ATS 80 or ATS 65 (1 Viewer)

Hello,

I'm new to digiscoping and the owner of a CP 4500. I've read some about digiscoping and am wondering whether the Swarovski ATS 65 HD is nearly as good as the ATS 80 HD. I know that the 80 mm lens gives more brightness. But do you see a difference if you use the ATS 65 HD in daylight? Does anybody have experience with the ATS 65 HD?

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'm not quite clear, have you got an 80? I would be interested to hear how you are getting on with digiscoping, as I am about to buy some equipment myself.

Andy Bright will able to give you some advice, I'm sure.

Best of luck!

I've no scope yet. I'm not sure what to buy. The ATS 65 is smaller and lighter but the brightness is lower especially at strong magnifications because the diameter of the objective is 15mm smaller. But do you see that difference under daylight circumstances?
Derk

hello my friend from The Hague, I have a Swaro 65mm HD/30mm wide eye-piece and consider it the best thing since sliced bread, I'm sure that our Austrian optics makers would have made the 80mm to the same quality and build specifications. I think the choice will be size/weight and whether you birdwatch in very low-light, twilight conditions. The eye-pieces are the same therefore the extra body size will capture more light, probably an advantage for digiscopers. As for good weather conditions I doubt you will see any difference at all.

Have fun

Paul

In most cases you won't notice too much difference between the scopes for digiscoping...there's about one f stop of difference between 65mm and 80mm (bit less actually), so the 80mm may give you 1/125 sec, the 65mm will give 1/60 (likely to be higher than that because the camera gives odd shutter-speeds like 1/72sec).
If you shoot overwater at Waders and generally in situations where light is reasonably good, the 65mm objective won't be a problem... if you shoot in dense woodland it may not give you enough light to get a high shutter-speeds to freeze the action... though you can adjust the iso sensitivty of the camera to increase this, at a cost of quality.
There is a resolution issue as well, the 80mm scope will resolve more detail than a 65mm, certainly at the 80mm's optimum e.p mag of 30x.... again, this isn't a huge factor unless you're into barbule detail.
I don't think you'll be unhappy with either scope... your back would prefer the 65mm 3
Regards,
Andy B

Thank you for your replies. I think i'm going to visit a store to compare size and weight. I think a high shutterspeed is quite important because birds, especially the small ones, are very busy and won't sit still. Do you agree?

Regards derk

dutchderk, I am not a digiscoper, but yes, I heartily agree. The higher the better for shutter speed, if you want to freeze movement. However, just something to think about, there are plenty of people who like to see the wing, but to have it blurred to depict motion. Obviously, if it is in the air then it is in motion, but some people like to see the effect. But, the higher shutter speed is also good for when those little birds move their heads so fast (which may be what you meant in the first place).