New scope intead of ES80GA Waterproof (1 Viewer)

tommybj · Sep 26, 2014

Hi.

Im in the process of convincing my self about the need for a new scope for birding. I have the old Opticron ES80GA Waterproof, which should be with ED glass. I have been satisfied with the scope so far, but I now think it could be fine with a newer and hopefully better scope. The main problem is, that i dont want to spend a lot of money on it, so i'm not interested in alpha glass such as Kowa, Leica, Swarovski and Zeiss.
I've been surfing around and looked at reviews, testing and so on and so far i found a lot of different good scopes at a decent price. But how far up shall i go when the scope now is the Opticron. I have a Hawke Frontier ED 8x43 as my binocular and are very satisfied with that. Will i feel any difference in going for a Hawke Endurance ED 20-60x85 or shall i go for Hawke Frontier ED 20-60x85 or even a Hawke Panorama to feel a difference. I have also looked at Vortex Razor HD 20-60x85 but its a little expensive for me, mayby the Viper could be interesting. I like the warranty of the Vortex also. I've also looked at Opticron, but i dont know if its now i try something else. Looked at the other threads about the new MM3 60, but think its zoom is to short for me, i look a lot at water birds and birds migration and then i have a need to zoom much to recognize the birds. i've even looked at Celestron and Helios, they have nice scopes as well.
Need some advice to make my decision, shall i stay with my opticron, go a mayby a little or big step with Hawke or the big big step with Vortex. Feel free to give advice, even on scopes not mentioned.

Thanks in advance

Tommy

ClarkWGriswold · Sep 26, 2014

Hi Tommy. Welcome to BF.

I recently bought a Hawke Endurance ED85 and have been really happy with it. I'll try and post a link to my first impressions of it.

Here it is:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=290059
Rich

tommybj · Sep 26, 2014

Hi Rich.
Thanks for the link, i've already read it. Your review of it is one of the main reason why i started looking at the Endurance

. Ratal has also spoken well of it. And the price suits me well. But i need to know if the Endurance is a step up or not. Because i have to make sure its better than what i got.

Tommy

ClarkWGriswold said:
Hi Tommy. Welcome to BF.

I recently bought a Hawke Endurance ED85 and have been really happy with it. I'll try and post a link to my first impressions of it.

Here it is:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=290059
Rich

FrankD · Sep 26, 2014

Tommy,

Tough call. Your ES80 is the second tier line from Opticron in terms of price and overall performance. Don't quote me but here in the states I think it retails (with the HDF zoom eyepiece) for around $1200-$1300. It is fairly difficult to improve on a scope of that price point unless you do jump up to the $2500-$4000 scopes. You said that you don't want to spend that much so then we are left with either finding a more recently introduced scope that might offer better optical performance at that price point or finding a scope between $1250 and $2000 that might better the Opticron.

This price point is sort of "middle ground" in terms of the usual recommendations. The "usual suspects" at this price point are your previously mentioned Vortex Razor 85, the Pentax PF ED 80, the older Nikon 82 ED and the Zen Ray Prime HD 82. You said the Vortex is a little too expensive at $1600. The ZR Prime HD with the 20-60x zoom retails for around $1160 but with the 25-50x wide angle zoom it sells for closer to $1300. The Pentax goes for around $1150 with a zoom eyepiece. The least expensive price I could find on the Nikon 82 ED was $1450 and that was through a Japanese seller.

Each of those models has its benefits. The Prime HD has two zoom eyepiece options. the 20-60 zoom is a fairly faithful copy of the "older" Swarovski 20-60. The 25-50x zoom is wide angle. I have used it and it really is quite amazing. Very little light loss when moving from 25 to 50x, very sharp and very little CA.

The Pentax is a design that has been around for several years but was once considered one of the best scopes available. In my opinion one of its strongpoints is its ability to utilize any 1.25 inch astro eyepiece including Pentax's own XW series. The XW series are still one of the best eyepieces on the market with a very wide field of view, a flat field and relatively good CA control inside the sweetspot.

The Nikon 82 ED is also a design that has been around for some time. When they were available readily the fixed power, wide angle eyepieces were excellent. Now they are very difficult to find. The zoom eyepiece is 25-75x so if you need a little bit more reach than what 60x offers then this would be a great choice. The downside is that the eye relief is poor and the field of view with the zoom is narrow.

