Telescopes vs. Telephoto lenses

[yonni]

A friend sent me this link to a company that makes astronomical telescopes that they are now marketing to photographers. Has anyone used something like this or know anyone who has? They are much lighter and cheaper, but no auto focus.

http://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/birding/index.htm

[noodle_snacks]

It is f6.6, MF only, and 2.2kg.
The 400mm f5.6L has fast AF, weighs half as much and costs less (though has gone up 20% or so recently). Either way, I know which I'd pick.

[yonni]

It is f6.6, MF only, and 2.2kg.
The 400mm f5.6L has fast AF, weighs half as much and costs less (though has gone up 20% or so recently). Either way, I know which I'd pick.
You neglected to mention it's focal length of 510mm. The next one up is 640mm@f6.3 and 2.9kg for ...$1895.

[Carpetshark]

They market Borg telescopes. I bought a MiniBorg 50mm achromat from them. It showed it attached to a camera, but I used it for a quick peek scope until I found a classic 60mm. It did it's job well astronomically. Hutech is very easy to deal with. Carpetshark

[canonloader]

I had an Orion ED80 and used it with my 30D. I don't like to manual focus and it was just too slow for birds and too wiggly for the tripod and head I had. If I were going to do it again, I would go for the spotting scope/Coolpix camera setups, rather than the full DSLR stuff. A lot smaller, a light lighter, a lot cheaper and from what I have seen, they give excellent images.

Here's a couple of old threads with the birds shots from my gear.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=255061

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=255792

[Sl-photography]

There are some much cheaper scopes that work very well. They are very sharp, but of course are MF and much more cumbersome than a purpose built lens. Useful if you want a lot of reach for not much dosh though! I know of a guy on another forum who uses a ~£300 astro scope and gets results that are probably as sharp as some of canons lenses!

[avan]

Cheap scope mean lot of CA, buy only ED, APO or similar treated lens on terrestial scope, they are not too expensive now. A high quality scope like Swarsoski, can give amazing quality images at 1200mm.

[MarkEvan]

Got to say I agree with Avan if you wan`t the best pictures from the scope then you will need a good scope, over here in the uk your talking £1200 to over £2000 its cheaper to get a 400 5.6 or sigma 500 4.5 second hand. But if you are set on the scope route then take a look at the models from swarovski, zeiss, leica and kowa.

[Tom Reichner]

There's a very well-written article in Nature Photographer Magazine about using telescopes for bird photography. It discusses the different makes and models of telescopes that are easily adapted for photography. There are evidently some very, very good ones, which are significantly more expensive than the ones in the link that the OP provided. I forget exactly which issue of NP the article was in - either the Fall 2008 or Winter 2008/2009 issue. It'd be worth looking into if MF works for you.

[cspratt]

Get a lens. I use the Canon F/4 300 IS and their 100-400 IS lenses for birding. I use a telescope (I have several) for astronomy. Telescopes are a real pain to use for birding because you must use a tripod. With the lenses (both have IS) I use I can either skip the tripod or use a monopod.