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just starting out (1 Viewer)

not shure if Im putting this in right place, but I just got hold of a Nikon cool pix 4500 with adaptors (the type that thread on the lense), am wanting to have a go at digiscoping, we are on a tight budget so can any one recomend a good value for money scope to get us started please(cheep being the opperative word)
 
well we got about £250 tops for a scope, but thanks for replying so fast any advice would be helpful ,as we also have a dslr sony a100 so might we be better off getting a real good lense for that? whitch makes should we avoid in your experience
 
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I've got really good results from cheap scopes I've picked up on ebay and I'm talking £50 and under. On all of them though I've had to remove the original eyepiece and replace it with a digiscoping friendly one. It usually means doing some modifications to the scope so it all depends on how handy you are. I use a Baader Hyperion 17mm eyepiece. Generally the limiting factor on most budget scopes is the quality of the eyepiece and if you can find a way to replace it then it can save you a lot of money and bring you results that can beat the big boys.

As an example, here's a photo taken with an 80mm Inpro Optigra fitted with my Baader Hyperion eyepiece. Scope cost me £50 and eyepiece cost £80.

Have a look on page 8 of my gallery as all the photos on that page were taken with the Inpro Optigra scope. Some with a Fuji F31fd camera and some with an Olympus C5050 camera.

On page 9 of my gallery you can see some photos taken with an even cheaper Optima 60mm scope. It's a quality scope but about 25 years old. Got it for about £25 on ebay. Once I changed the eyepiece it was really nice.

Paul.
 

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I had a quick look through all the spotting scopes currently available on ebay. Didn't see much that I would take a punt on myself although there was some mid price stuff that looked ok. There's loads of cheap ones on there like Nipon etc but I've never tried any of them. I generally look for at least a recognized make or if it's an old model, say 20-30 years old then they are usually quite good as the market wasn't flooded with cheap makes back then. Try and get something with an 80mm objective, bak4 prisms and lastly only get something you don't mind hacking apart to replace the eyepiece.

Otherwise look for something around £250 which was your top limit. Even at that price the eyepiece will likely always be the limiting factor as far as digiscoping is concerned. The front objective is just a cemented achromat or an air spaced doublet so in my experience there isn't much that can go wrong there, mainly just the quality of the multicoatings. Most of the glass is in the eyepiece and that's where things degrade because in the cheap scopes that's where savings/short cuts are to be made by the manufacturer.

Paul.
 
well I taken a chance on a brand new scope and trypod camlink is the make and at £69 very chuffed, the view through it is very good, it is uk supplyed so any problems straight back to them, they have put in writing we will replace any faulty scope with in 12 months of purches, any thing which needs repair after that date they will support.
will let you no how we get on with it good or bad.
 
well I taken a chance on a brand new scope and trypod camlink is the make and at £69 very chuffed, the view through it is very good, it is uk supplyed so any problems straight back to them, they have put in writing we will replace any faulty scope with in 12 months of purches, any thing which needs repair after that date they will support.
will let you no how we get on with it good or bad.


Have you bought the Camlink 15-45x50 Zoom Spotting Scope ?


alison
 
used it to day for spotting, got to get an adaptor or make somthing up that will do the job, but for spotting vary impressive, dosnt loose quaility at edge of view, was at titchwell today, had a play with camera but its not going to get results by me holding the camera to the lense, (using cannon 400d dslr), the only draw back I can see is the eyepice is a bit small and not removable, but its a good start, might have to get a point and shoot like nikon 4600
 
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