I personally own a swarovski with a 20-60 zoom and an 85 mm objective lense. Superb optics..... My suggestion would be if you are gonna pack it look at the same in HD but with a 65 mm objective lense. You will not be disappointed! My friend owns a Kowa. Very nice also
My first spotting scope.... opinions please.
- Thread starter secondgen
- Start date
Reading reviews on spotting scopes tonight and I'm leaning towards the Pentax 80ED-A 20-60x80. The reviews that I've dad so far are very favourable and pricing seems to be in the 1000$ ball-park. Looks like the Kowa TSN-602 or 82SV would be in the same price range. Any idea how they compare to the Pentax?
a great deall will depend on what eyepiece you put on the Kowa's ... a "good" fixed power eyepiece will be better than a "good" variable powered eyepiece at the same magnification. at 80x the variable eyepiece Pentax will deliver a 1mm exit pupil ... very likely your eye will use at least 3-4 mm during daylight (read the link I provided earlier on exit pupils - worth reading a couple of times to understand the relevance of this)
also note that while the Pentax has a pretty good eyepiece -- I think you will find that the Kowa eyepieces (across the board) will be superior overall. Doesnt mean that you wont find a good Pentax ... some guys like to set a $5 dollar bill up at 25yds and see what they can see...
check this out ...http://www.birdwatching.com/optics/2009scopes_high/best_resolution_kowa.html
reviews like this are NEVER definitive ... but they are indicative
(important to note that that the Kowa tested used fluorite glass ... which "can" present its own set of considerations -- which is why there are so many compromising factors you need to be aware of and decide on when you select a spotter ....)
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Mystic Precision
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Summerland, BC
My 2 cents when LR hunting was the reason I did LR shooting... Yes, I have experience with all viewing far away targets. Read the weather rating. MANY spotters are not weather proof.. nor are eyepieces.
Packing these 80mm monsters will get real boring real fast. For hunting, I prefer the straight eyepiece.
Budget buy - Pentax 65ED body. The small variable that is usually offered is junk. I add the one from the Pentax 80. Much better but you really only use the middle part of the mag range. Optics was very nice but there are other interactions with the body that are not ideal. Rule of thumb, variable eyepieces are not very good wrt to optics and you will rarely be able to use the full range.
Best is to buy proper single mag eyepieces.. Long eye relief will be a godsend. Pentax eyepieces are some of the best in the world and are weatherproof in general. Spend the money... yes, they are as much as most spotters complete.
For a bit more money, Kowa TSN 600 series and the 25X LER eyepiece... YUMMY. BUT Kowa tends not to be weather proof.....
The Flourite vesion is stunning but bring $$$$. With this level of optic, you will see alot even with "low" mag eyepieces.. unless you plan to shoot game beyond 1000yds.
I currently use the TSN-82SV (or whatever the letter are) for F class. Big wonderful optic. In clean air and the 25X LER eyepiece, I was glassing deer on the other side of Summerland and even count the points on a buck. Summerland is more then 2km wide
BUT this optic picks up mirage in a hurry (why I own it) so if you are hunting in dirty air, you are not going to see as much but still pretty darn nice. For F class, let's just say, they are popular....
I would never ask anyone to hunt in a back pack with this spotter.
So on a budget, bigger porro prism styles from quality brands will do alot but you will never want to carry them. For the roof prism styles, Pentax and Kowa get my nod.
Sorry, Nikon, Vortex, Burris, compact Bushnells aren't worth the investment.
The BEST that I have ever looked through.... Leica Trinovid.. when I win the lottery and can afford the best LR spotter and a crew to carry it.
Keep an "eye" on eye relief. Most eyepieces are horridly short. Why I never bothered with Swarovski and Sightron.
Kowa and Pentax long eye relief eyepieces are some of the best in the biz.
YMMV.
Jerry
PS since you are LR hunting, I hope you are also putting in the budget to get a good set of binos. You will do far more work with the binos then you could possibly want to do with a spotter alone. See the game with the bino, decide if you want to tag it with the spotter.
Here, Nikon is my pick and some amazing glass don't cost alot.
Packing these 80mm monsters will get real boring real fast. For hunting, I prefer the straight eyepiece.
Budget buy - Pentax 65ED body. The small variable that is usually offered is junk. I add the one from the Pentax 80. Much better but you really only use the middle part of the mag range. Optics was very nice but there are other interactions with the body that are not ideal. Rule of thumb, variable eyepieces are not very good wrt to optics and you will rarely be able to use the full range.
