Kowa TSN-82SV or Vanguard Endeavor HD 82A (1 Viewer)

alphan · Sep 21, 2020

With Covid 19 locking me down from forest birding, I am turning to migrant shorebirds. They tend to stay 100-200 m away all along the beach. My G9 with PL100-400 is quite useless thus I'm turning to Digiscoping. Options I'm looking at are:
1) Used Nikon Fieldscope 82ED
2) Vanguard Endeavor HD 82A new
3) Kowa TSN-82SV new.
Option 1, none found on sale anywhere. Option 2, have to order from oversea costing around US$540. Option 3 is available nearby for around US$920 with eyepiece.
I only plan to use for 5 years due to my age. Which should I buy? I'm not asking for pro quality images but at least enough for proper ID.
Thanks for all your thoughts.

jring · Sep 21, 2020

Hi,

of the ones listed, my choice would be to wait for option 1... but if that is not possible, I'd wager on option 2 and hope to get a good example.

Or try to find a good used example of any ED or fluorite scope. If you don't plan to hike with it, an astro ED refractor like the common Synta 80/600mm ED doublets might also be a good choice... not waterproof and heavy but usually better optics than your common spotter.

The Kowa is a plain glass scope primarily targeted at shooters (no pun intended) - the image will start to degrade beyond 35x or so and for usable images at 200m you want more magnification.

Joachim

alphan · Sep 21, 2020

Thanks Joachim for your super fast reply.
I do have a Celestron 80ED mounted on my G9 without eyepiece but I still struggle to get descent shots for ID, especially 15-20cm length Plovers. With MF and magnified evf for focusing, the equivalent of 1200mm on my M43 still doesn't help cropping all the way in. Or maybe I am expecting too much (with apology).
Thanks.

jring · Sep 21, 2020

Hi,

in that case maybe ask or search in the imaging with astro scopes subforum...

https://www.birdforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=657

The question is, if you have problems to properly focus your ED80 as a manual 600mm prime lens - in that case you might try focus peaking or find some way to make focus confirmation (green frame) work with manual lenses in the G9... cannot really try myself as I have my G80 with me on vacation but no manual lens and adapter.

Or if you just need more magnification, you could try to actually digiscope through your ED80 and an eyepiece... the usual way would be to use a short tele (around 70mm or 35mm with crop) in front of the EP - this would allow you to use camera AF...

Joachim

alphan · Sep 21, 2020

With birds 50-100m away, not much problem but beyond that will be. Yes, I used MF assist with between 3X-20X magnification on Liveview. Slow but doable. But I think my no brand eyepiece may not be up to standard. Will relook in that scenario again. But in the meantime, I'll hold back any purchase until I can test further.
Thanks again Joachim.

eitanaltman · Sep 22, 2020

Scratch the Vanguard off the list. It's extremely mediocre. I bought one of these several years back to try based on the "bang for the buck" reputation of Vanguard from its Endeavor binocular line, but that scope had poor resolution, very soft at higher magnification.

A used Nikon ED82 (or even 78) will blow away the Vanguard, it's a legit alpha quality scope whereas the Vanguard is an OK-at-best entry level scope.

mayoayo · Sep 22, 2020

There is a Celestron Regal M2 80mm for sale in astromart... That could be an option.. Also a Pentax PF100 in the same section....

alphan · Sep 22, 2020

Thanks Eitan for the head up. Will take note of it. I had the Endeavor binocular that I am very happy with thus my initial rating on the scope. Will hold on my purchase for now.

Thanks mayoayo. Will take a look there too.

Joachim, your pointer lead me to relook into my Celestron 80ED. Here's a few shots I tried in a rather controlled environment, by taking sample shots into my neighbor's property, of a 850g milk powder can.

All images converted from RAW to jpeg directly without any processing except the 2nd to 4th images, cropped to subject. The 1st image is taken with my 80ED directly adapted to my Olympus EM 1 mk1 making it a 600mm lens equivalent to 1200mm in 35mm format. The 2nd image 80ED with factory supplied 25mm EP and Helios 58mm 2.0 lens making it 2784mm equivalent. The 3rd image is a crop of the 1st image. The 4th image is 80ED with modified 2.5X tele-converter direct to camera making it 3000mm equivalent. Distance from camera to subject is about 150m and high off the ground to avoid atmospheric distortion. My disastrous shots of the shorebirds earlier must have been due to equipment movement due to wind plus atmospheric distortion. All images not resized except the 1st which exceeded site limit.

jring · Sep 22, 2020

Hi,

The images look fine for what I expect to be a blackbird sized target at 150m (we don't have 850g milk powder cans over here - or maybe we have but have never bought one). The light was obviously not too plenty leading to a bit of sensor noise... but that's not the fault of the optics...

The ED80 with 2.5 teleconverter looks very good for unprocessed, practice with that if you don't have to carry it a lot.

I honestly thing that your ED80 is probably of better optical quality than a random alpha brand scope. At least my ED80 and ED120 are both better than my pretty good Kowa TSN-3 (which has often got favourable comments for its sharpness beside a row of current alpha scopes).

Joachim

alphan · Sep 22, 2020

Hi, I am looking around for someone with a sturdy tripod and head to practice more. When I first gotten the 80ED rig, I was on 1.6 crop factored Canon. The jump to 2X crop factor plus lack of practice spoil the game. We never had any 850g milk powder in our days but only recent years. They cost a lot more than our usual 1.8kg ones due to their fancy marketing which the youngster love. By the way, I found out about the weigh from the processed images above.
Cheers

Vincent

alphan · Oct 22, 2020

jring said:
Hi,

The images look fine for what I expect to be a blackbird sized target at 150m (we don't have 850g milk powder cans over here - or maybe we have but have never bought one). The light was obviously not too plenty leading to a bit of sensor noise... but that's not the fault of the optics...

