Mpacker
Michael Packer
Some of the issues I found with the Pentax PF65ED AII are important. So instead of waiting to post a full report in the review section of BirdForum, I thought I post them now. I will explain how I came to my conclusions as a follow up but here's my feeling:
The scope has a cool down time for thermal stability and performance - don't let the scope get too warm in a car (or too cold) relative to the ambient temp. and then expect good views or imaging at moderate power.
The scope's contrast using top notch eyepieces is not bad, but not very good. I'm not impressed.
The scope shows decent near diffraction limited performance. My scope's lens is slightly over/under corrected - can't remember how that goes rel. to in/out of focus - and shows a little more chromatic aberration than I expected.
Hence, the scope cannot really be used at very high power. And Hence It can not do as well as good 80mm scope. Forget it. I would not observe using any ep less than 5mm (78x). Stay under 60x. 7mm at 56x is a better choice if you want power but don't buy the pentax 7mm - you would be wasting your money IMO unless you have another "apo" grade scope that you want the 7mm for. This is not the case for other small really high quality scopes such as the TV60 which certainly can give great views at ~78x and higher.
If you really want a great value and get a very good small and versatile scope, buy the older 65ed which is going for ~$350 (not the II) before they are all sold out.
For birding, my initial grade for the AII scope is an 8 in optical quality perhaps just making 9 overall in terms of size weight and cost. I like the scope. But at $350, I give the older non II a 9.75. I suspect I would give the swavorski 65ed no better than 9. (Expensive bugger and its no 80mm either). I should have a chance to compare side by side with the AII in a bit.
Michael
The scope has a cool down time for thermal stability and performance - don't let the scope get too warm in a car (or too cold) relative to the ambient temp. and then expect good views or imaging at moderate power.
The scope's contrast using top notch eyepieces is not bad, but not very good. I'm not impressed.
The scope shows decent near diffraction limited performance. My scope's lens is slightly over/under corrected - can't remember how that goes rel. to in/out of focus - and shows a little more chromatic aberration than I expected.
Hence, the scope cannot really be used at very high power. And Hence It can not do as well as good 80mm scope. Forget it. I would not observe using any ep less than 5mm (78x). Stay under 60x. 7mm at 56x is a better choice if you want power but don't buy the pentax 7mm - you would be wasting your money IMO unless you have another "apo" grade scope that you want the 7mm for. This is not the case for other small really high quality scopes such as the TV60 which certainly can give great views at ~78x and higher.
If you really want a great value and get a very good small and versatile scope, buy the older 65ed which is going for ~$350 (not the II) before they are all sold out.
For birding, my initial grade for the AII scope is an 8 in optical quality perhaps just making 9 overall in terms of size weight and cost. I like the scope. But at $350, I give the older non II a 9.75. I suspect I would give the swavorski 65ed no better than 9. (Expensive bugger and its no 80mm either). I should have a chance to compare side by side with the AII in a bit.
Michael