Lens vs spotting scope (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Elphick]

Hi all,
Wasn’t sure which forum was best to put this question in so I put it here.

I am currently looking at a lens or spotting scope to primarily enhance my ability to ID birds past the zoom of my binoculars. I would also preferably like the product to be mobile as I do a fair amount of walking/hiking.

Would I be better off getting a lens to serve these purposes and cropping in on pictures to ID birds or would a spotting scope do a better job? My highest budget is also around £2000 if that helps answer the question.

Sorry for the long winded question, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions!

 

[Mono]

Unless you are big into photography I would always go for the scope option. A scope will be lighter and cheaper than a camera lens of the same reach. Presumably you have the camera to go with the lens?

If you want light and mobile an Opticron MM4 50 or 60 with eyepiece and a carbon tripod will give you plenty of change from £2k.

 

[Aaron Elphick]

Unless you are big into photography I would always go for the scope option. A scope will be lighter and cheaper than a camera lens of the same reach. Presumably you have the camera to go with the lens?

If you want light and mobile an Opticron MM4 50 or 60 with eyepiece and a carbon tripod will give you plenty of change from £2k.

Thanks for the reply, I was originally looking at some of the more expensive scope options and came to the conclusion it was unnecessary to spend that money. I do already have a camera for the lens but this sounds like a better alternative.

 

[Mike Crawley]

I assume that you have a mobile phone.
If so, Newpro can supply you with a kit/adapter to enable you to get good photos from your phone and ‘scope
Check their website

Phoneskope from Newpro UK Ltd, UK Distributors of Vortex Optics, Alpine Innovations & ROR Lens Cleaner.

Welcome to Phoneskope. We have Phoneskope cases to fit many of today's modern smartphones and dedicated eyepiece adapters to fit them to numerous Spotting scopes, binoculars and other optical equipment so you can take high magnification images and videos of your subject or simply allow others to...

www.newprouk.co.uk

 

[Andy Adcock]

Unless you are big into photography I would always go for the scope option. A scope will be lighter and cheaper than a camera lens of the same reach. Presumably you have the camera to go with the lens?

If you want light and mobile an Opticron MM4 50 or 60 with eyepiece and a carbon tripod will give you plenty of change from £2k.

The advantage of a lens is that when the bird is gone, you'll still have an image to srcutinise which, unless you have an idetic memory, will not be an option with a scope.

 

[Paul Chapman]

The majority of people that I know do not carry a telescope when recreationally birding away from specific circumstances such as seawatching, checking a gravel pit or reservoir, etc. There is a distinct change to carrying a camera often a high magnification bridge camera. Indeed, I occasionally have to make a point of encouraging myself to take a telescope on my usual 3 mile walk notwithstanding the fact that there are likely to be situations where it would be useful.

You will get more use out of a camera. It will definitely be easier to carry. I do not understand the comments about a scope being lighter and cheaper.

All the best

Paul

 

[Mono]

The OP mentions getting a new lens for their camera. Given that a 50mm scope is easily usable up to 30x, a 35mm equivalent would be 1500mm. So allowing for crop factor you're talking a 600mm lens with 2x convertor. A ball park figure would be £1500 and 2.5kg + the mass of the camera. A 50mm MM4 with an SDL eyepiece is £700 and 900g. Plus you would need a much more substantial tripod for the camera+lens combo. Bridge cameras are great for taking photos with the reach of binoculars but they don't have the the reach of even a 50mm scoope.

 

[Andy Adcock]

The OP mentions getting a new lens for their camera. Given that a 50mm scope is easily usable up to 30x, a 35mm equivalent would be 1500mm. So allowing for crop factor you're talking a 600mm lens with 2x convertor. A ball park figure would be £1500 and 2.5kg + the mass of the camera. A 50mm MM4 with an SDL eyepiece is £700 and 900g. Plus you would need a much more substantial tripod for the camera+lens combo. Bridge cameras are great for taking photos with the reach of binoculars but they don't have the the reach of even a 50mm scoope.