One last thought, Opticron does offer the ES 80 in both ED version and non-ED. I would verify which model you have as it would make a significant difference in optical performance. Further more, what eyepiece are you using with the ES80? If it is the HDF zoom then you might consider upgrading to the SDL V2 zoom. Wider field of view with a slightly sharper image. Just a thought.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Mono · Sep 26, 2014

If it works then stick to the Opticron, you aren't going to get better for the money.

If you have a hankering to spend so money then why not go as above and upgrade the eyepiece or buy a separate lightweight rig, MM3 50mm, for the times when you don't want to lug an 80mm around.

Ratal · Sep 26, 2014

The Opticron is a great scope - stick with it, save another year and go for a leap up - Meopta S2 will blow you clean out of the water view wise.

tommybj · Sep 26, 2014

Hi FrankD.
You’re right, it’s a tough call. I knew my ES80 was an expensive scope, but not that much. I’ve bought it from my old firm, when they were not using it anymore and I got it for a really cheap price, so this is a big surprise for me. I’ve got the SDL v1 zoom, so I think I’ve got the next best eyepiece as well for this (It’s not the SDL v2, which I guess is better).

If I have to go a step up from that, then you’re right, then I have to take the scopes mentioned by you into consideration.

I have looked at all of them mentioned, but found them to expensive, but that was before I realized I had an expensive scopeo

The Zen-Ray is as far as I know not available in Denmark or Europe, so if I should go for that, I would have to buy it from USA and I think the price with taxes and custom puts it in the expensive part.

The Pentax I’ve looked into a lot and it’s a strong contender. I like the wide field of view, which is good when looking for flying birds (raptors in the sky and other migrating birds).

The Nikon has it’s strengths and fault, but with me using spectacles I don’t think they are any good with the poor eye relief.

The Vortex Razor I still think as a strong contender, but maybe it’s also because of their warranty. I have looked at several reviews and they all think it’s close to alpha lenses.

Opticron has verified that the scope is with ED glass, so it looks like I already has a winner and simply just has to live with that:t:. Would it make any difference going from SDL v1 to SDL v2? I has forgotten to say, that another reason why I think of another scope is that there is some dust in the eyepiece, which I find very annoying, and the eyepiece is only 3 years old.

Tommy

FrankD said:
Tommy,

Tough call. Your ES80 is the second tier line from Opticron in terms of price and overall performance. Don't quote me but here in the states I think it retails (with the HDF zoom eyepiece) for around $1200-$1300. It is fairly difficult to improve on a scope of that price point unless you do jump up to the $2500-$4000 scopes. You said that you don't want to spend that much so then we are left with either finding a more recently introduced scope that might offer better optical performance at that price point or finding a scope between $1250 and $2000 that might better the Opticron.

This price point is sort of "middle ground" in terms of the usual recommendations. The "usual suspects" at this price point are your previously mentioned Vortex Razor 85, the Pentax PF ED 80, the older Nikon 82 ED and the Zen Ray Prime HD 82. You said the Vortex is a little too expensive at $1600. The ZR Prime HD with the 20-60x zoom retails for around $1160 but with the 25-50x wide angle zoom it sells for closer to $1300. The Pentax goes for around $1150 with a zoom eyepiece. The least expensive price I could find on the Nikon 82 ED was $1450 and that was through a Japanese seller.

Each of those models has its benefits. The Prime HD has two zoom eyepiece options. the 20-60 zoom is a fairly faithful copy of the "older" Swarovski 20-60. The 25-50x zoom is wide angle. I have used it and it really is quite amazing. Very little light loss when moving from 25 to 50x, very sharp and very little CA.

The Pentax is a design that has been around for several years but was once considered one of the best scopes available. In my opinion one of its strongpoints is its ability to utilize any 1.25 inch astro eyepiece including Pentax's own XW series. The XW series are still one of the best eyepieces on the market with a very wide field of view, a flat field and relatively good CA control inside the sweetspot.

The Nikon 82 ED is also a design that has been around for some time. When they were available readily the fixed power, wide angle eyepieces were excellent. Now they are very difficult to find. The zoom eyepiece is 25-75x so if you need a little bit more reach than what 60x offers then this would be a great choice. The downside is that the eye relief is poor and the field of view with the zoom is narrow.

