I’m still amazed just how good the Kowa TSN-EX16 1.6x extender is – it opens up a whole new experience when used with my Kowa 884 spotting scope.

It was a lovely clear night on Anglesey and the plant Jupiter was showing very well indeed. First my intention was just to view it through the scope which I did using the 25x60x eyepiece. I could clearly see Jupiter and three of its moon. I then added the extender to make the maximum optical zoom 96x – this gave me a view of Jupiter that I had never experienced before using a telescope – I could clearly see bands running across the plant surface – it was breathtaking.

I then had the crazy thought to try and digiscope what I was seeing with my eyes – Keeping the extender on and adding the Kowa PA7 digiscoping adapter – I connected my Olympus OMD EM5 MK II – with the 2x crop factor of an MFT sensor – this was creating truly massive focal lengths – it wasn’t easy – trying to even find Jupiter in the sly at this magnification – let alone focus on it, as soon as the plant came in to view through the camera – I had to act fast, the plant moved quickly across my viewing plane due to the high magnification and I had to constantly adjust focus and re-check in these difficult conditions – I have to say for a first attempt of digiscoping a plant 365 million miles away from my location – I was really pleased – the image below does justice to what I saw with my own eyes – and I’m pleased that the digiscoped image I captured show detail of the planets surface.

Below you can see the image and the equipment I used to get the shot.

Jupiter – 365 million miles away – captured with one shot and exposure – digiscoped with the Kowa TE-11WZ 25-60x eyepiece,
TSN-EX16 1.6x extender, TSN-PA7 digiscoping adapter and Olympus OMD-EM5MKII

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I wanted to capture the feeling of winter in these shots so I tried using a ND filter to blur the motion of the water – this created an icy feel to the images. In Photoshop I added a blue tone to further enhance the cold feel to the images.

I arrived as dusk approached but the mountains were still surprisingly busy with hikers making the most of these beautiful winter scenes. The mountains come alive this time of year and the snow adds to their drama and foreboding presence on the landscape.

I used the Kowa 8.5mm lens to show the sweeping hills in all their snowy glory.

Kowa 8.5mm MFT lens and Panasonic GH4 digital camera

A snow covered Tryfan Mountain captured with the Kowa 8.5mm MFT lens and Panasonic GH4 digital camera

Ice River - Kowa 8.5mm MFT lens and Panasonic GH4 digital camera

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For me – photographing abstract images, I give my self two options, either look for the abstract image intentionally and use a longer focal length to crop in to the building and take the shot and fill the frame with the cropped image, or create a wide angle shot of the building or landmark and crop in to the abstract shot afterwards in post processing. If you are going to try the second method – you need to make sure the overall image is good resolution and sharp – depending on how much you crop, especially if you intend on printing the final image.

An abstract image doesn’t have to be cropped – you can create great abstract images with wide angle lenses – it’s all a case of looking for interesting angles and textures to create different tones and shapes in the final image.

Below is a selection of abstract images taken with the Kowa MFT 25mm and also the Kowa MFT 8.5mm – see if you can spot which one’s started out as an abstract shot – or were thought about later!

In Photoshop I added a grainy film effect and some vignetting to add to the creative feel.

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Using the new Kowa TSN-EX16 1.6x extender with my Kowa TE-11WZ 25-60x zoom eyepiece – the magnification becomes 40-96x, this is great for detailed views of the lunar surface, the bright 88mm fluorite crystal objective lens captures stunning detail.

What’s even more interesting is that you can ‘stack’ the Kowa extenders to create more magnification power – I own two which means I have a maximum magnification of 153.6x – Each adapter loses less than just 5% light so performance is superb even at these extreme magnifications.

At this level of optical zoom – Planets and deep space objects are visible  Saturn’s rings – Jupiter’s moons and Nebula are all in easy reach.

As well as the extender – Kowa have released an astro adapter – allowing the connection of 1.25″ Astro eyepieces to the Kowa scope body – a truly versatile system.

Another huge advantage is just how compact the whole set-up is  – the extenders add little extra bulk or weight to the scope body as you can see from the image below:

Add to this – the Kowa easy to use digiscoping adapters and you can also photograph your subject too in amazing detail.

