FrankD
Well-known member
I am now in the market for a zoom eyepiece for my Pentax 65 mm ED angled scope. I have several fixed eyepieces both for general birding and for digiscoping use. However, I think I would also like to add a zoom eyepiece to the lineup just to have something to cover all situations. I imagine it would be more convenient to have a zoom eyepiece at times for general birding.
Having said that I dug through the forum archives and found that, on the moderately expensive end, the Vixen Lanthanum zoom is recommended while, on the inexpensive end, the Scoptronix zoom comes fairly highly regarded. The Pentax XF series zoom would also be worthy of consideration assuming that 11 mm of eye relief on the high mag. end won't be too troublesome. Am I leaving any good ones out in either of these price ranges? Ofcourse, I would love to have the XW zoom but at close to $400 it is going to be out of my price range until at least Christmas. Also, since I do not plan on digiscoping with it I am not going to be as critical about having the absolute best image quality. I know the field of view is going to be fairly restricted but if one model has slightly more of it then that would definitely be a plus.
Any and all input would be appreciated.
Thank you ahead of time for the help.
Having said that I dug through the forum archives and found that, on the moderately expensive end, the Vixen Lanthanum zoom is recommended while, on the inexpensive end, the Scoptronix zoom comes fairly highly regarded. The Pentax XF series zoom would also be worthy of consideration assuming that 11 mm of eye relief on the high mag. end won't be too troublesome. Am I leaving any good ones out in either of these price ranges? Ofcourse, I would love to have the XW zoom but at close to $400 it is going to be out of my price range until at least Christmas. Also, since I do not plan on digiscoping with it I am not going to be as critical about having the absolute best image quality. I know the field of view is going to be fairly restricted but if one model has slightly more of it then that would definitely be a plus.
Any and all input would be appreciated.
Thank you ahead of time for the help.