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Archive 2010 · Do you digiscope?

nugeny
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p.1 #1 · Do you digiscope?

I am intrigued by this gears. Just wondering what kind of IQ one can get with this combination : spotting scope + DSLR. If you do, can you post some sample pics?

Mar 03, 2010 at 06:15 PM

Tomagado
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p.1 #2 · Do you digiscope?

It's equipment or gear. Gears just makes you look stupid, as much as this post makes me look like an a-hole.

P.S. No I don't use a digiscope, just interested in what it was so I checked the thread

Cheers,
Thomas

Mar 03, 2010 at 06:25 PM

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p.1 #3 · Do you digiscope?

Nah, you're not an a-hole, and he's not stupid. You were helpful and he was identifying with a subculture on a linguistic level - albeit annoying.

Here's my latest experience with digi-scoping: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/854343

This is straight-up through an adaptor lens, through a window, and using the DiMAGE A2 (a bridge Camera from 2004). Also all these images are the RAW unprocessed kind too.

Using the scope I could tell that with a lensless adaptor on a nice DSLR body with good dynamic exposure range and tonality, the images would be stunning. This was an Apochromatic scope and wow - very impressive!

This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Mar 03, 2010 at 06:55 PM

nugeny
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p.1 #4 · Do you digiscope?

Gents,
In case you forget, you are in Gears forum.

That scope looks impressive. It would be nice if you can post some pics.
Bob

Mar 03, 2010 at 09:43 PM

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p.1 #5 · Do you digiscope?

gears as a synonym for equipment is bad English. gear is already plural.

Herb...

nugeny wrote:
In case you forget, you are in Gears forum.

Mar 03, 2010 at 10:01 PM

jcolwell
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p.1 #6 · Do you digiscope?

Tomagado wrote:
It's equipment or gear. Gears just makes you look stupid...

Apparently, you haven't being paying attention to Peter (PetKal) on the Canon forum. His intentional use of 'gears' and similar 'mal mots' used to irritate me to no end. I pointed this out and he kindly responded by using gear(s), and similar even 'worser' expressions. Now I just smile and move on. After all, language evolves.

Mar 03, 2010 at 10:10 PM

nugeny
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p.1 #7 · Do you digiscope?

I didn't intend to discuss the English language. I am not good at it, just like many of you have no idea of other languages that I know so well.

But since we are here, there is gear and there are gears. Please check you dictionary.

Now let's go back to the topic, would we?

Mar 03, 2010 at 10:27 PM

PetKal
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p.1 #8 · Do you digiscope?

jcolwell wrote:
Tomagado wrote:
It's equipment or gear. Gears just makes you look stupid...

Apparently, you haven't being paying attention to Peter (PetKal) on the Canon forum. His intentional use of 'gears' and similar 'mal mots' used to irritate me to no end. I pointed this out and he kindly responded by using gear(s), and similar even 'worser' expressions. Now I just smile and move on. After all, language evolves.

Jim, I am happy to hear you have accepted some Gear Forum colloquialisms with a smile.

"Gears" is one of them. Perhaps a charming token of muliticultural acceptance ? Not all world languages have "pluralia tantum", "mass nouns", sheep, beer and similar grammatical phenomena of enumeration dyslexia. Who knows, the usage of "gears" might also be taken to reflect precise thinking unburdened by the dogmatic.
In my humble view effective (and casual) communications seldom hinge on high school grammar.

I reckon about 80% of all university graduates and native English speakers in North America can't master the proper use of "ethic" vs. "ethics", "phenomena" vs. "phenomenon", etc. I don't lose any sleep over that one either.

Mar 03, 2010 at 11:59 PM

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p.1 #9 · Do you digiscope?

PetKal wrote:
...Who knows, the usage of "gears" might also be taken to reflect precise thinking unburdened by the dogmatic.

I don't mean to be a pedant, but I'm sure that I can never be a "dogmatic".

Mar 04, 2010 at 12:25 AM

PetKal
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p.1 #10 · Do you digiscope?

jcolwell wrote:
PetKal wrote:
...Who knows, the usage of "gears" might also be taken to reflect precise thinking unburdened by the dogmatic.