The ED80 with 2.5 teleconverter looks very good for unprocessed, practice with that if you don't have to carry it a lot.

I honestly thing that your ED80 is probably of better optical quality than a random alpha brand scope. At least my ED80 and ED120 are both better than my pretty good Kowa TSN-3 (which has often got favourable comments for its sharpness beside a row of current alpha scopes).

Joachim

Hi Joachim,
After a month of practice with remote shutter release, I had put my Celestron into over drive. My new video tripod with fluid head is on the way here. Very happy with the result. Now I am thinking of going another level up.
I plan on using the scope for bird observation after photography by hooking back the eye piece. My factory supplied EP, Plossl 25mm looks quite decent but lack zoom. Can you recommend a zoom ep of 20-60X or maybe less if the scope lack such resolution?
Thanks very much.

jring · Oct 22, 2020

Hi,

your ED80 is probably good for at least 160x (rule of thumb is 2x aperture in mm or 50x aperture in inches) - of course limited by seeing and available light during the day. Planetary observers and double star hunters will go quite a bit higher...

The question of astro zoom EP only has one good answer - Baader Hyperion Zoom (or maybe two if you count the super short focal length and $$$ Televue Nagler zoom).
The discontinued Mk3 should be quite a bit cheaper used than the current Mk4 and will give the same performance on an astro scope as the main change for the Mk4 was a bit less backfocus needed for use with spotting scopes...

Joachim

alphan · Oct 23, 2020

jring said:
Hi,

your ED80 is probably good for at least 160x (rule of thumb is 2x aperture in mm or 50x aperture in inches) - of course limited by seeing and available light during the day. Planetary observers and double star hunters will go quite a bit higher...

The question of astro zoom EP only has one good answer - Baader Hyperion Zoom (or maybe two if you count the super short focal length and $$$ Televue Nagler zoom).
The discontinued Mk3 should be quite a bit cheaper used than the current Mk4 and will give the same performance on an astro scope as the main change for the Mk4 was a bit less backfocus needed for use with spotting scopes...

Joachim

Thanks Joachim. That leads me to another question or two. With the better suggested EPs, will the standard factory supplied diagonal match them? The suggested EP are much cheaper than the better EPs of Swarovski, Leica, Kowa etc, how will the image of astroscope fare when used for bird watching? Not meant for bird watching but putting it to extra purpose near house or car. Only useful for half of each year during wintering months.
Where can I possibly find mk3 version? Haven't seen any available both new and used on the market.
Thanks again.

jring · Oct 23, 2020

Hi,

from my experience the view through an astro ED80 is comparable to a good example of ED or fluorite spotting scope. With the Baader zoom you will get 25-75x.
As with most 3x zoom EPs, the apparent field of view at the low magnification end is not very wide with 48 deg (but less terrible than other 3x zooms which often are below 40) - at the high magnification end you get a nice and wide 68 deg. It comes with 1.25" and 2" adapters, so reagrdless of what diagonal you have on your ED80, it will fit.

As for where to get a used Mk3 - that really depends on access to some astro forum in your area... or maybe some free add platform like gumtree or craigslist. Ebay is in my experience not used that often for astro stuff due to high fees.
There is also astromart, but more US centric and also quite expensive (although not as a percentage of the sales but rather with a membership fee).

A Mk4 should be readily available with any astor dealer.

Joachim

alphan · Oct 23, 2020

Thanks Joachim, where I am, in Borneo Malaysia, any EPs would be rare. Most of my stuffs comes from either US or Europe. Will try checking any possible sites worldwide.
Thanks again, have a nice weekend.
Vincent

alphan · Oct 25, 2020

Hi, having looked high and low and even getting friend's help overseas, just couldn't find any mk3 or older EP on the market. Even new ones are out of stock at many shops. I did found local dealers offering the Celestron new, delivered, for a quarter the price of mk4 before postage, customs and documentation. Based on my anticipated 15-20 sessions per year on birds identifications, would the Celestron make sense? My current viewing on a Celestron Polossl 25mm had been very satisfying except when coming to finer details on faraway birds that I need higher magnification.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Vincent

alphan · Oct 28, 2020

Finally found a mk4 from FLO in UK. After removing VAT plus postage, paid 165 Pound. Hope customs will be gentle with me. Will update.
Cheers.
Vincent

jring · Oct 28, 2020

Hi,

165 quid is a good price for a new Mk4. I hope that you're lucky with customs!

You are going to like the view.

Joachim

alphan · Nov 2, 2020

Thanks Joachim. Hope they are lenient for this pandemic economy. But usually, at that price, they charge around USD10 only or 5%.

alphan · Dec 13, 2020

Received my eyepiece, or rather, collected from mail processing centre. A month after arrival, it's still being held by Customs. They claim they are having problem with the computer system. When asked if they can release it after I paid duty, they say their officer not available at Mail Processing Centre. But after 10 minutes, they decided to release the parcel without the Tax, which would work out to be around USD10 only.
But the weather had been terrible since then. When viewing through with both my Celestron Plossl 25mm and Baader at 24mm, the Celestron does seems clearer whereas the Baader more hazy. Is this normal? The FOV is very good with the Baader though.
Comparing with a China made SVBONY SV406P with 20-60X EP, the SVBONY does look clearer but not as bright. The SVBONY as the whole set, cost just about the Baader Mk 4.
Am I missing something?

Kowa TSN-82SV or Vanguard Endeavor HD 82A (1 Viewer)

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