Digiscoping with Swarovski ST80 HD Spotting Scope

The most important component for a digiscoping kit is of course the scope. The scope has to deliver enough details for the camera and it has to be well corrected in terms of color fringing, to deliver pictures without colour fringes at borders with hard contrast.
There are many scope manufacturers at the market that produces fantastic scopes like Zeiss, Kowa, Leica, Nikon and Swarovski (and of course many more). I started digiscoping with a Swarovski ST 80 HD Spotting Scope with an 20-60x eyepiece and I never regret this decision.
The Swarovski ST 80 HD has got an 80mm objective lens diameter, which generates bright and clear images even in bad light situations. It delivers great details and the pictures are sharp as nails. Color Fringing can be seen only in extreme light situations (e.g. when you photograph against the bright sky).
Quite fast shutter speeds can be achieved when digiscoping with the Swarovski cause of the huge objective lens.
Another point for the decision for a Swarovski is, that it's filled with nitrogen and water resistant. So even in bad weather situations you don't have to be frightend of damaging your scope.

A female Red-backed Shrike. As most of my digiscoping-shots this photo is taken with Nikon Coolpix 5000 combined to a Swarovski ST 80HD spotting scope. The Swarovski spotting scope delivers bright images with great colour and detail and is ideal for digiscoping.

The Swarovski ST 80 HD has a huge focusing wheel, which makes it easy to focus. In bustling situations you have to search the little focusing wheels first with lots of other scopes. With your Swarovski you grab onto the scope body and you've found the wheel.
As all scopes I know, the Swarovski has a little target finder at the front of the lens hood, but at its own it's almost useless. You can't find your target fast enough. Certainly with the help of a little thumbtack sticked onto the scope you can moderate the target finder so that it works reliable. Then it's possible to get your target into your view as fast as necessary (it works then like a target finder of gun).


Swarovski ST 80 HD - My conclusion

The Swarovski ST 80 HD is a fantastic spotting scope in terms of digiscoping. It delivers great details and colors and is well corrected in terms of color fringing. The sharpness of the pictures is outstanding (I don't know a scope that is doing better in this point). Details are great, but less than e.g. the Kowa Prominar TSN-884 scope.

All the best,

Gerd Rossen