- Location
- Thunder Bay ON Canada
I know there are alot of people who say...."If it's worth buying, it's worth buying quality", but they are usually people who have money, not university students like me. I'm going to review this very, very, very cheap spotting scope.
Hi, I don't use scopes, but I'm a big photo buff, and have two terms of university photography as my arts elective, so I'm not a total newb when it comes to optics.
I use peep sights, and other ironsights.I decided that it was too much hassle retrieving targets back and forth, and on a whim decided to pick up a very cheap spotting scope.
It's not perfect.
First off, it's cheap, so damn cheap. If I dropped it, I don't think it would survive. It's light as a feather.
The movements are coarse, and it's easy to unscrew the eyepiece when trying focus.
The caps aren't tethered.
The desktop tripod that came with it is a joke.
The sunshade that slides out doesn't detent.
The single worst thing about it, was that when it was racked out to the full 40x magnification, the exit pupil was very small indeed.
The eye relief was poor for someone who wears glasses, I had to push my glasses up the bridge of my nose to get close enough.
But I was suprised at the fairly decent optical quality. No abberations was apparent until about 35x, and there was just a bit of haze. At 20 times I found the regulation target at 25m was easily seen and I could discern the texture of the paper and frayed fibers sticking out from the edges of the bullet holes. I could easily and clearly see the staples stuck in the backstop at 40x and 50m.I've been spying on my neighbors at the top of the hill fairly regularly over the past two weeks, at over a mile, and the view is quite clear. The small exit pupil problem becomes quite pronounced at 40x, and annoying over time, so I usually keep it at 35x or less.
I don't want to give the impression that this is the equivalent of a leupold. It is, however, more than equal to lunch for three at mcdonalds.
If this scope lasts for even a dozen trips to the range, it will have paid for itself in the time I didn't spend walking back and forth to the target stand. I will treat it like an egg, and if I do drop it and it breaks I'll buy another.
P.S. Since I'm a photo buff, I also know enough to use a large and decent tripod, lest vibration completely obscure my view, and that the hook in the center column is to hang a weighted bag on.....use it!
Hi, I don't use scopes, but I'm a big photo buff, and have two terms of university photography as my arts elective, so I'm not a total newb when it comes to optics.
I use peep sights, and other ironsights.I decided that it was too much hassle retrieving targets back and forth, and on a whim decided to pick up a very cheap spotting scope.
It's not perfect.
First off, it's cheap, so damn cheap. If I dropped it, I don't think it would survive. It's light as a feather.
The movements are coarse, and it's easy to unscrew the eyepiece when trying focus.
The caps aren't tethered.
The desktop tripod that came with it is a joke.
The sunshade that slides out doesn't detent.
The single worst thing about it, was that when it was racked out to the full 40x magnification, the exit pupil was very small indeed.
The eye relief was poor for someone who wears glasses, I had to push my glasses up the bridge of my nose to get close enough.
But I was suprised at the fairly decent optical quality. No abberations was apparent until about 35x, and there was just a bit of haze. At 20 times I found the regulation target at 25m was easily seen and I could discern the texture of the paper and frayed fibers sticking out from the edges of the bullet holes. I could easily and clearly see the staples stuck in the backstop at 40x and 50m.I've been spying on my neighbors at the top of the hill fairly regularly over the past two weeks, at over a mile, and the view is quite clear. The small exit pupil problem becomes quite pronounced at 40x, and annoying over time, so I usually keep it at 35x or less.
I don't want to give the impression that this is the equivalent of a leupold. It is, however, more than equal to lunch for three at mcdonalds.
If this scope lasts for even a dozen trips to the range, it will have paid for itself in the time I didn't spend walking back and forth to the target stand. I will treat it like an egg, and if I do drop it and it breaks I'll buy another.
P.S. Since I'm a photo buff, I also know enough to use a large and decent tripod, lest vibration completely obscure my view, and that the hook in the center column is to hang a weighted bag on.....use it!
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