One last thought, Opticron does offer the ES 80 in both ED version and non-ED. I would verify which model you have as it would make a significant difference in optical performance. Further more, what eyepiece are you using with the ES80? If it is the HDF zoom then you might consider upgrading to the SDL V2 zoom. Wider field of view with a slightly sharper image. Just a thought.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Ratal · Sep 26, 2014

There is a massive difference between the V1 and v2 eyepieces. Go grab yourself one, and sit back and smile. You have a great scope (ES80GA ED is a cracker) and no need to upgrade at all IMHO.

tommybj · Sep 26, 2014

Mono said:
If it works then stick to the Opticron, you aren't going to get better for the money.

If you have a hankering to spend so money then why not go as above and upgrade the eyepiece or buy a separate lightweight rig, MM3 50mm, for the times when you don't want to lug an 80mm around.

Hi Mono.

Maybe I should, I'm pleased with it and the only annoing is the dust in the eyepieces, have to find out if the warranty from Opticron covers a cleaning.

I've bought an Alpen 728 for light travel, but i don't think it's any good over 25x. So maybe i should try a MM3 50, do you know if the SDL v1 fits on that?

Ratal said:
The Opticron is a great scope - stick with it, save another year and go for a leap up - Meopta S2 will blow you clean out of the water view wise.

Hi Ratal.

The Meopta is also a scope i've look at (I think i have been to every webpages saying spotting scope), and it has also been on my list. But then i have to save a year or two, because it's also expensive.

tommybj · Sep 26, 2014

Ratal said:
There is a massive difference between the V1 and v2 eyepieces. Go grab yourself one, and sit back and smile. You have a great scope (ES80GA ED is a cracker) and no need to upgrade at all IMHO.

Maybe I should, if there is so big a difference. Then the dust in v1 is no problem either

ClarkWGriswold · Sep 26, 2014

Mono said:
If it works then stick to the Opticron, you aren't going to get better for the money.

If you have a hankering to spend so money then why not go as above and upgrade the eyepiece or buy a separate lightweight rig, MM3 50mm, for the times when you don't want to lug an 80mm around.

That sounds like very decent advice to me. Sorry but I should have mentioned that I've not looked through the big Opticron so can't compare. I'm sure I've read good feedback on BF though from other users.

Good luck with your choice.

Rich

kabsetz · Sep 26, 2014

Tommy,

Since nobody seems to have said it yet (I apologize if someone did, I gleaned through this thread pretty fast), I'll bring up the one bit that I think is essential for your decision.

Scopes are individuals. Whether or not it makes sense for you to upgrade depends first and foremost on whether or not your particular ES 80 GA has good optics or not. It might have excellent optics, or quite poor optics, or anything in between. This is because production tolerances more than the design itself determine how good the image is. A really good sample of the ES 80 GA will (and I have seen this) give a tack sharp image at 60x with good enough contrast and color rendition to satisfy a very discerning birder for a long time. Likewise, a bad sample of a 2-3 k€ scope (and I have seen these, too) will not give a particularly sharp image even at 50x, and when this is the case, it does not help much if light transmission or color balance are better.

Do not buy a scope based on specifications or brand alone. Always view with the very scope you might buy before deciding.

You are in the good situation of having your reference scope, meaning the scope you now own. If you really want a better one, take your existing scope with and compare. If another scope within your price range shows a superior enough image at the highest magnifications you wish to use in a side-by-side comparison to your current scope, then it is a good idea to buy it. Otherwise, it obviously is not.

Kimmo

tommybj · Sep 26, 2014

ClarkWGriswold said:
That sounds like very decent advice to me. Sorry but I should have mentioned that I've not looked through the big Opticron so can't compare. I'm sure I've read good feedback on BF though from other users.

Good luck with your choice.

Rich

No need to be sorry, i've asked for advice and you gave me advice:t:

I wasn't aware that my scope was of that quality either, but i must admit, that i have been looking through both Swarovski and Leica and thought, mine was nearly as good as those. I can remember when i bought the Hawke binocular, i also tried a Zeiss. The Zeiss had in my eyes much more CA than the Hawke and it costed three times more. But my friend who was with me, could see no CA in the Zeiss and a little in the Hawke. So its not always the glass its also the eyes and how you look in the binocular/scope.

kabsetz said:
Tommy,

Since nobody seems to have said it yet (I apologize if someone did, I gleaned through this thread pretty fast), I'll bring up the one bit that I think is essential for your decision.

