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scopes? be honest now!! (1 Viewer)

mark f

Well-known member
I was searching round for prices on the swarovski 80hd when i got sidetracked as usual!

I started looking at other scopes and i got to wondering.....

Are the most expensive scopes like the best Kowa and the best Swaro really much better than other scopes for example the best Nikon or the best Opticron which i notice are very good spec and have a 30 year warranty.

Like in other fields often there are certain brands which have a reputaion for being the best and people who enjoy that interest aspire to having those products for themselves. But sometimes other brands may produce products of the same or better spec but without the badge.

Whats your honest opinion of the BEST scopes available today, with birding and digiscoping in mind? Are the top two leagues ahead?

(I was planning on putting the 30x eyepiece with the swaro. )


regards. Mark.
 
Popularity breeds popularity, no doubt about it! Having said that, the top scopes clearly are at least a bit better than the others, but whether that extra bit is worth it is down to personal choice, and your wallet!

I would personally put Zeiss, Nikon, Pentax, and Leica up there with the Swaros and best Kowas. Which you choose has more to do with other factors including ergonomics, cost, availability where you live, and even what your friends use. Also factor in the eyepiece you choose, and how well it works with your eyes.

As to which is best, the Kowa 883/884 seem to lay claim to that title at the moment, with the others only a little way behind. I have heard many reports that the Nikon 82mm is better than the Swaro and some samples of the Zeiss/Leicas, but personally didn't buy one because the ergonomics of the Swaro were better for me, and the eyepieces are easier to change! I also like the design of the stay on case too! It might sound a little unimportant that such things can have such an impact on choice, but you're probably going to have it for a few years, so why not be picky? In the end all of these scopes are more than good enough, and other differences are very much about personal taste.

FWIW, I have the Swaro ATS80HD, and might look seriously at the Kowas if I were buying a new scope now, but I'm not really in a hurry to swap anytime soon, especially as prices are rocketing despite the 'credit crunch'. The Swaro scopes are great and the after sales service is second to none (and yes, I've used it twice in the last year-total cost: £0.00!!).
 
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yeh difficult isnt it. Ive been to events where they let you try out the scopes but its sometimes difficult to guage.

I tried the swaro 80hd with the 20-60 zoom which was good, but imo it was blown away by the clarity of the 30x lens.

Then they had a nikon which was very good but didnt compare to the swaro with the 30x lens but i didnt expect it to because it was a zoom. They didnt have a 30x to compare directly.

I think if i compared the nikon 82 to the swaro 80hd with the same eyepiece and i thought it was comparable then i would go for the nikon and spend the rest on tripod and digiscoping accessories.

As for prices going through the roof. Havnt scope prices remained static??
The swaro 80hd is still 13-1400£ at warehouse express and kowa 1500.??
 
You should try a Nikon with the 30x. Many people reckon this combination is as good as anything available.

As for prices, I was really talking about the last year or two. I've had mine 2 1/2 years, when I paid around £1350 for the body, 30x and stay on case. Aren't the prices you're quoting for body only?

The prices for the new ATM scopes will be higher still!
The Swaro zoom is better than Nikons, and the new wide angle 25-50x is likely to be at least as good, if not better, though it will be pricey.
 
In the last year I have owned all the various models/sizes from Nikon, Kowa, and Pentax. I have never found the Euro-optics to be a compelling purchase even though I could afford them, probably because I live in Tokyo and Euro-optics command prices 2-3x more than the Japanese alternatives and my suspicion the glass used in the Euro-scopes comes from Japan anyway.

Currently, I have a Kowa 883, Nikon ED82/s and ED50/a with the Kowa being acquired just last week. The ergonomics and usability of Kowa is far better than the Nikon ED82. The ED82 is heavier for its aperture, uses a lame screw-in eyepiece system and a less functional stay-on case, and has a very sensitive helical focuser that makes it difficult to get good/fast focus. Also, the high mounting stalk of the Nikon acts as a "lever" for vibration/shake at high mags and digiscoping. Finally, the Kowa is more digiscoping friendly and camera agnostic than the Nikon. Nikon makes it inconvienent and costly to use any camera brand other than Nikon's.

Optically, I cannot say which is better since I do not have an eyepiece for the Kowa yet. But the Kowa 663 I had was definitely better than the EDIII. That said, I probably like the Nikon fixed focal length eyepieces better than the Kowa's. BUT, the latest/greatest 20-60x Kowa zoom is definitely more pleasing than the Nikon 20-60x MCII zoom.

hope this helps,
Rick
 
yes, very interesting. Like i thought the more expensive scopes are looking better than the competetors but probably not twice as good, as reflected in some of the prices.

Yes steve prices must have risen over the last couple of years. I thought you were referring to the recent price increases that have affected camera gear due to the global problems and the Yen.

These problems dont seem to have hit scope prices yet although im sure Kowa and nikon will be at some point.

Next weekend there will be a chance to try scopes at minsmere which isnt to far from me. Ive done that before, but this time im going to try to contact the people bringing the scopes to see if they can bring what im interested in.

Steve that ATM scope you mentioned. Whose new model is that?
 
...Yes steve prices must have risen over the last couple of years. I thought you were referring to the recent price increases that have affected camera gear due to the global problems and the Yen.

