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Is a used Kowa TSN-2 a good purchase? (1 Viewer)

Kevin

Registered User (not drugs)
Consider me a trusting novice.

I've just bought a second-hand Kowa TSN-2 from a local optics store on their advice (with limited funds I wanted an 80mm used scope). The salesman said that there are more TSN-2s out there being used than any other scope, which was reassuring.

I've not been able to find any kind of detailed information or review about the scope on the internet - and hoped that one of you kind and knowledgeable gents (or ladies) might be able to tell me something about it.

It's got a 30mm wide angle fitted... will all the current model Kowa eyepeices fit?

Does anyone have any experience of digiscoping with this machine?

Kevin
 
Hi Kevin,
That Kowa series (tsn1,2,3,4) was very popular alround, I had a very long and happy relationship with a Kowa TSN4.
The current 820 series eyepieces won't fit onto a tsn1,2,3,4 but there should be plenty of secondhand eyepieces about for your scope.

Digiscoping is pretty good with this series, especially with the lower powered eyepieces (the 27x L.E.R. is very digiscoping friendly). The 77mm objective lens of your scope will let in plenty of light for digiscoping but your model doesn't have the fluorite glass of the tsn3 or 4 so you're likely to notice colour fringing and some other artifacts when digiscoping but these aren't too noticable when using the scope for general viewing.
Regards,
Andy
 
Hi Kevin

I used one for a long time, like Andy. It's a very good scope and used to be the one everyone owned at one time. I'm sure you'll get a lot of pleasure from it.....
 
:clap:Hope and encouragement... ...hope and encouragement !

Thanks Brian - just what I needed
 
BrianB said:
Hi Kevin

I have a TSN-1, which is the angled version of yours, with a 30xW eyepiece. I use it for digiscoping and it works fine providing you accept that you will get colour fringing. It is fairly simple to remove this using the right graphics packages, Andy's website has a good tutorial on this.

Here's one of the latest images I have taken with my setup (Kowa TSN-1, LCE adaptor, Nikon CP 4500).
Lovely shot, Brian - no wonder they are trodden on so easily!
 
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Have to say that I probably wouldn't have photographed in this location as it may have drawn attention to the nest site to others, may not have been the case here but it's something I always bore in mind when I used to take shots near nest sites.

Being familiar with Bognor (and those that the Bognor Butlins vicinity can attract), most things breakable get broken in that area. Bognor town centre always resembled a war zone on a Sunday morning.
 
NIce shot BrianB:).
Hmm, "green colour fringing". I hadn't seen that before until now :).

In the case of the colour fringing, can't it be helped by adding some form of filter to the scope? I was just curious about that.
 
I'm afraid it's largely the optical quality of the scope's glassware ...adding a filter will not make any real difference (unless it's a uv/skylight filter, you will lose light as well).
Best alternative is to use photoshop....though green fringing presents problems in removing it quickly, as green is likely to be present in the shot anyway (foliage).
 
Andy Bright said:
I'm afraid it's largely the optical quality of the scope's glassware ...adding a filter will not make any real difference (unless it's a uv/skylight filter, you will lose light as well).
Best alternative is to use photoshop....though green fringing presents problems in removing it quickly, as green is likely to be present in the shot anyway (foliage).
If it is truly colour fringeing because of the optics, i.e., chromatic aberrations, the best way to eliminate it is by shooting in RAW format and then correcting for CA when "developing" the picture using the RAW import tool in Photoshop CS. Note that this method doesn't desaturate any colours, it corrects CA in the right way by digitally shrinking/expanding the images made up of the blue and red colour channels (in the opposite way as your scope did physically).

Since buying PS CS cost as much as the difference between a flourite scope and an ordinary one, maybe it is more worth the money to get a flourite (or ED) scope...

If you can't use RAW format or don't want to invest in PS CS, you can get any of the plug ins; "Debarrellizer" from The Image Factory or "PanoTools". Both work in the same way as PS CS RAW import but with .jpg files. The results aren't that great since the jpg compression messes up the colour separation. The best thing with these plugins are that they work fine in older versions of PS as well as Paint Shop Pro. PanoTools is awkward to use but free and Debarrellizer have a 30 days trial.

If the fringeing is due to a CCD artifact, the desaturation method has to be employed.

My two pixels, Jens
 
Kevin said:
Consider me a trusting novice.

I've just bought a second-hand Kowa TSN-2 from a local optics store on their advice (with limited funds I wanted an 80mm used scope). The salesman said that there are more TSN-2s out there being used than any other scope, which was reassuring.

I've not been able to find any kind of detailed information or review about the scope on the internet - and hoped that one of you kind and knowledgeable gents (or ladies) might be able to tell me something about it.

It's got a 30mm wide angle fitted... will all the current model Kowa eyepeices fit?

Does anyone have any experience of digiscoping with this machine?

Kevin

The eye pieces for the 66mm series will also fit the TSN-2. I have some digiscoped pictures using a Contax SL300RT* with the TSN-2 in my BF gallery, for example:
6405HouseFinch102304-03.jpg


I have attached photos of the set-up. I use Kowa's TSN-DA1 digiscoping adapter with a 28mm adapter ring. When I am birding I leave the adapter (including the ring as well as the camera's filter adapter on the scope, I use a fixed magnitude eyepiece).

Dalcio
 

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