Kowa 663ED or 663M quandary.... (1 Viewer)

I'm pondering upgrading from my trusty 613 scope body to either a 663ED or the later 663M. I know the object lens size difference is only 6mm from the 613 but, and if I'm to believe the blurb, this seemingly small difference is alleged to make it '120% brighter...' than the 60mm. Seems hard to be credible. I understand that the 'M' refers to 'modified' like it did for the 820M series when they changed the prism housing brackets from plastic to metal. I understand that the modification for the 663M is different body colour and that coating change on the object lens....but has the optical quality improved as well from the 663ED, I can't find anyone who owns/has owned either 663!

Two reasons why I'm thinking of the change:

1. A store here in the UK has a short-term offer on at present for the 663M body at £744 new, the offer is ending very shortly...so I'm pushed for time.

2. I have a Nikon ED78 scope and a few months ago, just for a laugh, I held some of the MC Nikon eyepieces up to the 613...obviously, the Nikon eyepieces are screw-fit so they would not go beyond the bayonet-fitting of the Kowa scope's eyepiece body aperture. Anyway, I was totally amazed at the image improvement compared to the Kowa eyepiece(one of the newer ones), more contrasty and sharper right to the edge, and slightly wider field, so I immediately thought how I could fit the Nikon eyepieces to the Kowa body. I had a metal adapter made which screws on to the outer body-cap thread of the Kowa's eyepiece aperture, works great, all the Nikon eyepieces focussed nicely beyond infinity too. Of course, the focal lengths of the Kowa and Nikon scope bodies are different so the 38xW Nikon eyepiece became 30xW on the 613. However, the greatest revelation was when I fitted the Nikon 40x/60x/75x to the 613, this made the eyepiece equiv. to 60xWide...image was staggering, pin-sharp to the edge and that lovely wide field....far, far better than the old railway-tunnel-like Kowa non-wide 60x and 77x eyepieces...I'm glad these two are hard to find...I wouldn't want to find them now, anyway! Now here's the quandary...although the Nikon eyepiece was surprisingly bright, that 60x on a 60mm scope is bound to be less bright so, if I got either of the 663s would it make the image significantly brighter than on the 613? It's still pretty good brightness with the Nikon 60xW on the 613, though.

...should I save my money and stick with the 613, or wait and hope a s/h 663ED turns up for sale soon, please?

Thanks.

Steve

Hi,

I don't think that an upgrade from 60 to 66mm will give a lot better view. I would keep my money and maybe save up for an 883.

Joachim, still quite content with his TSN-3

Thank you Joachim.

You are probably correct but I've just been to try out the earlier version 663ED with my Kowa eyepieces and I was quite surprised how much brighter the 60xW equiv. Nikon eyepiece performed coupled with my adapter. I even tried a Swarovski ATS 65HD with 25x-50x eyepiece they had and the Kowa combination, even at 60x, seemed a little brighter and even sharper than the Swazzo at 50x....I can't understand it! Perhaps there are some astronomy experts out there who may be able to explain this weird lens effect?

It has convinced me to go for 663M, though....that's IF I can sell my trusty Kowa TSN-3 and Nikon ED78A which I will put in Forums's sale area in the next few days, when I can find the time. By the way, the 60xW Nikon eyepiece combination worked even better, obviously, on the larger 77mm ob.lens of the TSN-3. I am loathe to part with them but they are hardly used now as I need a more compact scope for carrying.

Hi,

if you have a TSN-3, I would keep it.
It is a very nice scope - was birding last thursday with a nice collection of two Leica APO 77, an old Swaro AT80HD and an ATS65 present and everybody was raving about my TSN-3 and Opticron SDLv2.

The 663 body weights 1kg, the TSN-3 1,3 kg. If your kit is too heavy, shop for a carbon tripod and/or a scopac or clone. The latter allows carrying your scope like a backpack and one really doesn't notice the weight when doing this.

Joachim

I was out watching a Squacco Heron earlier today with my TSN4 and SDL V2 (just the straight version of jring's rig) can't fault it. It's going to cost me a couple of thousand, or thereabouts, to get a really worthwhile improvement = not happening! Camera/lenses come first.