Scopes are individuals. Whether or not it makes sense for you to upgrade depends first and foremost on whether or not your particular ES 80 GA has good optics or not. It might have excellent optics, or quite poor optics, or anything in between. This is because production tolerances more than the design itself determine how good the image is. A really good sample of the ES 80 GA will (and I have seen this) give a tack sharp image at 60x with good enough contrast and color rendition to satisfy a very discerning birder for a long time. Likewise, a bad sample of a 2-3 k€ scope (and I have seen these, too) will not give a particularly sharp image even at 50x, and when this is the case, it does not help much if light transmission or color balance are better.

Do not buy a scope based on specifications or brand alone. Always view with the very scope you might buy before deciding.

You are in the good situation of having your reference scope, meaning the scope you now own. If you really want a better one, take your existing scope with and compare. If another scope within your price range shows a superior enough image at the highest magnifications you wish to use in a side-by-side comparison to your current scope, then it is a good idea to buy it. Otherwise, it obviously is not.

Kimmo

Hi Kimmo.

You’re right, scopes are individuals. I’m pretty sure my Opticron is on the good side or else i wouldn’t have been so satisfied with it. My scope is sharp to about 50x then the pictures degrades a bit and gets darker. So if you wonder why I would like to get a new one even though, I think it depends a little bit on me just wanting to get a newer one because it’s supposed to be better than a 10 years old scope.

I’ve been on trips with some of my birder friends with their Kite scopes, one at a price around £ 900 and the other at around £ 1700 and I couldn’t get a decent look in the cheap one. It was all bluish on the edge. The more expensive one was better than mine, it was sharper and with more contrast, but not much.

I’ll consider what there has been written to me so far and maybe I’ll try to buy the new SDL v2 and maybe I’ll go to some shops and make a comparison between mine and the ones I could be interested in. If it turns out mine is as good at them, I’m sure I don’t change the scope, not yet.

Tommy

kabsetz · Sep 27, 2014

Tommy,

That sounds sensible. That will protect you from changing for something you may not end up liking any better. Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago I saw an ES 80 ED VIII (the latest upgraded model of your scope), and it had very well-corrected optics indeed, being very clean at full magnification. So you might also check the latest version of the same scope you already have to see how much or how little they have changed. Optical coatings are very likely improved, so brightness and contrast should be up.

Kimmo

Michael Kristensen · Sep 28, 2014

kabsetz said:
Tommy,

That sounds sensible. That will protect you from changing for something you may not end up liking any better. Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago I saw an ES 80 ED VIII (the latest upgraded model of your scope), and it had very well-corrected optics indeed, being very clean at full magnification. So you might also check the latest version of the same scope you already have to see how much or how little they have changed. Optical coatings are very likely improved, so brightness and contrast should be up.

Kimmo

Kimmo, what version was the review you've written here? As far as I can tell it is from 2007, so probably an older model. Since you've also looked trough the third version (V3/VIII) would you say that it is now in the top of its class for the price (found at £719 incl. HDF zoom eyepiece and stay-on-scope case)?

kabsetz · Sep 29, 2014

Michael,

I think it was the first version that was tested. As far as where the V3 would be respective to all or any of the other scopes in or slightly above its price range, I'm afraid that is a question that I cannot answer in a straightforward way.

Firstly, I haven't carefully evaluated all that many of the non-top scopes, so cannot say much of the quality of Hawke, Vanguard, Kite etc.

The thing that must be understood about scopes, irrespective of price or face-value quality, is that when we are using an 80mm scope (not to even mention 60-65mm scopes) at magnifications of 60x or more and trying to see the most detail possible, every fault in the optics will be visible in the resulting image. And none of the actual scopes (or, at least, very very few) are perfect. To learn to appreciate the difficulties involved, a good start is to look at Jan Meijerink's two articles (in Dutch, but understandable) on tvwg.nl website (Twentse vogelwerkgroep) that are on quality spread in top quality birding scopes. the first one concerns Zeiss 85 mm Diascopes, and the second one Kowa 883 scopes.

By perfect in the above paragraph I mean scopes in which deviations from optimal specifications do not cause optical aberrations that would visibly compromise aperture-limited performance. In my view, this is the most important feature of real-life birding scopes (or any telescopes), and overrides considerations such as light transmission or color balance. The Opticron ES does not have light transmission as high as the best premium scopes, does not have quite the contrast or the color neutrality, but the best individual units I have seen have had very low aberrations and consequently very sharp image with excellent "snap". A scope like this is very easy to use, does not tire your eyes, will give lots of detail and will cut through heat haze much better than a scope with mediocre or poor optics.

