new scope review, recomendations for tripod?

randomgary

New member
hello all! my parents bought me a Vanguard VSF-55 Compact. This appears to be a quality wee spotting scope. Its very compact which i like, im not keen on the huge telescopes and the clarity is surpurb. last night i set it on Jupiter and i could clearly identify 5 moons! you will have no problems identifying arrows at distance



Vanguard Vanguard VSF55 50mm Micro spotting scope


i got it with the table tripod as advertised above, now the only issue with the scope is the eyepiece is fixed, therefore i will need a tripod where the fixing plate can be angled to have the eyepiece in the right location. Anyone any suggestions?

Cheers Gary
 
Almost all tripods designed for photography will allow the head to be used in Landscape or Portrait mode, & they all should allow the head to be fixed at an angle in between to allow comfortable viewing through an angled scope. I got my son a Miranda Titan tripod off ebay which had been a reasonably good solid tripod for the ?20 I paid, a good solid tripod is worth the extra weight & one with decent fxings will last much longer than a bargain basement one. Calumet used to do a good range of own brand chinese Manfrotto (proffesional Italian kit) copies which were very good, but looking on there website it appears the cost of them has risen to almost the price of the real thing. My mate picked up about 6 tripods from car boot sales for peanuts, a couple of which were very good.
 

babylon5

Top Meerkat!
Supporter
Ironman
Hi Gary,

I have the same scope (bought 2nd hand off eBay) and it is indeed very good, although I have found that the relatively small objective lens means that the image is quite dark on dull days. Since the weather we get tends to be quite dull, I usually use a cheap scope I bought from Aldi and use the Vanguard as a spare.

Tripod-wise I use a Velbon CX540 which I bought from Jessops for around ?40. It's fairly sturdy and stable (an older Velbon CX-440 I also have is a little wobbly on account of the thinner legs), is quick and easy to setup and has a quick-release head which is handy for quickly removing the scope from the tripod. The head also has the sort of tilt facility which you appear to want, though when I use the Vanguard I normally just mount it 'as is' and don't tilt the eyepiece towards me. The only minor down-side with the CX-540 is that there's no hook on the bottom of the centre section for a cord to tie the tripod down, but that's easily overcome. I also bought a Jessops tripod bag like this one to keep it in, it's nicely padded and stops the tripod from getting damaged (or from it damaging something else) and I can keep the tie-down cord and peg in the back along with the 'pod.

Mike
 

Darryl

New member
Hi Gary,

I have the same scope (bought 2nd hand off eBay) and it is indeed very good, although I have found that the relatively small objective lens means that the image is quite dark on dull days. Since the weather we get tends to be quite dull, I usually use a cheap scope I bought from Aldi and use the Vanguard as a spare.

Tripod-wise I use a Velbon CX540 which I bought from Jessops for around ?40. It's fairly sturdy and stable (an older Velbon CX-440 I also have is a little wobbly on account of the thinner legs), is quick and easy to setup and has a quick-release head which is handy for quickly removing the scope from the tripod. The head also has the sort of tilt facility which you appear to want, though when I use the Vanguard I normally just mount it 'as is' and don't tilt the eyepiece towards me. The only minor down-side with the CX-540 is that there's no hook on the bottom of the centre section for a cord to tie the tripod down, but that's easily overcome. I also bought a Jessops tripod bag like this one to keep it in, it's nicely padded and stops the tripod from getting damaged (or from it damaging something else) and I can keep the tie-down cord and peg in the back along with the 'pod.

Mike
So should of kept my Gitzo tripod that I used for wildlife photography. So sturdy a herd of elephants could charge beside you and the thing wouldn't wobble/vibrate.
 
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