal. £3.49 post £1.99 uk. in ebay usa rubber. item 30065519262 £6.12 post £3.00. [i use a rubber hood on my nikon ed50 to stop glare works very well, and folds back over the scope when not in use]

Hi Stuart,

Yes I do get the glare with the front hood extended. I'm shooting birds in our single tree and when the sun comes up to a certain point and shines light on the edge of the tree I start to get the glare on the edges in the photo. I don't need to use glasses with the scope but sometimes it helps since I can't see far objects and the glasses help me to see if there is a bird out there far in the trees. I could get some prescription sun glasses and have them darkened to a medium shade and see how that does.

The rolled up mouse pad, that's a great idea! And it's something I can handle

The sunglasses are another great idea as well. I do tend to remove my glasses when viewing the scope since they are uncomfortable but it's something to try. Maybe there will be some type of darkening 82mm lens out there somewhere.

Wow they really do sell lens hoods at 82mm. I never thought such a thing existed. Thats great! I'll try the rolled up mouse pad and try to get a 82mm lens hood on ebay at some point.

Thanks!

I'll attach my favorite photos from my vacation week at home.

stuart C smith · Jan 3, 2007

YellowBudgie said:
Hi Stuart,

Yes I do get the glare with the front hood extended. I'm shooting birds in our single tree and when the sun comes up to a certain point and shines light on the edge of the tree I start to get the glare on the edges in the photo. I don't need to use glasses with the scope but sometimes it helps since I can't see far objects and the glasses help me to see if there is a bird out there far in the trees. I could get some prescription sun glasses and have them darkened to a medium shade and see how that does.

The rolled up mouse pad, that's a great idea! And it's something I can handle The sunglasses are another great idea as well. I do tend to remove my glasses when viewing the scope since they are uncomfortable but it's something to try. Maybe there will be some type of darkening 82mm lens out there somewhere.

Wow they really do sell lens hoods at 82mm. I never thought such a thing existed. Thats great! I'll try the rolled up mouse pad and try to get a 82mm lens hood on ebay at some point.

Thanks!

I'll attach my favorite photos from my vacation week at home.

hi yellow budgie, great photos thank you , used to make ext hoods for my astro scopes out of cardboard painted matt black on the inside. let me know how you get on. :bounce:

YellowBudgie · Jan 5, 2007

stuart C smith said:
hi yellow budgie, great photos thank you , used to make ext hoods for my astro scopes out of cardboard painted matt black on the inside. let me know how you get on. :bounce:

I also like the idea that I could mount one of those tools on the end to help find what your looking for faster and I would not need to mount it on my Swaro scope.

mrpjdavis · Jan 17, 2007

YellowBudgie said:
The STS 80 HD provides such a great light source the times I have used it for spotting and not digiscoping I ended up with a headache possibly because the image was so bright.

Oh, to be in a climate where the view through a scope is too bright! Here in England it's a struggle to get a bright enough image, especially in winter.

Pete

zeppelin · Jan 17, 2007

mrpjdavis said:
Oh, to be in a climate where the view through a scope is too bright! Here in England it's a struggle to get a bright enough image, especially in winter.

Ditto... I'm an avid photographer (both outdoor and studio) and often find that I have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the kind of results that other people get with the same gear. And I'm not talking about artistic merits, just about having enough light to use the aperture and shutter speed that I need for depth of field and stopping motion. So I end up spending most of the dark season doing studio work instead of being out and about.

YellowBudgie · Jan 21, 2007

zeppelin said:
Ditto... I'm an avid photographer (both outdoor and studio) and often find that I have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the kind of results that other people get with the same gear. And I'm not talking about artistic merits, just about having enough light to use the aperture and shutter speed that I need for depth of field and stopping motion. So I end up spending most of the dark season doing studio work instead of being out and about.

Hi zeppelin and mrpjdavis,

Just curious what have you been using as spotting scopes, eyepieces and your camera?

I've been shooting on miserable gray days and the scope produces a bright enough image that will give 1/30th shutter speed with a okay aperture setting aimed at a the darker side of a tree. These are not ideal days and this shutter speed is low for most birds so I have to shoot away and hope for a few keepers.

I'm shooting at feeder distances as well so this may be why I'm able to get the photos. I can get noise on these days when the zoom is too high.

Living in the UK or Britain sounds like you have half the year with a good chance of nice weather and the other half with frequent poor weather and/or darker skies?

I hear people say these general annoying statements like it rains there almost every day and the food is awful but I've never believed such garbage statements. I hear this from people I tend not to be around anyway.

I'll show a few examples of photos on a bad rainy gray day. Maybe here our gray days are brighter than your gray days? (shrug)

The goldfinches are already molting here. It was a very warm winter but has taken a turn and is pretty cold. The goldfinches seem to be molting very slowly. This bird was showing black eye feather signs 3 weeks to a month back (if it's the same bird I think it is).

The low shutter speeds on the blue jays gives me good ghost blue jay photos

Some of them come out pretty neat. The exif data is still in the photos if you wanted to look. The actual gray of this day looked much more gray than the background in the photos.

See ya,

zeppelin · Jan 22, 2007

YellowBudgie said:
Just curious what have you been using as spotting scopes, eyepieces and your camera?

I'm using an ATS80HD with the 20-60x zoom eyepiece.

For photography I use a Canon 20D with various lenses (mostly a 70-200/2.8 and a 50-500/4-6.3, both with and without a 1.4x extender). I'm not (yet) into digiscoping.

