BoldenEagle
Well-known member
Hi to all,
I’m planning to get new spotting scope to replace my Leica Apo Televid 82 + 25-50x. I’ve had my Leica about 7 years now and been quite happy with it. The main reasons I want to get new scope are: Leica’s magnification is somewhat limited by the maximum of 50x (there are no other eyepieces available, although I own the 1.8x extender, I get to that later in this post), sharpness and contrast could be little better I think and also brightness, lastly the sope is quite heavy; well over 2 kilos (with stay on case, which by the way is excellent).
I have done some star testing with my Leica and with my understanding it has at least some or perhaps a lot of spherical aberration. From what I have read, this is somewhat expected issue with this scope. In real field situations (I’m a birder) I have found Leica to be mostly very good but in the highest mag. image quality drops some amount and also brightness loss is (of course?) quite pronounced. I dont regard this Leica scope to be exceptionally bright anyway, I’m not saying it’s bad in this regard but I would hope to see even better brightness in this price group. Same applies with sharpness and contrast; it’s not bad but should imo be little better. Maybe the transmission is not that good because I directly compared Leica to my older scope (Nikon Fieldscope ED82) and found the Nikon to be more bright at same mag. and it has the same objective lens diameter as Leica? Though the Nikon was brighter, it’s image quality was worse than Leica and I think I had bad sample with Nikon because I have seen same scope to have much better iq. Nikon 25-75x zoom eyepiece was terrible and with eyeglasses near unusable in the field because of it’s narrow fov, poor eye relief and blurry image at high mags. The Nikon 38x wideangle eyepiece was quite good though it had poor edge sharpness, with eyeglasses I usually used that with birding.
I really like Leica’s two roll focusing system (I found large central wheel which for example Nikon ED82 has, to cause more shaking when focusing and it was imo too fast). I’m also very happy with the huge field of view of 25-50xWW eyepiece and the overall image it delivers and it is easy to use with eyeglasses. The 1.8x extender (resulting 45-90x) is usable in good conditions but the image quality drops too much in the higher mags. and image is quite dark. Imo in the field with the extender image quality stays reasonable to about 70x mag., beyond that light falls off too much and it’s hard to get any more resolution with zooming up.
So the deal is, if I rule out Swaroski ATX and Zeiss Harpia (too expensive), which sope could be better than my current Leica? I have compared my Leica with one sample of Kowa 883 +25-60x and found the Kowa to have worse iq than Leica; it had less sharpness and contrast. I didn’t do star test or any exact resolution test because the situation was already evident in 10 seconds when I looked through the Kowa in direct comparison. I expected the Kowa to be better and was ready to buy it to replace my Leica but after the comparison I kept my Leica. Kowa 883 with 25-60x eyepiece was very joy to look through in other respects and I also liked the same kind of focusing system with two small diameter rollers (but compared to Leica the fine focus was bit too fast, imo it could be even slower than in Leica to be perfect). I have heard so many positive opinions with Kowa 883, that I assume I must have had very bad sample which I have looked through. At that time, I didn’t test any other scopes than Kowa.
When I seven years ago bought my Leica, I compared it with Swarovski ATS/ATM, new Zeiss Diascope and also Kowa 883 but with older zoom eyepiece (20-60x). Then I found the Leica to be best of them with eyeglasses. The specimen I bought was not the same that I tested against others so there could have been all kind of sample effects involved.
Now, although I generally dislike scopes with big central focusing wheel, I have been thinking of Meopta S2 82 HD to replace my Leica. For what I have read, it seems to have better light transmission, maybe sharpness and contrast also. It has two available eyepieces which both have higher maximun magnification than Leica. It is also more lightweight than Leica. Meopta is not so expensive either and my friend is already buying my Leica if I buy new scope for myself. I’m planning to test Meopta in near future. I would be very glad to hear opinions on Meopta S2 82 HD with either of the eyepieces and especially how good quality control Meopta has; is there lot of sample variation because I’m not sure if I can test several specimens and then pick the best sample? Are the both available eyepieces (20-70x and 30-60x) equal with viewing glasses on?
