Nikon Prostaff 82? (1 Viewer)

I had not realized there was such a model untill now. So I wonder how it compares to the Fieldscope ED82A.

The reason I ask is that I had a brief chance to look through the Kowa 883 this weekend, and next to it was a Nikon 82. There would also have been a Swaro80 to look through. I was, however mainly interested in the Kowa at the moment, and I was just trying to find something to compare it with. So I compared the Kowa with the Nikon, thinking it was the ED82, of which I had read so many good reports. (Plus I have a Fieldscope EDIII 65 myself.) Well, the difference between the two scopes' views was enormous. Actually hardly believable, under my original thinking that I was comparing the ED82 with the Kowa. Both scopes were at 60x and they were focussed on some far away boats. So here is my question, how much do the Prostaff and the ED82 differ in brightness and contrast?

Well, you know more about it now than all of us. They are hard to find in stores. The ProStaff scope is a roof prism scope, I believe.
http://www.eagleoptics.com/index.asp?pid=4551
The others are porros.

Robert,

The difference between the Prostaff and the ED 82 A is pretty huge. The Prostaff is much more like the former Spotting scope RA 80. So, it has an achromat for an objective, and although the brightness is apparently better than in the RA 80, it is not nearly the equal of the ED 82. The Prostaff is o.k. at lower magnifications and rather good for the price, but at 40-60x suffers from rather excessive color fringing and consequently compromised contrast. The ED 82 is slightly brighter than the Swaro ATS 80 and has excellent contrast, but since it gives up six mm to the Kowa 883, it will not quite equal the latter in brightness and contrast at very high magnifications. A good specimen of the ED 82 will come close to the 883 in resolution, but thus far my less-than-scientific experience-based opinion is that the Kowa may well have more consistent quality than the Nikon.

So, I'm not at all surprised that you found the Kowa to be the best scope, but had the Nikon been a good to excellent sample of the ED 82, you should not have perceived the difference as dramatic.

Kimmo

Nikon Prostaff

My Brother-in-Law just got a Nikon Prostaff 16-48x65mm for Christmas and he left me use it for a while. Here is a picture I took of my brother's sign at 200 yds., there is a tree to partially blocked this sign and was closer. Sorry to blacken out some of it.This was just hand holding the camera up to eyepiece. I tried to use this scope wearing my glasses and it was ok at low power. IMO this scope is good up to about 40x and really was pretty decent at 30x and it does have CA at the higher powers but not bad up to 30x.I did do a resolution test at 100 yds. and it was 2.2 Sec using line pairs 1951 USAF test target.This spotter looks like a porro prism scope to me, it is just turned on it's side.

kabsetz said:

Robert,

The difference between the Prostaff and the ED 82 A is pretty huge. .....
So, I'm not at all surprised that you found the Kowa to be the best scope, but had the Nikon been a good to excellent sample of the ED 82, you should not have perceived the difference as dramatic.

Kimmo

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Thank you very much Kimmo! Too bad I did not realise my mistake until it was too late. I really would have liked to compare the Kowa with one of the other top ones.
Oh well, I should not really be in the market for another scope anyway. Except for the weight and the moderate eye relief, I am still quite happy with my Leica APO77, which I think I must have had for more than a decade by now. One thing that struck me particularly with the Kowa was the extreme ease of viewing at 60x. Including full frame without a problem with my glasses.

I own the Nikon ED 82 and I love it but its pretty heavy and has mediocre eye-relief when using a zoom.

Gregory Sargean said:

I own the Nikon ED 82 and I love it but its pretty heavy and has mediocre eye-relief when using a zoom.

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I know about that eye-relief as I use the same zoom on my 60 mm Fieldscope EDIII.

Gregory Sargean said:

I own the Nikon ED 82 and I love it but its pretty heavy and has mediocre eye-relief when using a zoom.

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hope nikon will come out soon the new zoom eyepiece with same or much wider FOV like the new kowa hehehe

nikon has pretty good optics for birding but somehow, i can't anyone to correspond in nikon (malaysia). at the moment, although i own a nikon RA, i still in favor of the swarovski.

wengchun said:

nikon has pretty good optics for birding but somehow, i can't anyone to correspond in nikon (malaysia). at the moment, although i own a nikon RA, i still in favor of the swarovski.

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hehehe try the nikon ED82 with 30x eyepiece and compare with swarovski HD80 with same eyepiece and let us know whats the result