Kowa 821scope with 20x60 (1 Viewer)

[wizard]

i have the chance of a almost new Kowa 821scope with 20x60 & 32 w/a. dont know how this scope performs & never used one before so any help would be most welcome. i use bins because i am always on the move. would the above scope be better for taking a photo that a 600mm miror lens ?. thats if i can attach my camera of course.

help please

THANKS GUYS/GALS

 

[IanF]

Hi Wizard,

I have the Kowa 823 which I think is an excellent scope and ideal for digiscoping.

The 821 will be an ideal scope for viewing, but I think it has standard glass in it rather than the higher quality fluorite which IMO you need for photographic use. I used to have a 611 fitted with standard glass and I could never ger a decent shot from it, though I know some others have. I used to find colour fringing not noticeable with the naked eye, to be very pronounced in photos, likewise 'muddiness' of colours in images, though I used to put that down to the smaller 60mm objective letting in insufficient light.

I used to own a 500 mm mirror lens which had a fixed aperture of F11. For nature shots, you used to need a really bright day in order to get a fast enough shutter speed for nature shots, which wasn't that often in our dull lighting. Another point with Mirror lenses which some people find unacceptable is that out of focus highlight areas tend to get doughnutted, with a halo effect around them. Due to the very high power of the lens any tiny imperfections are greatly magnified. Without mentioning brands, I think it's fair to say that the cheaper end of the market lenses should be avoided. I believe a fixed lens of the same length will always out perform a mirror lens for nature photography. As regards digiscoping, my results are far better with the scope than I ever achieved with my mirror lens, but it may depend on the quality of the lens. To be fair, my experiences of mirror lenses date from 20+ years ago so they may be a lot better nowadays.

 

[Leif]

IanF: Mirror lens design hasn't changed in the last 20 years. If you go to www.photo.net you will see that most people say to avoid them.

 

[ivewalmer]

Hi,

I have just (a month with little time to practice) started using my Kowa 821 with 32WA eyepiece with a Coolpix 4500 for digiscoping. I'm sure some reasonable results can be had (I'll overcome my embarassment and post a couple of my lease bad efforts - hope this is allowed?!) although I am pretty sure that the non-HD glass does cause quite a bit of fringeing on the images. The main challenge is getting the focus right which I am still working on!

For info using the 32x lens I can eliminate vignetting at just past 2x zoom when handholding it and at c3x using an eagle eye adaptor (for complicated reasons I am not using the ideal eagle eye adaptor at present ). Causes a bit of a problem as the cmbined magnification is a bit too high but might be better with your 20-60 zoom. I also agree with the previous poster about the murkiness of the images although this can be tweaked on the PC to some effect.

 

[IanF]

Hi Ivewalmer,

Please do post some of the photos you have taken, either in the gallery or in this forum. If you hit the green 'post reply' button then you can upload a photo, one in every thread using 'browse' button as long as they are under 100kb and preferably 640x480 max.

 

[ivewalmer]

You won't be so keen once yo've seen them!!!!!!!!! I will do as soon as I get a chance to resize a couple.

Thanks for the encouragement - you'll regret it!

 

[ivewalmer]

If I have done this right there should be a pic of an SEO, Sandwich Bay, March, Kowa 821, 32WA + CP4500

 

[ivewalmer]

Second and last one. Starling, garden, April, same combi as above.
Still learning - week off work next week - fingers crossed for some sun and a very, very slow moving Kent rarity!

 

[IanF]

Actually, both are very good shots. Your SEO looks a little soft focus, but that is more likely down to technique of taking rather than the camera and scope combo. Both show an element of purple chromatic aberration, but that can be removed in Photoshop if you have it. There is a halo yellow halo effect around the parts against the sky which is the same as I used to get with the 611. I suspect that may be due to using standard glass, but the shots are still great. With the 611 that I was using, colour fringing was far worse than that. I dare say if you try to steer clear of taking shots with the sky as a background then that may very well eliminate the problem.

 

[ivewalmer]

Cheers Ian,

Yeah I'm pretty sure that the fingeing is down to the scope as I have taken a couple of test shots through my Swarovski 8x42ELs and with that glass there is no fingeing. I am trying to gradually master Photoshop at present! You are right about the soft focus on the SEO - I have sharpened it an awful lot in PS6 to get it this clear but it doesn't look any where near so acceptable at full resoloution.

Ivan

 

[IanF]

A tip for Photoshop to remove CA - Go to Image -> Adjust ->Hue/Saturation. In the Edit drop down menu select magentas. Place the dropper over the purple CA and left click. Then just move the saturation slider to the left. It's simlpe to use and gives very good results. You can also repeat the procedure with other colours.
It's about the only PS technique that I know