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New Tripod (1 Viewer)

markspirito

Well-known member
Hi all, I am thinking of changing my heavy aluminium tripod, for a lighter carbon fibre Tripod to support my Kowa TSN 3 30x 80 scope, any advice on anything available for under £200, would be greatly appreciated

Thanks from Mark
 
There are some good bargains to be had on the used market, though you may have to do a fair bit of searching! Not particularly light, but a friend of mine picked up a Gitzo G1327 at the local camera club for 100 pounds and it was almost mint - I hate him!
He also has one of these Feisol tripods which is pretty good and VERY light:
http://www.feisoleurope.com/feisol-tournament-tripod-ct3342-rapid-p-30.html
A little over budget but not too much.
This is just a personal view but I find spotting scopes (I use a Kowa TSN4) to be more demanding of tripods than camera lenses. I use a Canon 800mm F5.6 L IS lens and it is much easier to support than my scope. Its weight damps down vibration and the magnification is much lower. With a spotting scope you don't have the weight or any, built in, image stabiliser.
Light weight tripods are nice to carry but can be disappointing when it comes to viewing.

Just a thought, did you know that you can use a number of the higher quality Opticron eyepieces on your scope. I am currently using the Opticron SDL V2 on my TSN4, and it works quite nicely! You will need to add a spacer (cheap neoprene O ring) but they work well.

http://www.opticron.co.uk/PDF/SDLv2_Eyepiece_User_Guide.pdf
 
Okay thanks for the useful advice, I will check some of these options out never really thought about changing the eyepiece on my scope it came with the 30 x eyepiece and i have been happy with it, although a zoom option would sometimes be useful
Thanks










There are some good bargains to be had on the used market, though you may have to do a fair bit of searching! Not particularly light, but a friend of mine picked up a Gitzo G1327 at the local camera club for 100 pounds and it was almost mint - I hate him!
He also has one of these Feisol tripods which is pretty good and VERY light:
http://www.feisoleurope.com/feisol-tournament-tripod-ct3342-rapid-p-30.html
A little over budget but not too much.
This is just a personal view but I find spotting scopes (I use a Kowa TSN4) to be more demanding of tripods than camera lenses. I use a Canon 800mm F5.6 L IS lens and it is much easier to support than my scope. Its weight damps down vibration and the magnification is much lower. With a spotting scope you don't have the weight or any, built in, image stabiliser.
Light weight tripods are nice to carry but can be disappointing when it comes to viewing.

Just a thought, did you know that you can use a number of the higher quality Opticron eyepieces on your scope. I am currently using the Opticron SDL V2 on my TSN4, and it works quite nicely! You will need to add a spacer (cheap neoprene O ring) but they work well.

http://www.opticron.co.uk/PDF/SDLv2_Eyepiece_User_Guide.pdf
 
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