Best regards,
Juhani
I’m planning to get new spotting scope to replace my Leica Apo Televid 82 + 25-50x. I’ve had my Leica about 7 years now and been quite happy with it. The main reasons I want to get new scope are: Leica’s magnification is somewhat limited by the maximum of 50x (there are no other eyepieces available, although I own the 1.8x extender, I get to that later in this post), sharpness and contrast could be little better I think and also brightness, lastly the sope is quite heavy; well over 2 kilos (with stay on case, which by the way is excellent).
I have done some star testing with my Leica and with my understanding it has at least some or perhaps a lot of spherical aberration. From what I have read, this is somewhat expected issue with this scope. In real field situations (I’m a birder) I have found Leica to be mostly very good but in the highest mag. image quality drops some amount and also brightness loss is (of course?) quite pronounced. I dont regard this Leica scope to be exceptionally bright anyway, I’m not saying it’s bad in this regard but I would hope to see even better brightness in this price group. Same applies with sharpness and contrast; it’s not bad but should imo be little better. Maybe the transmission is not that good because I directly compared Leica to my older scope (Nikon Fieldscope ED82) and found the Nikon to be more bright at same mag. and it has the same objective lens diameter as Leica? Though the Nikon was brighter, it’s image quality was worse than Leica and I think I had bad sample with Nikon because I have seen same scope to have much better iq. Nikon 25-75x zoom eyepiece was terrible and with eyeglasses near unusable in the field because of it’s narrow fov, poor eye relief and blurry image at high mags. The Nikon 38x wideangle eyepiece was quite good though it had poor edge sharpness, with eyeglasses I usually used that with birding.
I really like Leica’s two roll focusing system (I found large central wheel which for example Nikon ED82 has, to cause more shaking when focusing and it was imo too fast). I’m also very happy with the huge field of view of 25-50xWW eyepiece and the overall image it delivers and it is easy to use with eyeglasses. The 1.8x extender (resulting 45-90x) is usable in good conditions but the image quality drops too much in the higher mags. and image is quite dark. Imo in the field with the extender image quality stays reasonable to about 70x mag., beyond that light falls off too much and it’s hard to get any more resolution with zooming up.
So the deal is, if I rule out Swaroski ATX and Zeiss Harpia (too expensive), which sope could be better than my current Leica? I have compared my Leica with one sample of Kowa 883 +25-60x and found the Kowa to have worse iq than Leica; it had less sharpness and contrast. I didn’t do star test or any exact resolution test because the situation was already evident in 10 seconds when I looked through the Kowa in direct comparison. I expected the Kowa to be better and was ready to buy it to replace my Leica but after the comparison I kept my Leica. Kowa 883 with 25-60x eyepiece was very joy to look through in other respects and I also liked the same kind of focusing system with two small diameter rollers (but compared to Leica the fine focus was bit too fast, imo it could be even slower than in Leica to be perfect). I have heard so many positive opinions with Kowa 883, that I assume I must have had very bad sample which I have looked through. At that time, I didn’t test any other scopes than Kowa.
When I seven years ago bought my Leica, I compared it with Swarovski ATS/ATM, new Zeiss Diascope and also Kowa 883 but with older zoom eyepiece (20-60x). Then I found the Leica to be best of them with eyeglasses. The specimen I bought was not the same that I tested against others so there could have been all kind of sample effects involved.
Now, although I generally dislike scopes with big central focusing wheel, I have been thinking of Meopta S2 82 HD to replace my Leica. For what I have read, it seems to have better light transmission, maybe sharpness and contrast also. It has two available eyepieces which both have higher maximun magnification than Leica. It is also more lightweight than Leica. Meopta is not so expensive either and my friend is already buying my Leica if I buy new scope for myself. I’m planning to test Meopta in near future. I would be very glad to hear opinions on Meopta S2 82 HD with either of the eyepieces and especially how good quality control Meopta has; is there lot of sample variation because I’m not sure if I can test several specimens and then pick the best sample? Are the both available eyepieces (20-70x and 30-60x) equal with viewing glasses on?
Best regards,
Juhani