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New Nikon 82mm object lens scope (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Colin
- Start date
Ragna
Well-known member
Steve i think all scopes and binoculars suffer from fogging on cold days.I find that turning the eyecups down and moving my eyes a bit futher back from the lenses helps a bit.But then withyour glasses your eyecups will allready be down.Could electrically heated eyepieces be a thing of the future.
Ragna
Well-known member
.I' dont know any body who has had bins or a scope mist up inside.Always had a case on the Kowa And if it rained always stuck my bins under my jacket. Steve.When i logged on to scopes i noticed no one was viewing Swarovski but 12 were viewing Nikon.Your making this part to popular.
Ragna said:
One of the birding celebrities who promotes Leica products burbles on about how he wrestled with an Anaconda and in the process his bins were submerged and walked on. Surely you do not want to take the risk and not have waterproofing do you? Reckless. We don't have Anacondas in Slough but slow worms are commonplace and you don't want to get on the wrong side of one of those.
Seriously though, some years ago I was taking pictures of dragonflies in the New Forest, turned round to get something and heard a splash as my tripod toppled, thus dunking an expensive camera and lens. The camera - bought used for £400 - was ruined and the lens was sent back to Nikon who over-charged me to clean it - £200.
I could also imagine myself going for a dip while walking across the heaths and bogs. Mind you it is unclear to me whether even waterproof optics could remain undamaged by the very fine silt in New Forest streams. I am sure it would wreak havoc with the mechanics.
A few years ago a friend had some bins flood in rain and hence now uses Pentax DCF WP 8x42 where WP=waterproof.
I think that 99.99% of the time in the UK waterproofing is not needed and rain-proofing is enough.
One point worth making is that roof prism bins require expensive coatings. I believe that they are delicate - especially silver on glass which does not adhere well - and cleaning might not be a realistic prospect. Hence roof prisms tend to require decent sealing i.e. rain-proofing at the minimum.
Edward woodwood
Member
used my Zeiss 7 x42s in tropics for very long periods, and in proper rainstorms without any protection and never had then mist at all. My caseles Kowa has likewise never misted in extreme conditions....Always had total confidence in them....not so with some of the more recent bins though....Said this a few times...my mates three different Swarovs have all misted in the tropics.
Some of the comments on here re the essentialness of waterproofing seem way over the top for your average British birding. No bins or scope should let water in over here unless you submerge em!
Some of the comments on here re the essentialness of waterproofing seem way over the top for your average British birding. No bins or scope should let water in over here unless you submerge em!
scampo
Steve Campsall
Well - I think Nikon are worth a look and for whatever reason, Swaro and Leica virtually ruled the roost in BF until recently. I think the balance has been more fairly drawn.Ragna said:
On the subject of scopes, I've been messing about digiscoping without birds on this wet and rainy day - I was using a lens resolution target instead. I need to do a little more before I am sure enough of my results before posting my results here but they are rather interesting.
I have compared the Swaro 65HD + zoom with the Nikon ED82 + zoom. So far, at the lowest magnification, the Nikon seems to be the sharpest, but at the highest magnification, the two are either the same, or if not, the Swaro is just ahead - yet at this end of the zoom, the Nikon is 75x versus Swaro's 60x. Interesting stuff - and not a subjective hair in sight! Fact is, of course, that both scopes resolved the finest detail from the charts really well.
Scott Crabtree
Member
Ragna said:
My 12-year old Swarovski AT-80 fogged internally twice in three years. That was why I decided to move on to something waterproof, and for all the other reasons I've related earlier, decided upon the Nikon 82 ED. (There, I got the reference in so that my post is relevant to the thread!)
That said, Swaro North America was absolutely faultless in their service. No questions asked - back it went to Austria for service at no cost. And, they got it back to me in the US in seven weeks, both times.
Scott
Grousemore
Senior Member
Scott Crabtree said:
Faultless service maybe,Scott,but you may have missed an awful lot of birds in 14 weeks...
Tim Allwood said:Current prices from our BF Sponsor!
ED78 with x30MC £649 1435g
ED82 with x30MC £939 1575g (new reduced price)
Swarovski ATS80HD with x30 £1330 1280g
Zeiss Diascope 85 with x30 £1080 1450g
With no 'real' optical diff in the x30 performance i opted for the cheapo 'old' Nikon (which was over a grand before the 'new' model)
Still don't use it as much as my little old Kowa 614 though
note that weights are witout eyepieces.....I did this quickly...there may be minor errors....so be kind if u spot one
Can anyone tell me if the angled ED 78 has the facility for rotating the eyepiece through 90 degrees? I'm very tempted and the comments I read in here make me more so.
Bill Lord
Edward woodwood
Member
it's a class bit of gear Bill
hope it brings u a lot of pleasure and birds
what a bargain!
hope it brings u a lot of pleasure and birds
what a bargain!
digi-birder
Well-known member
Bill, on behalf of admin and all the moderating team, welcome to Bird Forum.
I'm glad you found the information in this thread useful, and I hope you enjoy your new scope. We look forward to hearing about what you see with it.
I'm glad you found the information in this thread useful, and I hope you enjoy your new scope. We look forward to hearing about what you see with it.
What a company to deal with, I ordered the straight scope after they assured me that the body did not rotate so after your replies last night I rang them this morning. They will send an angled scope out to be here tomorrow, they will include a set of compact binoculars ( probably not very good ones but they can sit in my pocket when I go out without all the rest of the gear. Then he said that he would reduce the price of the angled scope by £20 because of the problems that they had caused. What a brilliant company.
I shall save up for the 30X eyepiece when I have finally found the last of the money for the ED scope, I only set out to spend about £300 when I first looked at the Nikon spotting scope 80 a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think I shall ever regret this scope.
I shall save up for the 30X eyepiece when I have finally found the last of the money for the ED scope, I only set out to spend about £300 when I first looked at the Nikon spotting scope 80 a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think I shall ever regret this scope.
Colin
Axeman (Retired)
I was at a teeny weeny local twitch a few days ago to see a bird that was quite rare for that particular site. There were a handful of people there with a few more coming and going. One person had the new Nikon Ed 82 with a fixed eyepiece (30x). The bird, a Purple Sandpiper was quite flighty and difficult to refind among the Dunlin. However the person with the new scope seemed to have better luck in relocating the bird and let others look throught his scope so that they could get a view if the birds flew again. Everyone was amazed at the clarity (which undoubtedly helped in finding the bird) and there were lots of very impressed birders including some very experienced ones. In other words, these were people who were used to looking through scopes and not people for whom scopes are a new experience.
digi-birder
Well-known member
bill lord said:
They are not too bad, Bill. We keep ours in the car just in case. Better than nothing.
I, too, have found Warehouse Express to be very helpful (I presume that's who you're talking about) - they upgraded a camera for me a couple of years ago, a week after I realised I'd made a terrible mistake in ordering the cheaper one.
