Digiscoping?
When I first heard the term, I didn’t have a clue as to what it might mean. At
first, I thought it might be some kind of charged couple device (CCD)
technology in a spotting scope. While that technology is definitely coming to
sports optics, it’s not quite here yet. No, that wasn’t it. I later found what
it really means is mating a digital camera to a conventional spotting scope,
and then using the scope as a giant telephoto lens.
It turns out that the birding community has really been driving this phenomena
as they not only want to see our little feathered friends hopping about, but
also want to take their picture as well. When the picture is in digital form
it can then be e-mailed to their fellow birders and birding organizations to
get credit for the find.
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The Leupold kit contains
everything needed to get into digiscoping |
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“Well that’s nice” you might say, “but what does that have to do with
silhouette shooting?” Well, it occurred to me that it would also be very
useful if you could take and store a digital image of each of your shots when
practicing, or better yet, during a match. After a relay, when the targets are
reset, you could take a image of your hits which you could later review and
study at home at your leisure. Trends, patterns, etc. in your shooting can be
detected, evaluated, etc. and corrective action taken if necessary. For
instance, you might notice that all your turkey hits were on the high
side. You didn’t pay too much attention to it during the match because (1) the
turkeys did go down, and (2) the shots weren't that far off. However, it could
indicate that you might want to take a click less in your elevation setting.
A
digital record would also be very useful to have in the load development
process as well. When I’m testing new loads at the range, I take a lot of
notes on the results. However, it would be even better if I could also have a
digital image of my groups on the distant swinger targets that I could store
on my computer for later evaluation. I already keep a lot of load data on my
computer, but having an image of the groups produced to go along with the data
would be even better - especially if the information is a couple of years old
when notes have an unfortunate tendency of becoming somewhat cryptic.
Additionally,
if you’re a hunter (most IHMSA members are) you probably scout the area where
you’re going to do your thing prior to the hunting season to familiarize
yourself with the terrain, movement of the game etc. Having a long range
digital image record of the area could be very useful in planning your hunt as
well.
I suspect
that there are probably many, many other uses for digiscoping in silhouette
shooting, hunting, and other outdoor activities, and that we’re just starting
to scratch the surface of how to use this very significant capability. It
reminds me a little of how things were when personal laser rangefinders first
came out. At first they were used primarily by golfers to judge distances in
order to select the right club, and now they’re being used in a thousand
different ways by outdoors people and in hundreds of industries.
Well Leupold, who always
has their collective ears to the ground, recognized this growing digiscoping
trend and has come out with a kit that includes everything that a person
interested in the subject would ever need. The kit contains the following:
1.
An upgraded version of Leupold’s famous folded light path 12 x 40 premium
60mm spotting scope.
2.
Four digital camera adapter plates
3.
A base unit used to attach the camera and adapter plate to the scope
4.
A compact tripod with a padded carrying case
5.
A window mount
6.
A padded case for the scope
7.
Detachable carry strap
8.
A hard sided brief case for all of the above
OK, let’s
start with the scope itself. The 12-40x60mm has been around for some time now
and has established a reputation as being one of the very best 60mm’s in the
business. It has an unusual design that kind of looks like two tubes mounted
on top of each other. This configuration is the result of the fact that
Leupold uses a combination of lenses and mirrors in the scope to fold the
optical light path back and forth in order to extend its focal length to
nearly twice its physical length. The result is a very compact package of only
a little over a foot long but which provides the optical performance of a
scope with a focal length of 20 inches. Pretty cool. It also weighs in at only
37 ounces.
Additionally, this new version of the scope has an objective lens that has
been upgraded with the addition of extra low dispersion (ED) glass. This is
the very best optical glass available. This fluoride based material provides
the absolute state of the art in color fidelity, resolution, and
contrast. There is none better. Additionally, the scope has been provided with
Leupold’s exclusive “Index Matched” lens coating system which customizes the
coatings to each of the different optical glasses used throughout the
scope. This optimization of the coatings to the various glasses provides an
impressive light transmission capability which translates to a super bright
image at the eye. Indeed, when I looked through the eyepiece, I found the
image to be one of the very brightest images I have ever seen in a 60mm. In
fact, it was about as bright as you would find in many larger
scopes. Resolution was also very crisp with no softening around the edges of
the objects being viewed, and color fidelity was dead on with no tinting of
any kind. Additionally, I saw absolutely no fall off in picture quality until
I got to the very extreme edge of the image.
Way off on the
sides (perhaps the last 5% or so) I detected a slight out of focus
condition. After a call to Leupold and a little research I found that this
is a normal characteristic of this particular type of lens and mirror
design - just one of those engineering trade offs. I had to really strain
to see this area, so I strongly suspect that 9.99 people out of ten won’t
ever see this, much less be bothered by it.
