Spotting Scopes

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A spotting scope is a telescope with a large objective lens which produces a bright, upright image of great clarity and detail. Hence, they are very popular with nature and bird watchers. It is essential that a tripod is used with a spotting scope due to the large maginifications. Some scopes can be used both as visual instruments and as photographic instruments. With appropriate adapters, scopes from certain manufacturers, such as our Yukon range, can serve as telephoto lenses for SLR cameras.
Digiscoping is the art of attaching a digital camera to a spotting scope to create powerful telephoto pictures.
Perfect for wildlife photography, especially bird watching, digiscoping lets you use the powerful zoom of your spotting scope, coupled with the ease of use and convenience of your digital camera - enabling you to get right in to your chosen subject and capture amazing images of wildlife, without having to get to close and risk disturbing your subject matter, all at the fraction of the cost of using an SLR camera with a large telephoto lens.
For more information on digiscoping click on this text
The Praktica 15-45x60 Digiscoping Kit (B005130F) contains everything you need to enter the wonderful world of super telephoto imaging. Digiscoping is the method of attaching a digital camera to a spotting scope to take super telephoto images. This Praktica outfit not only allows the ability to take high quality telephoto still images, but can also shoot in 720HD video enabling the user to capture movies when the subject is at long range - perfect for wildlife, astronomy, sport, marine and other outdoor activities. Often associated with high end, expensive optical equipment, Praktica now brings digiscoping to a wider audience with this affordable outfit.

How the eye piece fits to the scope body gives rise to their description as either straight scopes or angled scopes (see photograph below). The straight eye piece variety are common and often easier to use because the eye piece is in line with the body of the scope and pointing in the direction that you are looking. Straight scopes are best suited to observing birds that are at or below eye level. The angled eye pieces are fitted at 45° to the body, and if the body is rotated it can become disorientating, though with practice this becomes less of a problem. Angled scopes are best suited to observing birds that are high up, for example in trees or in flight. If you are going to use a tripod, then the tripod will be lower and more stable with an angled scope (because you are looking downwards in to the eye piece) than with a straight scope.

The size of the objective lens influences the clarity of the image. The bigger the lens, the more light is gathered and the better the image, but also the heavier and bulkier the scope which are important considerations on field trips. Common objective lens diameters are: 50 mm, 60 mm, 66 mm, 77 mm, 80 mm and 85 mm.

The eye piece sets the magnification. As with binoculars, a high magnification is not necessarily the best, because high magnification decreases the field of view, which makes targeting more difficult, decreases image brightness, decreases steadiness, and heat haze can become a problem. Common magnifications are 25x to 32x.
Olivon have again produced another excellent, high quality spotting scope
with the T64 - perfectly suited for digiscoping and ready to accept Olivon
digiscope adapters at a price that will appeal to the main stream digiscoper.
Asthetically, the new T64 looks fantastic, very compact, and stylish, looking
like a scope that should have set you back a lot more than it has. It’s also
very tough with a rubber coated body, nitrogen filled and fully waterproof
- so basically it will take the worst of the British weather no problem and
still deliver the goods. The scope is nice and light weight, but still has a
quality feel, making it great for portability. Optically, for a scope that retails
at £151.58, the results are excellent, BAK4 -prism and full multicoating
plus broad band green coating result in a really sharp, punchy image with
plenty of contrast.
Olivon T84 EDO 20-60x84 Spotting Scope is a serious piece of optical equipment, designed for people who are serious about their hobby and want the best optics available. In terms of optical quality, it is comparable with any of the high-end spotting scopes from the top brands on the market - delivering outstanding colour rendition, image detail and excellent low light level performance,
Click here to view our range of spotting scopes