I bought these two eyepieces and got them early this week...First of all I was surprised about the size ..The 32x is larger than the 50X ,but both are smaller than I thought-.I owned these two same eyepieces a few years back and remembered them to be the same size,and both larger than what they are..So..my question here is ..Are there different versions of the Old kowa 820 eyepieces?,,,probably not,but worth to wonder..
The eyepieces are also different in quality,I did not remember this either..thought they to be equal in the type of coatings and quality of the AR ,but the 50X features much better coatings..Deep green and purple while the 32X has more simple bluish AR coatings,similar to some of the TSN1 series eyepieces..For this reason ,the quality of the image is quite better in certain lights using the 50X..the 50X is very similar in contrast to the Baader Zoom or the BST explorer ,or at least in the same league,but the 32X lacks punch in difficult lights ,like strong frontal sun..In that situation the image gets a bit washed,while the 50X keeps good contrast
Wonderful sharpness can be achieved with both eyepieces ..
So it is surprising that Kowa at the time, released an 82 fluorite scope with excellent AR coatings, made a 50X eyepiece that matched the quality, but released the battlehorse eyepiece of that pre-wide-zoom era, the 32X wide, with inferior coatings.
I havent read complaints about this before,and its also surprising because I have read complaints about many things in this forum!
Kowa did upgrade the 32X wide a while later but not the 50X.
Does Anyone know how long the old 32x was in service and if more than one version was ever around?