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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Reviews by Russ Jones

Russ Jones
For TSN-664 Prominar ED Lens in Compact Spotting Scopes
Recommended
Yes
Price
0$
Pros
  • small, bright, sharp, robust
Cons
  • objective hood is tighter than I like
I wrote a review of this scope in March 2008, this is a followup after some heavy use over the past 2 years.

I'll keep it brief. I am still thrilled with this scope and feel it is one of the most under rated spotting scopes out there. Not sure there would be any reason to upgrade, it is as good as any 66mm scope on the market.

Russ
Russ Jones
For TSN-664 Prominar ED Lens in Compact Spotting Scopes
Recommended
Yes
Price
900$
Pros
  • small, light
Cons
  • a bit pricey
I will keep this review short and sweet. I have owned both a Nikon Fieldscope EDIII and a Kowa TSN 824 so I do have some experience with decent optics.

This scope is very small and light and is easily carried around which is a big part of the reason I sold my 824. I recieved this scope with the older 20-60x zoom on it and was a little disappointed. I bought the new 20-60x zoom and it has brought this scope up to the level of other top 60-65mm scopes. I am quite surprised more people don't use this unit, reviews are few and far between and none of them rate it very high. I rate it as one of the best small scopes I'v looked through and I'v looked through them all. The optical differences in top scopes are incrimental to my eyes, this scope is amongst the top and is the optical equivelant of other top brands in the same category. I recommend it highly. Make sure you have the newer eyepiece to get the most out of this scope!
Russ Jones
For EF 400mm F4 DO IS in SLR & MFT (micro four thirds) Lenses
Recommended
Yes
Price
4500$
Pros
  • small, sharp, tough, IS
Cons
  • price
After much reading and research I didn\\\'t really know what to expect since the reviews are so divided with this lens. Some love and some have nothing good to say about it at all... after taking the plunge and playing with it for a few weeks I\\\'m in the \\\"I love it\\\" catagory.

The images produced by my lens are superb, in fact I\\\'d say it is very, very close to being on par with Canon\\\'s finest L series super-teles. The biggest selling point for me though was its small size. It weighs a mere 4.3 lbs and is 9.2\\\" long(Compare that to Canon\\\'s 400mm f2.8 at 11.7lbs and 13.7\\\", the 500mm f4 at 8.5lbs and 15.2\\\", and the 600mm f4 at 11.8lbs and 18\\\" long). With a 1.4xTC the DO still produces stunning images like this one http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v156/britishcanuk/kinglet.jpg I feel that this lens is the perfect compromise of size, weight, quality, and features for travel and walkaround photography which is why I bought it.

Anybody that is looking into this lens will undoubtebly find the many negative reviewsas well, just as I did. I\\\'m convinced there must be some poor quality copies around so I suggest you try it out first if you can. If you can\\\'t, there seems to be a time in late 2002 that the quality of this lens became much more consistant. I really can\\\'t quantify this theory but alot of reading asking questions have led me and many others to think there is some validity to it.


Russ
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