I carry and hand hold c4.5kgs of camera and lens, no tripod.

 

[Paul Chapman]

The OP mentions getting a new lens for their camera. Given that a 50mm scope is easily usable up to 30x, a 35mm equivalent would be 1500mm. So allowing for crop factor you're talking a 600mm lens with 2x convertor. A ball park figure would be £1500 and 2.5kg + the mass of the camera. A 50mm MM4 with an SDL eyepiece is £700 and 900g. Plus you would need a much more substantial tripod for the camera+lens combo. Bridge cameras are great for taking photos with the reach of binoculars but they don't have the the reach of even a 50mm scoope.

No idea about those numbers to be honest. I am talking about practical experience in the field.

This misses the following factors for me:-
(1) the ability to expand on a camera & crop on a computer afterwards;
(2) the permanent record provided; &
(3) the practical issues of carrying a scope - I have switched between my larger scope & my smaller travelling set up recently for day to day - & almost everyone I know has the same practical issues on lengthy walks & travel.

A camera fits happily into a rucksack if not around your neck. I ran for the Eleonora's on the second morning (Friday). I stood next to two or three high powered scopes. Because I was running, I left my scope in the car. I took the following pics. Those with scopes gathered around my camera. News was put out of continuing presence.

I simply do not understand a potential argument to the contrary.

If you are static and close to a car viewing distant birds, a telescope is a must. If you are walking a distance to put yourself in that situation, a telescope is a must but not accessible spontaneously because of the way that you have stored it for transportation to that point. Otherwise, a camera wins.

Of course, you are better off with both. I try to do that.

All the best

Paul

 

[opisska]

The OP mentions getting a new lens for their camera. Given that a 50mm scope is easily usable up to 30x, a 35mm equivalent would be 1500mm. So allowing for crop factor you're talking a 600mm lens with 2x convertor. A ball park figure would be £1500 and 2.5kg + the mass of the camera. A 50mm MM4 with an SDL eyepiece is £700 and 900g. Plus you would need a much more substantial tripod for the camera+lens combo. Bridge cameras are great for taking photos with the reach of binoculars but they don't have the the reach of even a 50mm scoope.

These numbers are not representative. Yes, 1500 mm is technically equivalent to 30x, I see that logic, but it simply ignores the fact that you can zoom into a digital image. Crop factor is entire irrelevant while talking about a bird that covers 1/100th of the FoV. Currently, the density (pixel size) of most camera chips is so high (small) that the resolution of images is limited by the resolution of the lens and atmospheric blurring, most good lenses (think Canon L) are actually close to diffraction limited, while that's somewhat true only for the top spotter scopes (can't physically do that with just a dublet on f/5, which many of the cheaper ones are, no matter how much LD glass is there). So in pure optical theory, a lens of a given diameter on a camera should give you roughly similar ID details as a spotter of such diameter.

My personal experience is that this is not really true, mainly because of heat haze (seeing, atmospheric blur ...) - human eye is so incredible at fighting it, so even though it's difficult to take a sharp picture, our brain is able to pierce together the constantly changing image into something reasonable. Maybe taking a video instead of an image with the camera (and then applying procedures akin to those used in planetary imaging) would help - but then you'd need a tripod for that, negating the main practicality of using a camera instead of a spotter. I personally still consider my camera indispensable in getting sure IDs, because I simply trust the objective recording much more than the subjective impression though my eyes, but for very distant birds, the spotter wins. That having said, I carry the camera with me always, because it's easy - my 250D+400/5.6L combo weights just 1800 grams, easy to carry over my shoulder for an entire day - and take out the spotter only in specific situations, usually when not far from a car, or when a large amount of searching in distance is expected, as the small FoV of the camera viewfinder really sucks at that (so I for example carried it on my back to the Snowcock site in Demirkazik).