[Kevin Conville]

I don't want to get between Steve and Alexis with their debate, though I have a prejudice towards Nikon for it's excellent performance, but I have a comment about my experience with both company's product.

I've never had a failure with the many Nikon products I've had over a lot of years. Perfectly reliable.
The ED50's foot insert is simply resolved by using a plate that remains semi-permanently attached and this is what interfaces with whatever head you're using. The main issue being not the weakness of the insert into plastic, though that's not ideal admittedly, it's that people tend to over tighten threaded mounts to keep them tight to the head. A plate solves this and I've never had any issue of this kind after hundreds of uses.

Vortex, on the other hand has shown me problems. I had a pair of 8x32 something or others and the focus mechanism disintegrated (seemingly made of cheese) within several days, bought new. My brother had a pair of vipers that in about a week exhibited diopter shift to the point of being unusable. He also had one of their small scopes and the objective cell rattled, as in loose.

I personally wouldn't buy a Vortex product, regardless of their replacement policy. I don't buy field optics to have them replaced for being defective. I'm not their QC department.

[Alexis Powell]

Originally Posted by Kevin Conville

...I don't want to get between Steve and Alexis with their debate, though I have a prejudice towards Nikon for it's excellent performance, but I have a comment about my experience with both company's product.

I've never had a failure with the many Nikon products I've had over a lot of years. Perfectly reliable.
The ED50's foot insert is simply resolved by using a plate that remains semi-permanently attached and this is what interfaces with whatever head you're using. The main issue being not the weakness of the insert into plastic, though that's not ideal admittedly, it's that people tend to over tighten threaded mounts to keep them tight to the head. A plate solves this and I've never had any issue of this kind after hundreds of uses...

Well, since I'm unflinchingly honest, I'll have to side w/Steve about the original design of the ED50 foot. It wasn't good. Mine failed even though I used it with a RRS non-rotating Arca-style QR plate. Maybe I had it on too tight. The helicoil started unwinding. A well designed socket would not be vulnerable to this, whether overtightened or not. The new (as of 5+ years ago) ED50 foot design still has a plastic foot, but the metal insert is solid so it doesn't uncoil. This failure came as a great surprise to me because otherwise, I agree that Nikon executes a design and manufacturing philosophy that puts particular emphasis on robustness and a high level and consistency of quality-control. I have more confidence in Nikon in these regards than many other of my favorite brands, including Swarovski, Zeiss, and Leica.

--AP