I don't mean to be a pedant, but I'm sure that I can never be a "dogmatic".

Oh, I am pretty sure of that, Jim.

However, by "the dogmatic" I meant "the body of grammar and standard usage rules"......that sort of thing.

Mar 04, 2010 at 12:45 AM

EB-1
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p.1 #11 · Do you digiscope?

PetKal wrote:
"Gears" is one of them. Perhaps a charming token of muliticultural acceptance ?
It is annoying, not charming.

I reckon about 80% of all university graduates and native English speakers in North America can't master the proper use of "ethic" vs. "ethics", "phenomena" vs. "phenomenon", etc. I don't lose any sleep over that one either.

What about the barbarians that use fail when the correct word is failure? Horrible grammar!

EBH

Mar 04, 2010 at 12:50 AM

PetKal
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p.1 #12 · Do you digiscope?

EB-1 wrote:

What about the barbarians that use fail when the correct word is failure? Horrible grammar!

EBH

Barbarians indeed.

Mar 04, 2010 at 12:56 AM

Trout Guy
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p.1 #13 · Do you digiscope?

As was pictorially pointed out a few weeks ago:

These are gears

TG

Mar 04, 2010 at 01:07 AM

PetKal
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p.1 #14 · Do you digiscope?

So are these. Two of them gears, to be exact.

Edited on Mar 04, 2010 at 01:48 PM · View previous versions

Mar 04, 2010 at 01:22 AM

Trout Guy
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p.1 #15 · Do you digiscope?

Real men don't leave filters on their gears

TG

Mar 04, 2010 at 01:25 AM

PetKal
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p.1 #16 · Do you digiscope?

Trout Guy wrote:
Real men don't leave filters on their gears

TG

Got me there.

Mar 04, 2010 at 01:27 AM

nugeny
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p.1 #17 · Do you digiscope?

Hey you guys,
Please don't hijack my thread. If you don't have any thing about my question, please stay out! I would really appreciate it.
Bob

Mar 04, 2010 at 02:02 AM

martines34
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p.1 #18 · Do you digiscope?

Here I thought that this would be an interesting discussion and we get a couple of pendants in a pissing contest.

I personally would appreciate any illumination on digiscoping.

Mar 04, 2010 at 02:11 AM

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p.1 #19 · Do you digiscope?

nugeny wrote:
Gents,
In case you forget, you are in Gears forum.

That scope looks impressive. It would be nice if you can post some pics.
Bob

Well, I did already at that link I supplied but I guess it wouldn't hurt to put them here as well.

The first two examples are just what my camera is capable of on it's own with it's 28 ~ 200 fixed lens.

Zoomed (almost) all the way out:
This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

30mm, 1/200 f/6.3, ISO 100, No spotting scope, 35% full width scale, No PP.

Zoomed all the way in:
This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

200mm, 1/200 f/6.3, ISO 100, No spotting scope, 35% full width scale, No PP.

Then here's what it looks like through the spotting scope with my lens zoomed to 60mm:
This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

60mm, 1/200 f/5.6, ISO 100, spotting scope used, 35% full width scale, No PP.

With my camera zoomed to almost 200mm the center crops look like below. At this point I was trying to expose for the bird's feathers and body so I opened up the aperture and lowered the shutter speed. Had I a decent camera body I would have have just increased the ISO sensitivity and not messed up the detail. Keep in mind here that these were taken at sunset and the Sun was already down behind the horizon Also the light was behind (and to the left) of the bird so that his dark side was facing the camera/scope.
This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

200mm, 1/100 f/3.5, ISO 64, spotting scope used, 50% partial width (center crop) scale, No PP.

Here's a 100% crop of the RAW from one of the above images:
This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

200mm, 1/100 f/3.5, ISO 64, spotting scope used, 100% partial width (center crop) scale, No PP.

Finally, here's a pretty good quality comparison (as opposed to zoom comparisons) between what my camera typically gets and what I got with it shooting straight up through the scope. These were taken at very close to the same time so the difference in sunlight from the rapidly setting sun isn't impacting the exposures as much.