YellowBudgie said:
I've been shooting on miserable gray days and the scope produces a bright enough image that will give 1/30th shutter speed with a okay aperture setting aimed at a the darker side of a tree. These are not ideal days and this shutter speed is low for most birds so I have to shoot away and hope for a few keepers.

I generally follow the 1/fl guideline, which suggests that your shutter speed be at least 1 divided by your focal length. For a 500mm lens on a 1.6x crop camera, this boils down to 1/1000s which is very hard to achieve given the f/6.3 max aperture for that lens at max focal length.

Things get even iffier if you want to photograph birds in flight, where have to compensate not only for your own movement (which the 1/fl guideline applies to) but for the bird's motion as well. This basically only works with a very fast lens (i.e. a prime, which costs a ton at those focal lengths) or on very bright days (which are not too abundantly available in my neck of the woods and impose challenges of their own, such as the sun causing flaring or loss of contrast).

YellowBudgie · Jan 23, 2007

zeppelin said:
I'm using an ATS80HD with the 20-60x zoom eyepiece.

For photography I use a Canon 20D with various lenses (mostly a 70-200/2.8 and a 50-500/4-6.3, both with and without a 1.4x extender). I'm not (yet) into digiscoping.

I generally follow the 1/fl guideline, which suggests that your shutter speed be at least 1 divided by your focal length. For a 500mm lens on a 1.6x crop camera, this boils down to 1/1000s which is very hard to achieve given the f/6.3 max aperture for that lens at max focal length.

Things get even iffier if you want to photograph birds in flight, where have to compensate not only for your own movement (which the 1/fl guideline applies to) but for the bird's motion as well. This basically only works with a very fast lens (i.e. a prime, which costs a ton at those focal lengths) or on very bright days (which are not too abundantly available in my neck of the woods and impose challenges of their own, such as the sun causing flaring or loss of contrast).

I have the same scope, you may enjoy the results you can get with the 80mm objective lens, the 30xw eyepiece and a decent digiscoping compatible camera. I would think you would get much more light to the camera to take some nice shots. I have been able to keep the aperture down and have a good enough shutter speed to get some good shots on the dreary days. The better light days the scope and camera perform very well.

The scope produces such a bright image I get headaches when spotting with it.

There are the negative parts of digiscoping as well but you would have both types of setups and could choose one based on how the lighting was outside and the types of birds you are going to photo.

Good luck!

abinash nepali · Jan 25, 2007

hi all
i am using swarovski optik AT 80 HD and using eyepices new series 20-60 . and intrested in photograpy to . so just let me know which camera and adapter is suitable for this scope. good to hear from all
sincely
abi

YellowBudgie · Jan 25, 2007

abinash nepali said:
hi all
i am using swarovski optik AT 80 HD and using eyepices new series 20-60 . and intrested in photograpy to . so just let me know which camera and adapter is suitable for this scope. good to hear from all
sincely
abi

Hi abinash,

You have allot of options.

The first thing you need to do is check your camera for threads that will be around your camera's lens. If your camera has threads that allow you to screw an adapter that will souround your lens when the camera's lens is fully extended you will have more options on what to choose for an adapter.

I have heard these adapters mentioned as adapters, barrel adapters, lens adapters and camera adapters. I'm sure there are many names.

Take a look at this link below as an example on the type of adapter I'm talking about and see if your camera supports one of these. If you don't see threads read the camera manual. Sometimes there is a part of the camera that covers the threads you can easily remove.

Here's a adapter I use to connect my camera to a DCA (Digital Camera Adapter) made by Swarovski Optics. So there's really two products here, the Swarovski DCA and the UR-E14 Adapter to screw over my lens.

http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-UR-E14-...1_1/105-7198082-7679628?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

You can reply back to let me know if you have the option to thread a adapter onto your camera, also if you can tell me what you have for a camera I could take a look at it's specs.

See ya,

YellowBudgie · Jan 26, 2007

abinash nepali said:
hi all
i am using swarovski optik AT 80 HD and using eyepices new series 20-60 . and intrested in photograpy to . so just let me know which camera and adapter is suitable for this scope. good to hear from all
sincely
abi

Sorry I missed the fact you did not get a camera yet for your scope. I can tell you what I have that has worked very well with my setup.

I own a Swarovski ATS-80HD and two eyepieces, the 20x-60x and the 30x.
The camera I use is a Nikon Coolpix 8400, the camera adapter is a Nikon UR-E14 connected to a Swarovski DCA. I use a Eagle Eye Shutter Release Adapter. Since the shutter release button on my camera is at an angle I had to bend the shutter release adapter post by about 20 to 30 deg to aim the shutter release pin down correctly onto the button.

I also own a Canon A95 which is a good digiscoping camera but prefer to use the 8400 because of its features, image quality and 8mp.

* The 30x eyepiece works the best with my camera so far and produces the largest image to the cameras lens, someone had shown me the 45x also produces about the same size image to the Nikon CP 8400 with less light entering for the camera to use making it more of a longer range sunny day eyepiece.

Good luck,

andrew_s · Jan 26, 2007

abinash nepali said:
hi all
i am using swarovski optik AT 80 HD and using eyepices new series 20-60 . and intrested in photograpy to . so just let me know which camera and adapter is suitable for this scope. good to hear from all
sincely
abi

If you end up with a camera that has no filter threads (or even if it does), look at a
srb-griturn adapter. A lot of people on here seem to recommend them.

Swarovski Objective Lens Filter? (1 Viewer)

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