Best is to buy proper single mag eyepieces.. Long eye relief will be a godsend. Pentax eyepieces are some of the best in the world and are weatherproof in general. Spend the money... yes, they are as much as most spotters complete.
For a bit more money, Kowa TSN 600 series and the 25X LER eyepiece... YUMMY. BUT Kowa tends not to be weather proof.....
The Flourite vesion is stunning but bring $$$$. With this level of optic, you will see alot even with "low" mag eyepieces.. unless you plan to shoot game beyond 1000yds.
I currently use the TSN-82SV (or whatever the letter are) for F class. Big wonderful optic. In clean air and the 25X LER eyepiece, I was glassing deer on the other side of Summerland and even count the points on a buck. Summerland is more then 2km wide
BUT this optic picks up mirage in a hurry (why I own it) so if you are hunting in dirty air, you are not going to see as much but still pretty darn nice. For F class, let's just say, they are popular....
I would never ask anyone to hunt in a back pack with this spotter.
So on a budget, bigger porro prism styles from quality brands will do alot but you will never want to carry them. For the roof prism styles, Pentax and Kowa get my nod.
Sorry, Nikon, Vortex, Burris, compact Bushnells aren't worth the investment.
The BEST that I have ever looked through.... Leica Trinovid.. when I win the lottery and can afford the best LR spotter and a crew to carry it.
Keep an "eye" on eye relief. Most eyepieces are horridly short. Why I never bothered with Swarovski and Sightron.
Kowa and Pentax long eye relief eyepieces are some of the best in the biz.
YMMV.
Jerry
PS since you are LR hunting, I hope you are also putting in the budget to get a good set of binos. You will do far more work with the binos then you could possibly want to do with a spotter alone. See the game with the bino, decide if you want to tag it with the spotter.
Here, Nikon is my pick and some amazing glass don't cost alot.
BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
Direct testimony from the voice of experience. Kowa will blow either of your possible choices out of the water by a huge margin. Plus you'll never have to or want to upgrade. Significant savings over your lifetime.
This statement is true for most eye pieces that Kowa offers but not true if you compare apples to apples. The 20-60 eye piece offered by both Kowa and Swarovski, the eye relief for swarovski is better then Kowa at 20mm and Kowa's eye relief at 16mm
Just a few more facts to help with a tough descion!
I'm headed to Vancouver this week for work so I'm trying to track down a few scopes to look through. At the top of the list right now is the "Kowa TSN-663 2.6"/66mm Spotting Scope with XD Glass (includes TE-17HD eyepiece)" for $1,398.00 which seems like an ok deal.
Interestingly, my local shop has a Swarovski ATS-65 (20-60x65) on sale for $1,614.99... almost $300.00 off their regular price.
Edit:
Weird thing about the Kowa is there seems to be a TSN-663 and a TSN 663 ED version but there is almost no info available about the ED model. Also, some websites indicate the scope comes with a limited lifetime warranty while others indicate Kowa only offers a 10 year warranty.
Interestingly, my local shop has a Swarovski ATS-65 (20-60x65) on sale for $1,614.99... almost $300.00 off their regular price.
Edit:
Weird thing about the Kowa is there seems to be a TSN-663 and a TSN 663 ED version but there is almost no info available about the ED model. Also, some websites indicate the scope comes with a limited lifetime warranty while others indicate Kowa only offers a 10 year warranty.
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I think you will find that all the "663" Kowa use an "extreme-low dispersion" (ED) lens in the objective cell. Whether it is accomplished with a grown fluorite crystal or glass with some fluoride mixed into a more stable form. I "believe" Kowa uses the latter for the 663 and may uses fluorite crystal for the 883 (not certain). But this is only one factor in creating a high resolving/high contrast/low aberration lens system.
When you have a chance to shop test drive the 663 Kowa look "through" it at a target (the $5 bill) and compare to others ... good luck and have some fun!
strider007
CGN frequent flyer
Which brand is it...Celestron by any chance?
At 10 kilometers you can tell a model of a car by emblem? That is pure BS.
2 meters wide object at 10 km is 0.02 mil of angle. Even if by "emblem" you imply this:
There is no way you can possibly read this at 10 km with a 65mm objective. Pure BS.
I know very little about spotting scopes and am slowly researching them.