1/200s f/6.3 ISO100 200mm (No spotting scope, no PP)
This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

1/100s f/3.5 ISO64 200mm (With spotting scope, no PP)

If I use photoshop's image zoom to match the mag levels it looks like this scope is about x12 or x13 depending on how the blur/interpolation work. This means that with this scope I was affectively shooting a 2,600mm lens, with my shaky hands on the scope and camera, in low light, at 1/100s, wide open, with a 2/3rds sensor P&S camera.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

This is the Kowa TSN-884 Fluorite Crystal Spotting Scope as you may have noticed from my first post. Reviews can be read here:

http://www.freeportwildbirdsupply.com/pdf/Birding-09-2_Tools.pdf

http://www.optics4birding.com/kowa-tsn-883-spotting-scope-review.aspx

http://www.livingbird.org/netcommunity/bbimages/lb/pdf/ScopeChart2008.pdf

http://www.eagleoptics.com/spotting-scopes/kowa/kowa-tsn-884-straight-88mm-prominar-spotting-scope

The price seems to hover around $2,200 in USD or $1,800 when purchased in Japan.

Mar 04, 2010 at 04:26 AM

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p.1 #20 · Do you digiscope?

BTW, if you're wondering if this is a proper substitute for something like the 800mm and 1,000mm dedicated lenses costing about the same or a little more, yes I believe it is. With this scope you can both mount it on your camera directly like a lens or you can attache it via the filter threads (55mm shown in image) to an APO zoom similar to what I did here. Either way the quality will be extremely close to or perhaps even better than a dedicated 800mm ~ 1,200mm lens. Especially if you're using a x1.5 ~ x2 doubler in order to get that length out of a camera lens!

Mar 04, 2010 at 09:04 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #21 · Do you digiscope?

PetKal wrote:
So are these. Two of them gears, to be exact.

Well techinacally yes if rotated 1 of those 50's and the focus rings were touching the other 50 would turn the other way. So yes they could be described as GEARS. Bloody expensive ones at that

Mar 04, 2010 at 09:25 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #22 · Do you digiscope?

Also Peter if you had the boxes for them could that be called a Gear Box?

Mar 04, 2010 at 09:26 AM

FerBatista
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p.1 #23 · Do you digiscope?

I use a digiscoping system too. A bit different than usual though, instead of a spotting scope I use an astro scope.

Here's a photo:

This image is copyrighted by the owner

This image is copyrighted by the owner

And some samples, nearly everything on this link was done with it:
http://fernandobatista.smugmug.com/Galeria/Aves-Birds/3540865_6D86H#211104996_SETUP

The quality of this scope is incredibly good, better than my 300mm F4 or any tele around the same price. Of course it's MF though

Mar 05, 2010 at 09:30 AM

nugeny
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p.1 #24 · Do you digiscope?

FerBatista wrote:
I use a digiscoping system too. A bit different than usual though, instead of a spotting scope I use an astro scope.

The quality of this scope is incredibly good, better than my 300mm F4 or any tele around the same price. Of course it's MF though

Very impressive. What is the name/size of the scope? Can you post it with the mounted camera? thanks
BTW how do you focus? I guess manually! isn't it difficult?

Mar 05, 2010 at 03:27 PM

FerBatista
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p.1 #25 · Do you digiscope?

The scope is a Skywatcher ED80. But I’ve made several mods on it since I start using it 6 years ago, so from an aesthetically point of view there’s very little between my scope and the original ED80. The only two things still original are the main tube and optics, apart from that I changed everything, made a new retractable dew shield, and an integrated mounting ring, changed the focuser for a William optics (rotary type and dual speed), and also the adapter witch I made from a lens to keep the CPU and mount (this way I insure metering with any Nikon body). Of course none of these mods are really necessary, but I love tuning things to my taste.

I can’t show you a photo with the camera mounted because I only have one body at the moment

Focus is manual yes, but it’s very easy. First the focusing action itself is really good, very smooth and accurate and the optics are very sharp, images really pop into focus in the viewfinder, I have little problems doing even in flight shots with this setup.

Mar 05, 2010 at 04:08 PM


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