Below are some examples of Lunar photography using the Kowa 884 spotting scope, TE-11WZ 25-60x eyepiece, the new Kowa TSN-EX16 1.6 extender, the Kowa TSN-IP6 iPhone 6/6S digiscoping adapter and an iPhone 6s:

60x optical zoom
Kowa 884 spotting scope, TE-11WZ 25-60x eyepiece,
Kowa TSN-IP6 iPhone 6/6S digiscoping adapter and an iPhone 6s

96x optical zoom
Kowa 884 spotting scope, TE-11WZ 25-60x eyepiece, TSN-EX16 1.6 extender,
the Kowa TSN-IP6 iPhone 6/6S digiscoping adapter and an iPhone 6s

153.6x optical zoom
Kowa 884 spotting scope, TE-11WZ 25-60x eyepiece, two TSN-EX16 1.6 extenders stacked,
the Kowa TSN-IP6 iPhone 6/6S digiscoping adapter and an iPhone 6s

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Optically the new TSN-EX16 1.6x extender is superb and with an official measurement from Kowa of less than 5% light loss it’s an incredible accessory under £300 for any Kowa 880/770 scope owner. Combining it with the TE-11WZ 25-60x eyepiece it now gave me a zoom range of 40-96x. Very impressive and perfect for long range subjects. Apart from the optics, I also very much like the engineering of this new adapter and the designers have made a great job with the aesthetics too, it seamlessly screws on to the scope body and is barely noticeable when connected – making this an incredibly powerful but still compact spotting scope when you consider the magnifications involved.

What has intrigued me further is that I heard the adapters could be ‘stacked’ to create even more power! I just had to try it…

Combining two of the extenders takes the 25-60x eyepiece up to a massive 153.6x magnification  – and even when combined, the whole set-up is still surprisingly compact. Optically the performance is just outstanding at these extremes when combined with the Fluorite crystal 88mm objective lens of the Kowa 880 series scope.

My Kowa 884 with two Kowa TSN-EX16 extenders ‘stacked’ with the Kowa TSN-IP6 iPhone 6 adapter ad iPhone 6S – Ultra compact Extreme digiscoping.

The Extenders compliment the body perfectly and add little additional weight or bulk – amazing considering I now have a 153.6x spotting scope.

As a digiscoper – I wanted to see how these new adapters performed at these extreme focal lengths. I decided to test the scope and extenders using my iPhone 6S and Kowa iPhone adapter. Before evening attempting to take pictures with this kind of power, it’s important to remember that a good tripod and smooth panning video head is essential – any tiny fraction of movement is massively magnified – also if possible try to use a remote shutter to avoid camera shake – with the iPhone you can use the headphones volume control to take a shot – this greatly reduces the risk of camera shake which ultimately results in blurred images.

The key to successful digiscoping is to keep re-focussing – always check, fine tune and adjust your focus – the Kowa 880 scope has a fine tune focus wheel allowing for tiny adjustments. If you’re phonescoping – and your smart phone allows it – lock the focus and exposure on the phone allowing you to adjust manually to get the optimum shot – if not your phone focus will ‘hunt’ for focus whilst you adjust and wastes valuable time. Pressing and holding the screen for a second on the iPhone locks focus and exposure.

To give a true picture of what this set-up can do – I took a laser range finder with me to measure the distance of the subject and I took three shots – One with no extender with the eyepiece at 60x, one with one adapter and eyepiece at full zoom making 96x optical and finally a shot with 2x adapters and eyepiece at full zoom resulting in an optical zoom of 153.6x. I chose a static safety life-ring across the opposite side of the lake – the distance between scope and subject was 206 metres. The results, I have to say were stunning considering the focal lengths I was using – capturing incredible detail:

You can just see the red safety life ring on the opposite side of the bank at a distance of 206 metres

The Life ring at an optical zoom of 60x using just the TE-11WZ and no extender

Adding one TSN-EX16 now produces an optical zoom of 96x – iPhone digiscoping performance is superb

Adding a second Kowa TSN-EX16 combined with 60x on the eyepiece now produces a magnification of 153.6 to reveal amazing detail.
It’s hard to believe that this subject was over 200 metres away.

A Greylag goose at 153.6x magnification on the far bank measured by laser range finder at a distance of 149 metres. This level of detail previously impossible at such distance.

Digiscoping at these extremes requires some practice and will suit more static subjects such as perched or larger birds – just locating and focusing with such a shallow focus peak can be a challenge – but once perfected it opens up a whole new world of digiscoping.

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The manual focus Kowa MFT lenses and Kowa telephoto lens are perfect for shooting in 4K. These superb quality lenses deliver edge to edge sharpness and the fluorite crystal objective lens of the telephoto lens delivers stunning results. Click free, smoth manual aperture control and manual focus make the MFT lenses the perfect creative tool.

