Telescopes for wildlife watching

While at Slimbridge the other day we popped into the on site optics shop to look at telescopes. The chap in there was very helpful and set up an Opticron scope (can't remember the model but fairly small and light) with a 60* zoom eyepiece and pointed it at a peregrine perched in one of its favourite spots about half a mile away! The clarity was amazing and we were sorely tempted though the price tag was £400+.

Since then I've done a bit of online window shopping and I see that Jessops have a 20-60 x 80 Spotting Scope for £60. Now I'm sure that the Opticron will have better lenses, etc but as a relative novice will I notice the difference? Anyone got any experience of using lightweight spotting scopes?

We want something that is easy enough to put in a rucksack for use on a walk in the country rather than something that has to be wheeled around in a trolley like some of the ones you see people using at Slimbridge.

 

Dunno (but would be interested in what you find, as I wouldn't mind having a half-decent spotting scope, currently only have Binoculars)

However, I do have an astronomy telescope, and I have one posh Nagler eyepiece lens (made by TeleVue Optics). It has incredible clarity, and an unbelievable field of view of 82°.
Until it came out people has assumed that such a field of view was not possible (i.e. within the laws of physics) as previously the run-of-the-mill eyepieces were Plössls with a f.o.v. of only 50°

So assuming that that translates to spotting scopes I can believe that the lens can make a big difference (on an astronomy telescope you can change the eyepiece, so you can fit a Nagler to an ordinary telescope, which is a step up from Humdrum to also having to buy a telescope to compete with Jodrell Bank.)

Other thought that occurs to me is the "mount"/tripod. For astronomy a really sturdy mount is imperative, so that the image doesn't "shake". They typically cost the same as the telescope itself (but you can work around that by having, for example, a Dobsonian mount. That wouldn't work for a spotter scope though)

 

Link to some background about "what's so good about Naglers"

http://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=21&Tab=_back#.UtajgtJ_vAl

What's not so good? 31mm Nagler is £453.95 whereas a 32mm Plössl is £110.95 (I've picked one also made by TeleVue, so a similarly high quality brand, whereas a cheap Brand-X 32mm Plössl is £26.99 - and there ain't no cheap Naglers, the wide f.o.v. just doesn't exist in cheap optics)

 

I have had dealings with the company Hawke. They're pretty good and reasonably priced. Check out their spotting scopes.

 

Well after a lot of research and in-decisiveness we eventually went for a Barr and Stroud Sahara 20-60X80 Spotting Scope, £99 from Camera Centre UK, via eBay, including a stay-on carrying case. Ordered Monday, arrived today which was a relief as the supplier had reviews ranging from "dreadful" to "excellent". We must have caught them on a good day as the speed of delivery and packaging couldn't really be bettered.

We've only been playing around with it for a couple of hours but so far things seem fine. The zoom and focus controls are smooth (the Jessops scope had some negative comments about the controls), and the image is pretty good. Difficult to compare with more expensive scopes without having them side by side.

As Kristen said, shake is a problem particularly at the high end of the magnification range when any tiny movement results in a massive movement away from the "target". We've mounted ours on a basic camera tripod which certainly helps. Also it's often difficult to find the "target" as garden birds tend to be uncooperative and don't stay in the same place for long enough to find them through the scope.

I suspect it'll come into its own at places like Slimbridge where you're generally looking at birds that are a long way off and relatively static.

We've had a go at "digiscoping" ie taking photos through the telescope but the results are not very good. Might be better if we get an adapter to fix the camera to the scope rather than hand held but we'll get used to using the scope for its primary purpose first.