Shootout Nikon reflex v Digiscope: Re 440 ft Goose.

Thanks to the work and challenge of Stephen Livick, I posted the results of his suggestiions on my page
http://www.coolpixpage.com in the news section.

We both took shots of a Coke bottle from 80 feet away. Stephen used the Nikon D1, with the 1000mm and 2000mm reflex lenses attached.

I used the Lecia Televid APO scope, 20x and 32x primes with the cp990 and my adaptor.

I think the results are (as Stephen says) simply amazing.
Thank you so much Stephen, people like you make this stuff so much fun.
Thad.

Thanks to both of you guys for taking the time and effort for the shots. Thad even though I have seen your work I was very surprised at the results. Leica makes quality stuff.
Dave>

Sorry I knew Stephen's pics were going to be good I didn't think I had to say that.
Dave

To Stephen and Thad --

Thanks indeed guys. And Stephen, especially, for setting this up with your spirit of genuine open-minded interest and intrigue.

Such a nice change from the polarised and brittle in-fighting that goes on so often in some of these forums.

I'll bet this has brought a smile to some of the oldtimers from Leica's halcyon days. A quiet reminder that Leitz didn't get its reputation for nothing.
Best to you both.
MF

Thad Piet said:

Thanks to the work and challenge of Stephen Livick, I posted the
results of his suggestiions on my page
http://www.coolpixpage.com in the news section.
We both took shots of a Coke bottle from 80 feet away. Stephen used
the Nikon D1, with the 1000mm and 2000mm reflex lenses attached.

I used the Lecia Televid APO scope, 20x and 32x primes with the
cp990 and my adaptor.

I think the results are (as Stephen says) simply amazing.
Thank you so much Stephen, people like you make this stuff so much
fun.
Thad.

Click to expand...

Hello Everybody

Just to fill you in I used reflex mirror lenses, and had to use 400 ISO with the Nikkor 1000mm and 800 ISO with the Pentax 2000mm.

I used a D1x in manual mode and had to set the EV to +1.7 for both lenses. Which is a shame as I loose shutter speed and must increase the ISO as a result.

This is to stop camera shake even with the anti shake mirror up function and the lenses heavily sandbaged on top.

Both the images came in "softish" its difficult to focus at F 11 and F13.5 you don't have the fine focusing that's on the digiscope. I tried to use the focus indicator in the D1x body but it did not work with the 2000mm. And it works on the 1000mm but is very hard to set properly as the focus contro going back and forth with the lens barrel is not that easy to do as you might think.

I had to sharpen the images to 300% in Photoshop before I was satisfied with the results. This lead to a slightly digitized look in the images.

I can work with these lenses as I make ink jet negatives from the image captures and distort the negatives heavily in regards to brightness and contrast trying for strange looks using the Gum Dichromate process.

I left regular straight photography behind in 1990 to go off and explore at the edge of the known photographic Universe. However my first love is and remains a beautifully done single photographic image. However I just can't live with them anymore, even though I still love them.

I will probably order a Leitz scope as the 2000mm weighs in at a hefty 15 lbs and is a burden to simply lug around. Too bad I paid so much for it. I just received the 1000mm Nikkor only a few weeks ago, I wish I had known this back in Feburary when I originally ordered it. My equipment might be different now.

It will be very difficult for me trying to justify scrapping 12K CDN worth of long lenses.

Stephen