The two following videos where shot using Kowa MFT and Kowa telephoto lenses combined with a Panasonic GH4.

The Still Night
My first video shot with the Panasonic GH4 in 4K mode. Anglesey was blessed with some stunning weather in late September and I was fortunate to be there! Shot with Kowa MFT lenses and the Kowa Telephoto lens 350/500mm.

Meet the Stonechats
I spent a few days observing and filming a family of Stonechats on the coast of Anglesey – really felt like I ‘d got to knows these birds after spending so may hours watching them throughout the day and in to the night – shot with the Panasonic GH4 in 4K and Kowa telephoto lens 500mm.

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On this particular occasion, I was in North Wales  – the weather was so calm (unusual in these parts) there was an Autumn mist in the air which remained all day so I decided to make the one hour drive to Snowdonia. Arriving mid afternoon, this gave me plenty of time to set up ready for as the light began to fade. For the first hour I spent some time on the river capturing the Autumn colours, then I headed up in the mountains.

As I expected – the conditions where perfect – no wind created beautiful mirror reflections of the mountains in Llyn Ogwen and as the light faded, the atmosphere just increased.

I spent time at the lake side with Kowa 8.5mm and 12mm lenses with the Olympus OM-D EM-5 MKii, it was one of those night you don’t forget quickly.

Mist in the Valley – Betws y coed. Kowa 25mm MFT and Olympus OM-D EM-5 MKII

Autumn at Llanrwst - Kowa 8.5mm MFT and Olympus OM-D EM-5 MKII

Autumn Colours Snowdonia - Kowa 8.5mm MFT and Olympus OM-D EM-5 MKII

Llyn Ogwen, Snowdonia - Kowa 12mm MFT and Olympus OM-D EM-5 MKII

Tryfan Evening Light - Kowa 8.5mm MFT and Olympus OM-D EM-5 MKII

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What a great subject matter for a video, stunning scenery and fast paced boating action, combining wide angle shots with the Kowa MFT lenses along with telephoto shots with the Kowa 350mm telephoto lens I shot some footage – adding some sound effects and music in the editing stage added to the drama  – here is the resulting video:

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Because of the compact design of my Olympus OMD E-M5 and Kowa telephoto lens I can afford to carry all my gear and not have to worry about size and weight, the whole set-up is very portable. I always try to take the MFT 8.5/12/25mm lenses in addition to the Kowa telephoto lens.

So in my kit bag I’m carrying an 8.5mm/12mm/25mm/350mm/500mm/850mm prime lenses – sounds crazy I know – but that’ the beauty of the unique Kowa telephoto lens modular system.

On this particular day the weather was fine so I opted to leave the tripod at home, which again leads me on to another benefit of the my Kowa kit – because the telephoto lens is so compact, I can hand hold it no problem, coupled with the superb Image stabilisation of the Olympus OMD E-M5 – it has to be one of the finest quality and portable telephoto systems available today. The 2x crop factor of the MFT bodies means I was shooting hand held at 1000mm f5.6 – great!

As I was wandering along the path, I noticed climbers scaling the huge cliff faces – I don’t know how they do it, requires great courage, strength and a head for heights.

This encounter sums up perfectly what I’m trying to demonstrate, I had all my lenses in my bag so I was able to capture wide angle as well as super telephoto images of the climbers. Shooting with the 350mm and 500mm I was ablr to capture every grimace on the faces of the climbers as they battled the rock face – it was a great afternoon.

Below are some shots from the day:

A wide angle view of the cliffs with the Kowa 12mm MFT lens and Olympus OMD E-M5 MK II

One of the brave climbers looks on, Kowa 25mm MFT lens

Look closely at the cliffs and you can spot the climbers – dwarfed by the rock face, Kowa 25mm MFT lens

Switching to the Kowa Telephoto lens reveals a world of detail. Kowa 350mm f4

Kowa Telephoto lens 350mm f4

The Kowa Telephoto lens 500mm f5.6 with the 2x crop factor of MFT (1000mm) puts you right in the action.

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I’m using a Kowa TSN-884 Fluorite crystal spotting scope and my Olympus OMD E-M5 MK II. I then use the Kowa PA7 digiscoping adapter to pair the two together.

The Kowa TSN-884 spotting scope with Kowa TSN-PA7 digscoping adapter, TE-11WZ eyepiece and Olympus OMD E-M5 MK II camera body – a formidable telephoto set-up.