So maybe the real-life answer to your question would be that if you find an ES 80 V3 as good as the one I looked through, then yes, it will be in the top of its class for that price and surprisingly competitive against much more expensive optics. But if you get a mediocre or poor one, it will not be. And, as I said earlier, I have also seen rather bad samples of the older Opticron versions.

The reason why I'm bringing up these excellent Opticrons at all is that scopes with image this clean are not common at all among cheaper scopes, and are more an exception than the rule even among expensive scopes. It is very possible that the one I saw was a rare cherry, but the image did look like what I would expect to see in a good sample of the Meopta S2 or above, but not in a scope in the price range of the O.

Kimmo

Michael Kristensen · Sep 30, 2014

kabsetz said:
Michael,

I think it was the first version that was tested. As far as where the V3 would be respective to all or any of the other scopes in or slightly above its price range, I'm afraid that is a question that I cannot answer in a straightforward way.

Firstly, I haven't carefully evaluated all that many of the non-top scopes, so cannot say much of the quality of Hawke, Vanguard, Kite etc.

The thing that must be understood about scopes, irrespective of price or face-value quality, is that when we are using an 80mm scope (not to even mention 60-65mm scopes) at magnifications of 60x or more and trying to see the most detail possible, every fault in the optics will be visible in the resulting image. And none of the actual scopes (or, at least, very very few) are perfect. To learn to appreciate the difficulties involved, a good start is to look at Jan Meijerink's two articles (in Dutch, but understandable) on tvwg.nl website (Twentse vogelwerkgroep) that are on quality spread in top quality birding scopes. the first one concerns Zeiss 85 mm Diascopes, and the second one Kowa 883 scopes.

By perfect in the above paragraph I mean scopes in which deviations from optimal specifications do not cause optical aberrations that would visibly compromise aperture-limited performance. In my view, this is the most important feature of real-life birding scopes (or any telescopes), and overrides considerations such as light transmission or color balance. The Opticron ES does not have light transmission as high as the best premium scopes, does not have quite the contrast or the color neutrality, but the best individual units I have seen have had very low aberrations and consequently very sharp image with excellent "snap". A scope like this is very easy to use, does not tire your eyes, will give lots of detail and will cut through heat haze much better than a scope with mediocre or poor optics.

So maybe the real-life answer to your question would be that if you find an ES 80 V3 as good as the one I looked through, then yes, it will be in the top of its class for that price and surprisingly competitive against much more expensive optics. But if you get a mediocre or poor one, it will not be. And, as I said earlier, I have also seen rather bad samples of the older Opticron versions.

The reason why I'm bringing up these excellent Opticrons at all is that scopes with image this clean are not common at all among cheaper scopes, and are more an exception than the rule even among expensive scopes. It is very possible that the one I saw was a rare cherry, but the image did look like what I would expect to see in a good sample of the Meopta S2 or above, but not in a scope in the price range of the O.

Kimmo

Kimmo,

Thank you for that very insightful and thorough comment. I really appreciate it. I am beginning to understand what an important role quality variance has in choosing a scope. I have unfortunately not been able to find dealers of Opticron (and the other scopes I'm interested in) in my local area.

Even if I did have the opportunity to see through the scopes, I feel it would be difficult for me to assess the quality thoroughly enough in the environment of a shop with a short amount of time. Another problem with choosing a good iteration of a scope in a shop is that it's usually not feasible to watch through several samples of the same model.

You could then probably argue that if you can't see the difference, what does it matter? But I would think that even if you couldn't see the difference in the shop-setting, you may be able to see it out in a real birding situation. Also, you're saying that well-corrected optics are not as tiring to the eyes, which is something you will notice eventually but maybe not right away.

Do you have any tips for choosing a good individual scope in a shop? I am in a different situation than tommybj in that I don't have a scope already (and have never owned one), so I have no reference scope to bring with me.

One point I'm thinking about is to try to choose brands that have tighter production tolerances because this leads to lower optical variance. But it also leads to more expensive scopes and is probably one of the reasons the alpha scopes are so expensive. The variance of especially the Kowa scopes in the articles you referred to seem to me to be very acceptable. But of course 13 samples is not a large statistical sample size.

New scope intead of ES80GA Waterproof (1 Viewer)

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