Advice - Nikon spotting scopes + DSLR adaptors - Bird spotting/photography

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Coxy914

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Alistair
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Not sure where best to put this but thought I'd start in here.

Firstly, I'm a Nikon man, so Nikon only discussion on this one I'm afraid!

Where we live, we get a superb variety of birds in our garden from sparrows, swallows, woodpeckers, finches, nuthatches, to Buzzards, Partridge and Pheasant and my monthly bird food spend has now passed my beer spend!

I can spend hours just watching them and taking the few odd photo's or just sitting with my pair of binoculars.
I bought a cheap spotting scope from Jessops last year but the glass is awful to be fair and have started hunting for a decent spotting scope and I came across a few nice Nikon ones.
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-nikon-fieldscope-ed82-angled-spotting-scope-body/p1002436

I then noticed these (and I will admit, I didn't realise you could get adaptors to use the spotting scopes as lenses)
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-nikon-fieldscope-digital-slr-attachment-fsa-l1/p1005528

and basically was wondering how this set up actually stands up as a decent lens alternative? My normal lens would be a Nikon AF VR 80-400mm ED f4.5-5.6D.
 
i would imagine you would seriously struggle with something which will result in shooting 1200/1500mm at f/13

first off you would need some serious light or need to be shooting at seriously high ISO's and secondly the level of camera shake in an effective 1500mm lens would be massive
 
The Nikon ed82 scope that you linked to is a superb scope with excellent image quality.

I have used a kowa tsn 824 with there equivalent photo adapter like the nikon one you linked too. Takes a bit of getting used to and you do have to bump the iso up a fair amount of the time, here is one picture from my garden using the kowa scope and 850mm attachment, making it 1360mm on my canon body


Wood Pigeon by scilly puffin, on Flickr

And another not in my garden but gives you an idea


Wryneck by scilly puffin, on Flickr

For ease of use and less weight a setup like the nikon v1 and scope is super.
 
I wouldnt bother with L1 and DSLR.

DSLR's and bridge cameras dont fare too well with digi scopes eyepieces. There are exceptions, like the G1 though, to name one. The best option is a compact with no more than about 4x zoom. Some are better than others, its just a case of reviewing. Some Nikon compacts dont work well with some eyepieces, but thats for you to search for
Fixed eyepieces are preferable to zoom eyepieces for the scope, but zooms still work very well when mated with the right gear. Bear in mind you will have a zoom on the compact.

Excellent compacts for digi scoping are Nikon P7000 / P6000 / P300 / P310

I didnt see anywhere that Twitcher says he was using a home made adapter ?

SRB Griturn can supply just about anything you need for digi scoping. If a bracket doesnt exist, they'll make one.

http://www.srb-griturn.com/digi-scoping-1-c.asp
 
I would agree that a DSLR and adapter isn't the easiest way to go, trying to get accurate manual focus isn't easy as mirror slap can cause real problems at such big focal lengths. Much easier to have an eyepiece on the scope focus using this and then 'hold' a compact up to it and allow it to AF. The compacts recommended above aregood choices (apart from the P7000 which doesn't work with many eyepeices). I use a P300 with a Swarovski scope and it works very well, the fast frame rate is very useful for birds.

That said I would recommend looking at the J1. It can be found quite cheaply at the moment and is fantastic for digiscoing - fast frame rate, good af and very usable at high ISOs. Also it is great for video which can be great for birds as sometimes you want to be able to record behaviour in a way that you can't with stills.
 
Thanks, it was in another thread. Looks good too.
 
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