I would agree with Moose. If you want a serious piece of gear that is
equally at home as a spotting scope and camera lens you should start
with a scope designed for both astronomical and terrestrial viewing,
that offers the capability for balancing the camera on the axis of the
mount, offers a small, auxiliary, wide-field spotting scope and has
interchangeable, standard size eyepieces (1-1/4" or 2" outside diameter)
and ready adaptation to a T-mount... often with built-in T threads. It
will also need a respectable tripod and probably some form of vibration
control.
The expensive and classy way to do this is, as Moose said, a Takahashi
or TeleVue refractor. A much less expensive, lighter and more easily
handled solution is a small diameter (90-125mm) Meade or Celestron
catadioptric telescope. Or, if you have lots of money, Questar. A 90mm
objective will likely be a Maksutov design (similar optical design to
the OM and many other 500mm mirror lenses but larger) while the 125mm
objective will likely be a Schmidtt-Cassegrain design. The small Meade
and Celestron catadioptric scopes have the advantage of a compact single
or double tine fork mount which is easily switchable between
astronomical or terrestrial viewing. Conversion from terrestrial to
astronomical used to be done by tilting the azimuth axis from vertical
to the latitude angle. Today it's just done via software and a motor drive.
Here is a well known dealer of scopes in the US. I'm giving you their
page which contains links to numerous manufactures including those just
mentioned here: Takahashi, TeleVue, Celestron, Meade and Questar.
Click the tabs at the top of the page to see their products.
<http://www.buytelescopes.com/browse_manf.asp>
Here is is another large dealer
<http://www.astronomics.com/main/Telescopes_and_Telescope_Accessories.asp/catalog_name/Astronomics/category_name/Home>
And another
<http://www.handsonoptics.com/>
B&H sells scopes and accessories
<http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home;jsessionid=G6TT0FQLdj!604332510?O=RootPage.jsp&A=FetchChildren&Q=&ci=978>
As does Adorama
<http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?op=category&cat1=Binoculars%20%26%20Telescopes>
You may recognize B&H and Adorama as New York City stores frequently
mentioned on this list as dependable camera dealers. Undependable
camera dealers (crooks, actually) are more normal for New York City.
I can't answer many of the questions you asked in a prior mail but I do
know that, if I wanted a spotting scope and it also had to mount a
camera, I'd be looking at starting from a serious small astro scope as
the base to build on.
Chuck Norcutt
Moose wrote:
>
> That's my impression, as well. I don't think any of the scopes with
> built-in prism are really suitable for first rate/serious photographic
> use. Too many optical elements designed for other purposes involved.
>
> The astronomical origin scopes that are used with diagonals or add-on
> prisms for terrestrial viewing work well for photography. Off-hand, I
> think of Takahashi and Tele-vue for refractors and Celestron and Meade
> for reflectors. I have a Meade mirror spotting scope that works well as
> a 1000/11 lens with a simple, relatively inexpensive adapter that screws
> to the scope and to a T-adapter. A little low contrast, but thats not
> the problem with a digital darkroom that it was before. It has, of
> course, the usual donut shaped OOF images as other mirror lenses.
>
> For a zoom long lens with an OM-1, I'd be looking at a Tokina AT-X
> 150-500/5.6 or Tamron SP 200-500/5.6. I have the Tokina.
> http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/Home/Towhee.htm
> http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/BayArea/Delta/Falling.htm
>
> Moose
>
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