Help me get setup please! (1 Viewer)

Hello
I've been videoing animals thru my Leupold spotter for years.
I saw the deal Pentax had with the rebate on thier PF-80ED so I bought one this week. A better view desired was a big reason I went with the pentax. Now that I've read some of these forums I don't know if I did the right thing or not! I bought the scope new for $650 US after the rebate and it came with a 20-60 zoom lens.
And tonight I just bought a CP 990 with two 128mb cards and extras for $250 US used off ebay, I'm crossing my fingers it's in as good of shape as the guy says it is!
So now I have my scope and my camera.
Now my questions are "what next"!
I think I need a fixed power eyepiece correct?
What fixed power eye piece should I get? Most of my viewing is of big game such as whitetail deer at 250-1000 yds away.
I like a wide field of view and most of my viewing is in the evening in lower light situations.
I think I'd like to stay in the fixed 30x to 40x range
From what i've read the fixed powers are just plain better for light gathering, clearer view, and wider field of view.
Do any of you use the Pentax xl or xw eyepieces and if so is there much difference between the two?
And what type of adapter will work best for my setup
I see some mention of the Scopetronix, what type should I order this week?
Also do any of you have the Nikon MC-EUI remote? Does it work well?
I see them on ebay new for $89
And what about batteries I have a rayovac 1 hr charger that does NIMH and NiCd AA batteries will this be ok?
Who makes the best batteries for the money?
I know I'm missing all kinds of stuff and I'll just keep reading the old posts to pick up on as much stuff as I can.
Also with this CP 990 will it work in an indoor gym to take photos of my son playing basketball?
I just have a little Kodak DX3600 right now and everything is dark when I try to shoot indoors at any longer distances. It works great thou for a little point and shoot camera for the family.

Well I can't wait to see your recommendations, and again it's nice to meet you all.
Chad

Hi Chad and a very warm welcome to birdforum from all the staff here. We hope you enjoy the site.

Form a purely digiscoping point of view, the differences between fixed and modern variable eyepieces are not worth consideration, the wider field of view and apparent brightness of a fixed isn't particularly relevant when you have your camera up against the eyepiece and zoomed in on the subject.

You will find many of the very best digiscopers using 20-60x eyepieces (look for Laurence Poh's shots in the BF gallery) because of their flexibilty....zoom back to 20x and you'll get plenty of light for faster shutter-speeds, zoom up to 30x when there's plenty of natural light around.
Your biggest problem is likely to be finding an adapter to connect your camera to the huge Pentax zoom. Can't think of any off-hand.
Batteries....get nimh 2000mah+, I think someone does a 2500mah ones now.
Regards,
Andy

Thanks Andy
I'm sure I'll learn a ton of things just reading all these posts!
Are there adapters for the fixed power eyepieces for my Pentax?
Aren't some adapters an eyepiece/adapter all in one?
How about that factory pentax remote? Does anyone here use one, if so do you like it?

Thanks a bunch!
Merry Christmas to you all
Chad

I own the Pentax PF80-ED scope and am learning to digiscope using it with a Coolpix 995. I think it is fair to say that using the Pentax zoom lens with the Coolpix is not advisable; unless you jerry-rig your own connection system, there is no easy way that these two optical units are going to work together.

Everyone I know who is using the PF80-ED for digiscoping is using a fixed eyepiece. Most commonly, the William Optics 28mm. eyepiece is used. This eyepiece attaches directly to the front threads of the Coolpix lens and inserts into the body of the Pentax scope. The resulting magnification is quite manageable, but the one drawback is that when you have the Coolpix set a low zoom there is vignetting in the resulting photos. For me this is seldom a big problem, as I end up cropping the edges out of nearly all of my photos anyway.

The other alternative people have turned to is the special made-for-the-Pentax-scope 14mm. and 18mm. eyepieces from Scopetronix. I think these optically are a good match and I'm told there is virtually no vignetting. The problem is that the magnification is very high compared with the William Optics eyepiece, and this renders the photo-taking process that much more difficult.