When comparing a fixed power eyepiece to variable power eye piece what are the pros and cons? I understand that you get a better image with the fixed power but do you loose the ability to zoom in and view finer details like bullet holes at say 300-500m? I would only be using a spotting scope on the range to spot shots past 300m (on a good day I can see .308 bullet holes at 300m with my SIII 6-24x50). I like shooting long range but when you're alone hearing a "ping" on steel is pretty much the only feedback you can get without hiking down to the backstop.
When comparing a fixed power eyepiece to variable power eye piece what are the pros and cons? I understand that you get a better image with the fixed power but do you loose the ability to zoom in and view finer details like bullet holes at say 300-500m? I would only be using a spotting scope on the range to spot shots past 300m (on a good day I can see .308 bullet holes at 300m with my SIII 6-24x50). I like shooting long range but when you're alone hearing a "ping" on steel is pretty much the only feedback you can get without hiking down to the backstop.
For the same scope, a fixed power eyepiece will be slightly brighter compared to variable eyepiece at the same power setting and generally have wider field of view. This is just to less lenses in a fixed power eyepiece.
However, most of scopes come with eyepiece and it will be variable power one. For the price of extra eyepiece on top of the variable one it makes more sense to get better scope for extra money with a single variable eyepiece than cheaper scope with variable + fixed.
There are 3 important things you need to understand about optics no matter what any ad or rumor has:
1) More magnification has NOTHING to do with with what you can see. You can take junk scope with x80 and see less than a good scope at x20. In short (very short) magnification only tells you how big the image will be you are looking at. At the same time it will tell you ZERO about how blurry or sharp or dim or bright the image will be.
2) The quality of image drops down rapidly with magnification and the most important concrete parameter of an optical system is objective diameter. In fact it is square of the objective diameter. There is no way to have small objective at high magnification producing good image.
3) As a rule of thumb - cheap optics always fails to meet expectations, expensive optics blows your expectations out of the water.
Now, again no one can tell you what YOU will see through one glass or another. I would strongly suggest you to borrow, rent or in any other way first try couple of different spotting scope so you personally will have a reference and understand what there instruments do and how. At any shooting range there will be someone with a spotting scope, ask them to have a look.
PS
How long is your long range past 300 yards? It might be the case that you don't need a spotting scope, but you need a target camera. That will work better for less money after 500m for sure. You can't spot a game on a far away slope with a target camera though. Depends on what is important to you.
However, most of scopes come with eyepiece and it will be variable power one. For the price of extra eyepiece on top of the variable one it makes more sense to get better scope for extra money with a single variable eyepiece than cheaper scope with variable + fixed.
There are 3 important things you need to understand about optics no matter what any ad or rumor has:
1) More magnification has NOTHING to do with with what you can see. You can take junk scope with x80 and see less than a good scope at x20. In short (very short) magnification only tells you how big the image will be you are looking at. At the same time it will tell you ZERO about how blurry or sharp or dim or bright the image will be.
2) The quality of image drops down rapidly with magnification and the most important concrete parameter of an optical system is objective diameter. In fact it is square of the objective diameter. There is no way to have small objective at high magnification producing good image.
3) As a rule of thumb - cheap optics always fails to meet expectations, expensive optics blows your expectations out of the water.
Now, again no one can tell you what YOU will see through one glass or another. I would strongly suggest you to borrow, rent or in any other way first try couple of different spotting scope so you personally will have a reference and understand what there instruments do and how. At any shooting range there will be someone with a spotting scope, ask them to have a look.
PS
How long is your long range past 300 yards? It might be the case that you don't need a spotting scope, but you need a target camera. That will work better for less money after 500m for sure. You can't spot a game on a far away slope with a target camera though. Depends on what is important to you.
My local range goes as far as 900m but I do prefer the idea of a spotting scope over a target camera. A target camera just seems more cumbersome and less versatile. Luckily if I want to shoot to 900m I can do so during the summer during group shoots that use Daniel Chisholm's (aka rnbra_shooter) E-target system. Also, a spotting scope would serve me well when plinking long range with any one of my rifles, ex: my AR with iron sights / red dot.
I run the E targets at my club, great stuff. I looked for years for a fixed power scope to use for TR. I looked at all the high end stuff, big big money. I finally looked through a Pentax 65mm with a WA20x eyepiece, I bought one the next day. I can see thirteen targets wide at 900m. The eyepiece is the same as used in star gazing telescopes, awesome. My only complaint is I used a 22x for many years and I wish it had that 2x more power.