These problems dont seem to have hit scope prices yet although im sure Kowa and nikon will be at some point

Kowas have just gone up in the UK and I understand they are going up again in March..:-C

I don't really understand but I think it's all to do with the weakness of the £. One Astro scope I know of has just gone up by 65% in leap :eek!:

Dave
 
The ATM has superseded the ATS in the Swarovski range. The main difference is that the body is made of a different material. Magnesium?
 
yes, mike your right. The new scope will have a lighter body, but the same glass? May be a good time to get a bargain with the current model.....

The 500mm is lens has been priced out of my league so i think to go for a scope and it looks like those are going up! Will have to get one soon!
 
So far everyone's ignoring the elephant in the room--quality control. AFAIK it's still true that a cherry specimen of any one of the top brands will out-perform mediocre specimens of any of the others. So, unless you're prepared to do lots of comparative testing of individual specimens before buying, fussing about the relatively small optical differences between the alpha brands doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
I 'run' a Nikon ED82 which cost a bit under £1000. The equivalent top of the range Swaro would cost round about £1500. Is the latter half as good again - no. But as has been said in earlier posts ergonomics etc play a big part. Interestingly, my Nikon replaced a 10 - 15 year old top of the range Kowa and I had both for a short while before I sold the Kowa and when they were side by side the older Kowa was slightly milky with the view but that is down to improvements in glass technology in 10+ years. I rate the top of the range Leica optically but the focussing mechanism never feels right with a very slight slack when you move the wheel back on all the ones I have tried - same with the bins. It works fine but I just don't like it, so returning to the original post, there are lots of factors to be considered.
 
I think fugl is spot on with his comments about QC, you only have to read a few of the threads on star testing to appreciate the variation in quality between the same models. About 4 years ago i bought a Swaro ATS 80 HD & just couldnt get it to focus sharply, this was also checked by friends who also had the same experience with it. At the time i was ignorant about QC issues & star testing & thought the scope was probably a wrongly badged non HD model. I sent it back (i had ordered via the net, so had not even looked through it beforehand) & got a 65 HD, which luckily for me seems to be a good example as several people have commented on the image quality. Moral of the story: always check before you buy, & if possible try several examples of the same model. Now wouldnt it be nice if optic sellers had the ability to do star testing, but this would probably only have the knock on effect of increased prices. For what its worth I would now buy the new big Kowa, o.k. its probably not worth the extra it costs over some of the "lesser" scopes but personally i like to have the best quality available as i do a lot of staring at dots on the horizon (seawatching) & this new model seems to have the brightest, most contrasty image at the moment.
 
yes, very interesting. Like i thought the more expensive scopes are looking better than the competetors but probably not twice as good, as reflected in some of the prices.

A good deal of the difference in price between the alphas and the middle-of-the-range optics is not just paying for a superior product (and certainly never twice as good), but for quality control. at top optics producers, up to a third of the "production" personnel are involved not in direct production, but in qc (if my memory serves me correctly). this is no small expense at central european wage rates.

at the end of the day, you are MUCH less likely to get a lemon from an alpha company than from somewhere else (even if a great middle product approaches that of an alpha). And if you think you got a lemon from a company like swaro, you could always send it back. I am not so sure some of the other companies would be as happy to help you as the ones that aim for perfection.

just my two cents,
 
interesting points and something i had completely over looked. Infact i misunderstood fugl's post, and ignored it. But yes i could imagine that you would be more likely to get a "lemon" from a company who bang them out at a fast rate without watching QC as opposed to another who takes pride in that.

I could imagine it only takes a slight imperfection to make a bigger difference with what we see.
 
I guess it depends on what you want from your scope, and particularly nowadays if you are into digiscoping.

I've used Adlerblick bins for the last fifteen-twenty years, an Opticron scope for about the last ten, and before that a Bushnell Discoverer.

Collectively they've never cost me a tick. They'd be straight out if they had. I've seen sharper brighter images for sure through other birders' scopes on twitches, but never had the scenario where I actually cannot tick / identify a bird with my combo. You need to change for a reason - I ditched the Discoverer because of the narrow field of view. The view through it to the last was good.

The next scope I get will be a much better one, because I can see the real difference it makes to the quality of my shots, (although still very good with my Coolpix 5100) compared to others.

So, depends what you have to spend -v- needs.
 
I used to do a lot of competition target shooting, and the rifle scopes we used were Leupold. The clarity of these scopes was second to none in the riflescope market with most shooters using the Leupold competition series. I know Leupold make spotting scopes, but have never looked through or tried one out. It may be worth looking into (pardon the pun) as they are quite reasonably priced.
 
You certainly get what you pay for Zeiss, Swaro, Leica, Kowa, Nikon are certainly a level above the others, but the rule of diminishing returns applies to optics massively, see the review of Opticron bins on the Spurn website and remember this is written by birders who are out in the field daily not magazine testers in a controlled environment.

As for quality control I know 10-15 yrs ago it was an issue as I had a non ED Nikon fieldscope that outperformed a friends ED version and they were both a similar age. Nowadays I'm not as convinced its as much of a problem.

With regards to the top few there's honestly not much to choose between them. It's all down to personal preference a tiny improvement in brightness or sharpness is not going to be of use if you don't get on with the focus mechanism or the eye relief of a given lens.

Another thing to consider is the after sales service, I can vouch for the legendary Swaro service but have heard so many nighmares about leica I'd be very reluctant to buy a lens cloth from them!

G
 
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