I also do use the Nikon MC-EU1 remote, and I am "lukewarm" about it, to put it nicely. When the unit is operating the way it's supposed to it's quite useful. However, what I don't like about it is that when you turn on the camera with the remote attached, it seems to take forever to "get going." People report that if you take a lot of pictures in rapid succession sometimes it locks up, necessitating a restart. This has something to do with its serial interface (?) I am told. But like I said, it usually works, and I have learned to live with it. There are third party remote attachments that are more expensive, and I don't know if these avoid the pitfalls to which the Nikon unit is subject.

I can't answer your battery questions. Your Coolpix should be able to take photos of your son playing basketball if the gym is well lit (you can go up to 800 ISO, I think with that camera) but the problem will be that with these little digital cameras there is always a delay between the time you push the shutter button and the time the photo is taken. For action shots (including wildlife shots) this can be very frustrating.

Doug Greenberg said:

The other alternative people have turned to is the special made-for-the-Pentax-scope 14mm. and 18mm. eyepieces from Scopetronix. I think these optically are a good match and I'm told there is virtually no vignetting. The problem is that the magnification is very high compared with the William Optics eyepiece, and this renders the photo-taking process that much more difficult.

Click to expand...

The advantage of the 18mm Scopetronix eyepiece (or similar eyepieces with a wide AFOV) is missed if you don't consider that their ability to have no vignetting at the lower zoom ranges results in a relatively low overall digiscoping magnification when use at those low zoom settings. The Pentax with the 18mm has a 35mm equivalent range of 1100mm to 4200mm.

I can't speak for the quality of the 18mm Scopetronix, but if it yields the vignette free range claimed, then its digiscoping power is very flexible and it can be used to give relatively low digiscoping magnifications.

So, when Andy said,

Andy Bright said:

Form a purely digiscoping point of view, the differences between fixed and modern variable eyepieces are not worth consideration, the wider field of view and apparent brightness of a fixed isn't particularly relevant when you have your camera up against the eyepiece and zoomed in on the subject.

Click to expand...

I have to agree, but with a caveat. If you don't want to be "zoomed in" on the subject and want lower overall magnification, then an eyepiece with a wide field of view can certainly be relevant. For instance, a 20-60x zoom that has a narrow FOV that keeps a CP990 at 15mm in order to give an unvignetted view has a lowest magnification of about 1440mm equivalent. But the wide view of an 18mm Scopetronix eyepiece could drop that to around 1065mm equivalence.

With a CP990, this eyepiece should give a 35mm equivalent range of 1065mm to 3200mm which is pretty close to ideal for a CP990. You would lose the super magnifications, but then such reach seldom yields good images anyway.

You also lose the zoom feature when not digiscoping - but gain a wide field at about 28x that no zoom eyepiece that I've hear of can match.

A lot of the options are neither right or wrong, but come down questions of performance tradeoffs, styles of digiscoping, and personal preferences.

As for the gym, it depends on the lighting and what quality you expect. I use my CP5000 all the time for table tennis pictures and have taken decent volleyball pictures as well.
http://www.jayandwanda.com/tt/gia_v_chetan.jpg
http://www.jayandwanda.com/tt/DSCN1962.jpg
http://www.jayandwanda.com/tt/DSCN1981.jpg
I set everythng to manual and ISO 800. The 990 only goes to ISO 400, but I'm not sure that the one stop difference is that big of a deal. Use a low zoom to get the largest lens aperture. Give it a try. You may be surprised. Just be prepared for rather grainy images. Email me off-list and I'll give you some tips on post processing that can reduce the heavy grain a bit.

Thank you all very much, a bunch of great information to get me started!
I did order a williams dcl-28 the other day and am going to give that a try first. My next purchase will be one of the fixed Pentax eyepieces like the xl 21.
Thanks again I can't wait to start getting some photos of whitetail deer in my area!

Chad

Hey guys
Well I've gotten my camera and adapter and it all seems to work well so far. I ordered some AA nimh 2000 rechargeables also. I was wondering does anyone make an adapter to run my camera off of my vehicle?
From my cigarette outlet to my 990 camera.
I've seen the acdc AA chargers, but does anyone make what I'm looking for.
Also is there a link where I can find the best manual settings for my 990 while digiscoping?
And one last question where should I put the focus nob setting on my spotting scope, or doesn't that matter.
It looks like the camera does the focusing in auto pretty well without me messing with the focus on the scope.
Thanks
Chad