As usual, I
subjected the Leupold to my home made resolution chart which consists of
several lines of “O’s” printed across a page of printer paper in decreasing
sizes. I usually check resolution at fifty yards because the mirage on my hot,
sandy range is a serious problem at least 10 months out of the year. This
particular day, temps were unusually cool with a bright overcast, and mirage
was nonexistent, so I put the chart out at 100 yards. The Leupold ED was able
to resolve 14 point type at that distance. Many scopes do well to resolve 14
point type at 50 yards, so to have one that can do it at 100 yards is truly
exceptional performance.
I also
trained the Leupold on an eight line electrical transmission tower 300 meters
away. Fine detail such as bird droppings and rust patterns on the structure
were readily observed. One of my favorite observation features on the tower
are these rows of metal spikes above each of the high voltage power lines. The
purpose of the spikes is to keep birds, squirrels, etc. from getting on the
wires. With some scopes the individual spikes tend to blur into each
other. With the Leupold, they stood out in sharp detail. Even the tapered
points of the spikes were easily seen. As mentioned before, color fidelity was
also picture perfect with no off shading or color bleeding along the
edges. This is as good as it gets.
Additionally, strong lightweight magnesium
construction, suede like textured rubber armor, full immersion water proofing,
30 mm eye relief at all magnifications (an outstanding feature), and shock
proof toughness makes this a scope that can be used anywhere under any
circumstances.
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The camera adapters and base unit insures that a wide variety
of digital cameras can be used with the scope |
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Ok, so how do
we get our digital camera on the scope? The first thing to do is make sure the
lens housing on our camera is threaded to accept accessories. Simply select
the correct size adapter plate from the kit and screw it on to the front of
the camera lens. Now screw the furnished base unit on to the adapter
plate/camera combo. Next, remove the rubber eye cup from the scope’s eye
piece. Then slide the camera with the attached adapter & base unit onto the
eyepiece and move it forward until it hits the stop (around a half inch). Make
sure the camera is horizontal and now tighten the large clamping knob on the
side of the base unit. The camera is now fully secured to the scope and you’re
ready to start taking pictures. Of course the images can be reviewed
immediately on the camera’s display screen or better yet, later downloaded to
your computer to be viewed and subsequently stored if you like. (BTW, if you
should later trade your digital camera in for another with a different sized
lens, no problem. The adapter plates provided in the kit can accommodate just
about any digital camera lens with a threaded lens housing on the market.)
Let me also
comment a bit about the quality of the accessories in the kit. The materials
and workmanship are all premium grade. In many kits, accessories are often
so-so quality or sometimes even kind of rinky-dink. Not here. The compact
aluminum tripod for instance is extremely well made and sports lots of heavy
duty metal castings in all the right places. It also has a ball joint on top
to give maximum flexibility to how the scope/camera combo can be pointed.
However, I found the length of the tripod to be somewhat puzzling. On one hand
I found that it was too short to be used when standing, and on the other hand
too long to be used as a bench tripod even when fully compressed down to its
shortest length. It did seem to be just about right if one were sitting down
on the ground as when in the field.
BTW, the
cloth cases for the scope and tripod are made from thick, high quality, heavy
duty fabric - not the paper thin nylon stuff you often see. The scope’s
zippered case is especially heavily padded. The adapter plates, and base unit
are also made from heavy, machined aluminum - no plastic parts here. Even the
hard sided carrying case itself is a thing of beauty. The sides are jet black
with a diamond plate pattern, while the aluminum frame is a contrasting gun
metal gray. The Leupold logo in a tasteful shade of gold is printed on the
side. The foam inside is also contoured to securely cradle each item. The
whole package is really very nicely done, and is actually pretty classy
besides.
All and all,
this a totally premium quality kit with everything you’ll ever need to get
into digiscoping. It’s a bit expensive, but it’s a good, solid investment that
will definitely serve a lifetime. If you have any interest at all in recording
an exact record of your shots during a practice session or during a match you
should seriously consider a Leupold digiscoping kit. Birding, nature
photography, scouting for the hunt, amateur astro photography, long range
photography at sporting events, etc. are just some of the other possibilities
for this kit. I know my family would have loved to have something like this to
record the ceremonies from our seats way up in the top tier of the bleachers
when my nephew graduated from Marine Corps boot camp this last summer. This
kit opens all kinds of possibilities that weren't previously available. I have
a strong suspicion that I’m going to be using this kit a lot, and if you get
one too, so will you.
(Note: if you don’t want to buy a complete kit,
Leupold sells the scope, the adapter plates, and the base unit separately.
If you want to save even more bucks, you could opt for the standard version of
the 12-40x60mm scope without the ED glass.)
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