I routinely digiscope at 60X magnification. I use a Leica APO 77 Televid
scope and a Coolpix 990 at ISO 100 with a 3X. So this scope would not have
nearly the range in distance however it would allow more light. My Nikon
D70 DSLR lowest ISO setting is 200 and the pictures it takes are beautiful
and quite acceptable with ISO settings into the 600s.

*********************************************************
Ilene Samowitz
North Matthews Beach, Seattle
www.pbase.com/rockawaybirder
*********************************************************.
---- Original Message -----
From: "Roger" <r_craik at shaw.ca>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: No More Mickey Mouse Digiscoping.


> You have some valid points Stewart. A freind of mine has said much the
same but
> I think that when this beast actually gets some testing done on it by
birders,
> people will find that it does a creditable job for the magnification. An
f2.8 -
> f4.0 lens is quite speedy compared to any combo of scope & camera. What
image
> stablization does anybody use now? Some of these digiscoped images are
pretty
> sharp. My big concern would be noise introduced by the CCD at ISO 200. My
Canon
> G3 is quite noisey at that level. If this scope is the same it will be
hard to
> get a real good image.
>
> I did a search and can't find any user info on it so I guess we'll have to
wait
> ad see. It is pricey!
>
> Roger
>
> Stuart MacKay wrote:
>
> > I agree with the comments on the dpreview web site "3 million pixelks,
ISO
> > 200 and no image stabilization" - save your money. You can do much, much
> > better with a good fluorite lens spotting scope (my 10 year old Kowa
TSN4 is
> > fantastic) and a used coolpix 900 for about half the cost.
> >
> > Having said that the 450 - 1350 mm F2.8 - F4.0 zoom lens would be useful
for
> > situations where the birds come in too close to focus down with a
regular
> > spotting scope.
> >
> > If Kowa don't get too discouraged if it does not sell, then perhaps
after 2
> > or 3 iterations/revisions of the product they might acutally produce
> > something worthwhile.
> >
> > I'll be staying in the Magic Kingdom for the forseeable future.
> >
> > Stuart
> > --
> > Stuart MacKay, Seattle, WA
>
>
>