I agree,..the main improvement ,when compared with your tsn3,would be weight/size,and again ,not a lot..and yes, a tad brighter than your 613,at a given magnification,but the difference in exit pupil size would not be huge ..maybe significant in really low light, I agree on that,but then you have larger scopes if you need a view in such conditions..the only consolidation of equipment that might be worth the upgrade ,for me,would be the swaro atx system,starting with the 65 module,if you use that size a lot,but keeping the door open for a larger objective in the future...you can keep your ed82 for high power til then..I own an old 823 and saw a noticeable improvement in the view ,comparing it with the atx85 ...the swaro is really a step forward in image quality .For all the reviews i have read the 65 atx is also an incredible scope,in terms of resolution....

johnf3f said:

I was out watching a Squacco Heron earlier today with my TSN4 and SDL V2 (just the straight version of jring's rig) can't fault it. It's going to cost me a couple of thousand, or thereabouts, to get a really worthwhile improvement = not happening! Camera/lenses come first.

Click to expand...

Hi John,

I have to thank you again for writing about this combination here and patiently answer my questions before I bought the Opticron Zoom. I guess I'll have this combination for a long time - at least I haven't yet found a scope that made me contract a severe case of upgradeditis.

I've thought a bit about that birding outing last thursday and why everybody was raving about the TSN-3 and SDLv2.

It probably was for the following reasons:

- The subjects were two peregrine falcon chicks sitting in front of the nest near the top of a power station chimney with the occasional parent coming in with food. The distance was maybe 150 meters, so high magnification was called for. This and the fact that there was two chicks to see nicely accentuated the quite wide (74 deg afov at the high mag end) and almost sharp to the edge view at 54x.

- Also the lighting conditions were quite challenging, especially at the start, as we were looking almost head-on into the sun (less than 10 degrees beside the target).
The Kowa was quite unaffected by this and showed a nice image with good contrast (partly to the lens-hood which I habitually extend, but we retracted it to cross-check and it was still quite good).
All the other scopes on site (yesterdays alphas - two Leica 77 - one APO - not sure of the other, a Swaro AT80HD and an ATS65) showed varying degrees of glare effects like bad contrast and washed out colours.

Regards,

Joachim

jring said:

Hi John,

I have to thank you again for writing about this combination here and patiently answer my questions before I bought the Opticron Zoom. I guess I'll have this combination for a long time - at least I haven't yet found a scope that made me contract a severe case of upgradeditis.

I've thought a bit about that birding outing last thursday and why everybody was raving about the TSN-3 and SDLv2.

It probably was for the following reasons:

- The subjects were two peregrine falcon chicks sitting in front of the nest near the top of a power station chimney with the occasional parent coming in with food. The distance was maybe 150 meters, so high magnification was called for. This and the fact that there was two chicks to see nicely accentuated the quite wide (74 deg afov at the high mag end) and almost sharp to the edge view at 54x.

- Also the lighting conditions were quite challenging, especially at the start, as we were looking almost head-on into the sun (less than 10 degrees beside the target).
The Kowa was quite unaffected by this and showed a nice image with good contrast (partly to the lens-hood which I habitually extend, but we retracted it to cross-check and it was still quite good).
All the other scopes on site (yesterdays alphas - two Leica 77 - one APO - not sure of the other, a Swaro AT80HD and an ATS65) showed varying degrees of glare effects like bad contrast and washed out colours.

Regards,

Joachim

Click to expand...

I am very happy with my TSN4 + SDL V2, it's not perfect but it does rather better than I expected. It sounds like your TSN3 performs better than my TSN4 when looking towards the sun = lucky you!

Certainly I would prefer a Kowa 883/4 or similar but cannot justify the price for my uses.

I have since tried a 663M body with all my Kowa eyepieces, and the Nikon MC wide ones with my adapter.

For a start, and some weird reason, when I fitted my adapter on that outer thread on the 663M body plus the MC eyepieces they would not focus on infinity(that is, the horizon, moon, stars, etc.) and yet they did on infinity with the 663ED and on my 613&TSN-3...very strange. So, some tweak there.... I think that the outer thread on the scope body, on to which my adapter screws, is shallower than on the 663M than on the 663ED,613, and also my TSN-3, so the adapter would not screw on fully like on those three, perhaps that's why I've lost that infinity feature now on the 663M. Anyway, perhaps with this setback I'm not able to truly comment on the image quality of the 663M with the Nikon eyepieces fitted.

