Since my rather poor photos of the sea-eagle nest through our spotting scope, I've been investigating other options including a telescope - looked at primes (too expensive), cheap primes (mostly rubbish), a new scope (hard to justify given useage) etc.
Has anyone any experience with using a telescope for bird photography and any recommendations as to what to consider or avoid?
I have seen some nice photos taken with this http://skywatcher.com/product.php?cat=3&id=39 which is within our budget.
Length and weight are of lesser concern as we will only be lugging a telescope and mount by car, and we are very unlikely to use a telescope for anything other than terrestrial stuff, other than the odd occasion when the grandkids are here for the weekend.
Obviously an over-riding consideration is being able to easily mount a camera (EOS T mount).
I welcome any input, positive or negative.
Thanks
Tim
I have never used a telescope for birds but a mate has one for astophotography and I have watched him ,it seemed to take forever to get it all set up and was so slow to adjust ,it's heavy and awkward and I would not have thought it sutable for birding .
I would use one of the longer zooms on M/F with a T/C or better still save up a bit more and look at one of the older M/F primes and a T/C or 2 stacked ,it dosen't have to be a F/4 I had a M/F Nikon 600 F/5.6 back in the dark ages of film that was one of the sharpest lenses I have ever owned ,I only sold it because everybody was changing over to A/F and like an idiot I did to, I've had to wait over 30 years for Nikon to come up with a long prime that even comes close for IQ and now there so expensive I just can't justify the outlay and trying to explaine to my wife why I need a lens that cost more than her car can only end badly !