[obol] digiscoping equipment

[Scott Carpenter]

Kowa also makes a scope with built in digital camera, but it is only
3.1megapixels; the street price is $1200.  The combination yields a
focal
length of 450-1350mm (35mm film equivalent) with aperture of f/2.8-f/4.
Details on the web at:

http://www.kowascope.com/frontend/proddetail.asp?pn=TD-1&co=10000331

For the record, I do not work for Kowa, nor do I own this product.

If anyone on OBOL has experience photographing birds with any of these
scope/camera setups, I'd be curious to hear how well they work.

Scott Carpenter
SW Portland

On 1/25/07, Owen Schmidt <oschmidt at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> A new all-in-one point-and-shoot was announced yesterday by Olympus, their
> model SP-550 UZ.  It has an amazing 18x zoom lens with image stabilization,
> which is the equivalent of 504-mm in terms of a 35-mm camera.  Once upon a
> time, carrying a 500-mm lens was about all one needed for bird photos.  This
> is closing in on "digiscoping" but without the "scope."  The Olympus should
> be on the market in a month or so and cost around $500.
> http://www.dpreview.com/
>
> The closest competitor in this regard is Canon, with their model PowerShot
> S3-IS.  That has a 12x zoom lens that reaches to an equivalent of 432-mm.
> It is currently available and costs less than $400.
> http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_s3is.asp
>
> Both these cameras would likely be perfectly suitable for digiscoping, as
> well, making them very flexible with or without a scope.  Both will take
> (low resolution) videos, for added flexibility.  Both use AA batteries,
> another plus in the field.
>
> In a slightly different vein, Zeiss has announced the DC4, a digital
> camera built into a 40x eyepiece.  They say you can literally shoot what you
> are seeing through the scope, while you are seeing it.  Before you rush out
> to the local Shutterbug to pick this up ......... you might want to know
> that you will need a new model Zeiss scope (around $1500) and then the
> super-duper DC4 will set you back another $2000.  This is the world's most
> expensive digiscoping solution, it looks like, but -- hey -- if you have
> your scope you have your camera built in.  Should be available in a month or
> 2, and from what I can find on the Web it takes really nice photos
> ...........
> http://www.birddigiscoping.com/2007/01/dc4-review.html
>
> oschmidt at att.net
> Thursday, January 25, 2007
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 25, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Steve Berliner wrote:
>
>
>     To Margaret who asked and anyone else who wants to "digiscope,"
> There are a number of ways to go about finding the right equipment to
> digiscope with.  I'm not going to write a tutorial on eqpt. here.  If you're
> seriously interested, then go to www.birdforum.net , do the quick free
> registration, and then go to the Forums menu and scroll down to "Andy
> Bright's Digiscoping Forum."  Within this section you will find threads on
> all the newest suitable cameras and a great deal on camera mounts.  Any
> scope can be digiscoped with!  I just helped my cousin with a mount and
> lessons on his B&L Discoverer, and to my amazement, his shots in the first
> 15 min. of waterfowl looked very nice.
>     The best scopes for birding are the best scopes for photos (this means
> best glass and all that.)  In general, when I buy a new camera, I look at
> those forums first for discussion of its results.  This has saved me from
> bad choices more than once.  A camera's specs may sound perfect for
> digiscoping, but in reality the internal optics make it problematic.
> Whenever possible take your scope to the camera store and try the cameras
> (both Circuit City and Camera World were fine with that for me.)
>      We sell a mount I designed at www.simplicitytool.com, Swarovski makes
> their own, as do Zeiss, and Nikon.  Additionally you can purchase a Kowa
> TD-1 integrated scope with camera.  I do not recommend it.  My latest camera
> the Fuji F30 is good, but so are many others.  My galleries at:
> http://home.earthlink.net/~s.berliner/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Es.berliner/> show
> photos (the latest, Allen's Hummingbird from so.cal.)  Greg Gillson's site
> at: www.thebirdguide.com has a nice digiscoping and links section as
> well.  Hopes this helps all readers interested.
>
>
> Steve Berliner
> forcreeks at earthlink.net
>
>
>
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