However, I did try the old Kowa TSN 30xWide, the old Kowa 20x-40x zoom and the newer Kowa 30x wide(TSE-14WD) eyepieces on the 663M....and frankly, was quite disappointed. Not sure if it was batch difference to blame, though Kowa are/were usually excellent on quality control, but I just could not get a crisp, sharp image with any of the eyepieces, yet the same eyepieces on my 613 and TSN-3 were pin-sharp. I waited until dusk for a brightness test, and there was quite a noticeable difference between the 66mm of the 663M and the 60mm of the 613...in fact, the 663M was very nearly as bright as the TSN-3, really surprised me. Afraid I decided to return the 663M.

So, in a nutshell, I'll probably have to hunt down a s/h 663ED if I wanted to use my adapter for the Nikon eyepieces.

By the way, I have my TSN-3 for sale on the Forum at present(along with my Nikon ED78), so as regards weight mentioned earlier for the TSN-3, I had to take them to the post office just to weigh for postage estimate. I don't know where that 1.3kg comes about (jring) but my TSN-3 body alone, without eyepiece, weighs 1.6kg, and with older 30xW plus Skua stay-on-case, it totals 1.95kg. Also, when all the stuff is together on the TSN-3, as well as weight, it is quite bulky too compared, obviously, to the 660 ones and my 613.

I wonder if, with my adapter, the Nikon eyepieces would work on Opticron scopes....that's another story then!

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Steve

Crake Dude said:

By the way, I have my TSN-3 for sale on the Forum at present(along with my Nikon ED78), so as regards weight mentioned earlier for the TSN-3, I had to take them to the post office just to weigh for postage estimate. I don't know where that 1.3kg comes about (jring) but my TSN-3 body alone, without eyepiece, weighs 1.6kg, and with older 30xW plus Skua stay-on-case, it totals 1.95kg. Also, when all the stuff is together on the TSN-3, as well as weight, it is quite bulky too compared, obviously, to the 660 ones and my 613.

Click to expand...

Hi,

actually the 1.3kg for the TSN-3 were measured on my bathroom scale, 5 goes my body, 5 goes my body plus TSN-3 body, average and subtract.

But since this indeed is not the most accurate instrument (rated at +-100g) I decided to supplement my trusty measuring jug with a kitchen scale...

This high precision instrument made in china passes a first sanity check with the 100g test weight with flying colours and gives just a tad below 1.3kg for the TSN-3 body.

So does your TSN-3 look any different, Steve? There was a later model which has a protective window in front of the prisms making the body more waterproof and it also said multicoated I think.

Regards,

Joachim

Thank you for going to that trouble, Jaochim.

That's both very interesting, and worrying. I only have some kitchen scales which go to 1.5kg. My TSN-3 looks the same earlier model like yours, the one without the prism cover, and with different letter colours on the body-side. The weights were given to me by the village post office scales, so I hope they are not trying to swindle me. Next week I will try a larger post office in a nearby town. I did take the eyepiece and s.o.case off first and weighed just the body for curiosity and it showed 1.6kg on the PO scales. That's very strange. Will keep you posted.

I didn't weigh the 663M during the short time I had it but, as I lifted it out of its box, I was quite surprised how heavy it seemed, just the body alone. I lightly tapped the scope's body with a finger and it seemed to have almost a metal sound, quite different to my 613. I thought the 663M body was supposed to be a polycarbonate, or is it magnesium, or a mix?

Thanks again.

Steve

Hi Steve,

the 663 is still being sold new so Kowa has the manual online which gives 1040g - I have no reason to doubt that.

But please before you sell it - if you haven't tried the SDLv2 on the Kowa body, get that o-ring for a few pence and try it. If it is anything like mine, you will not want to sell it any more and you can easily get a lighter and/or easier to carry package by getting a carbon tripod with a light head and a scopac or mulepack.

Joachim

Thanks again, Joachim.

Re: Opticron SDLv2 zoom....check my entry in the For Sale bit of the Forum.

Steve

Hi Steve,

because we were just talking about Opticron zooms as an option on Nikon bodies... have you tried the SDLv2 on the Fieldscope and did it come to focus?

If you did, you might chime in there...

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=326497

Regards,

Joachim