The Kowa TSN-PA7 is designed to slide of the kowa TE-11WZ zoom eyepiece whilst still allowing for full zoom throughout the 25-60x range. A T2 ring to match your camera body completes the set-up.

What you have to bear in mind when it comes to this type of digiscoping when you connect a camera body to a scope – where in effect, the spotting scope becomes the camera lens, is that you will be producing huge focal lengths, and with huge focal lengths comes challenges – a loss of light, the big risk of camera shake to make your images blurred – also high magnification can make just finding your subject matter difficult.

The Kowa TSN-PA7 – digiscoping made simple!

I’m using a Micro four thirds body, so this increases the telephoto power even more when compared to using a full frame camera (2x crop factor). But if you follow a few simple rules, it is possible to capture amazing high telephoto images of long range wildlife. The biggest problem is motion blur, shutter speeds need to by high – even though your digiscoping kit will be tripod mounted, just the action of you pressing the shutter by hand will cause camera shake – you need a fast shutter speed to freeze any motion blur. The next thing to remember is that a spotting scope has no electronics to pass to the camera – so you’ll need to used to manual focus – manually focus the scope until the image appears sharp in your viewfinder.

Here’s a quick run down of my technique using the Kowa TSN-PA7:

I keep the camera in aperture priority mode – the camera has an aperture of 0 – because there is no information being passed via the scope, this way I can use the camera functions to control shutter speed and exposure.

ISO settings – I use my ISO function on the camera (sensitivity to light) to control the shutter speed. The camera will decide what the appropriate shutter speed is to create a correctly exposed image. If the shutter speed it selects is too low – I will change my ISO settings to a higher ISO to make the camera more sensitive to light – therefore making the shutter speed faster for the same exposure. Remember a higher ISO will produce more noise (grainy image).

Shutter speeds – typically with the high telephoto power this system produces you’ll want at least 1000/1 sec  – more if possible to freeze and camera shake.

Exposure – I always use my exposure settings on the camera and opt to always under-expose the image – this not only increases shutter speed but it also reduces the risk of overexposing an image – you can always brighten up an image in software but you can’t pull back blown out detail.

I have produced some test images below with a reference shot showing the position of the subject and where I was standing. The three images were taken using the equipment and method above.

I used the zoom eyepiece at 25x optical zoom with the addition of prototype Kowa 1.6x extender which increases the magnification of the TE-11WZ in to 40-96x. The Kowa 1.6x converter – ‘TSN-EX16′ is rumoured to be released this coming Autumn and simply attaches on to the Kowa scope body via the  screw thread the same as with other accessories. The good news is that it is fully compatible with the Kowa TSN-PA7 digiscoping adapter – giving Kowa digiscopers even greater reach.

The New Kowa TSN-EX16 1.6x extender for The Kowa TSN-880 series spotting scopes –
keep your eye out for official news later this year.

What does this mean in photography terms?

40x optical zoom is the equivalent of 1750mm in telephoto full frame photography terms. I’m using a micro four thirds camera body with a crop factor of two – so that’s 3500mm!
The equivalent F-stop (aperture) of this digiscoping system in photography terms is F19.9.

So in effect I’m using a lens with a focal length of 3500mm at F19.9 – now you can see why we need to be on top with our camera settings to achieve sharp results! But what you get in return is a high quality, ultra compact, ultra portable, ultra telephoto system, un-heard off in conventional photography – the opportunity to capture great detail without having to get close to the subject matter. I think the following images are a good example of what this method of digiscoping can achieve. On the first shots, the red circle indicates the subject location taken with an iPhone from where I’m standing with my equipment. The second shot is the digiscoped result.

Kowa TSN-884 spotting scope
Kowa TE-11WZ eyepiece at 25x
Kowa TSN-EX16 1.6 x extender
Kowa TSN-PA7 digiscoping adapter and Olympus OMD E-M5 MKII
Aperture priority, ISO 1600, Spot metering

Kowa TSN-884 spotting scope
Kowa TE-11WZ eyepiece at 25x
Kowa TSN-EX16 1.6 x extender
Kowa TSN-PA7 digiscoping adapter and Olympus OMD E-M5 MKII
Aperture priority, ISO 1600, Spot metering

Kowa TSN-884 spotting scope
Kowa TE-11WZ eyepiece at 25x
Kowa TSN-EX16 1.6 x extender
Kowa TSN-PA7 digiscoping adapter and Olympus OMD E-M5 MKII
Aperture priority, ISO 1600, Spot metering

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