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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Value of Used Zeiss Diascope (1 Viewer)

cecil

New member
Hi all-

Just getting into birding and I'm looking at a used spotting scope:
85 T FL with 20x - 60x eyepiece. It is the older green model with a few dings on it. No tripod or accessories. Any idea on what I should offer for it? I'm not able to look at in person but seller reports it is in good shape mechanically. He states that it has a few minor scratches on the the eyepiece lens that can be seen with a flashlight at the right angle but the overall image in is not affected.
 
Hi and welcome to the birding community. This is a wonderful hobby, gets you out and around seeing beautiful creatures, often very unexpectedly.
Re the Zeiss, Ebay shows several for $1000-1500+ currently, but they seem to be in better shape.
Scratches are not of an issue, but dings can be. Scopes have a pretty exact optical path which suffers if any of the lenses are knocked askew.
Because this is a heavy scope, you'll need a hefty tripod for it to shine. That makes for a car and short hike only combo.
In general, a scope is a fairly specialized piece of birding gear, most useful for observing shore and water birds,
which can be viewed at length over an open space. Here the very narrow field of the scope does not handicap the birder and the greater power can be usefully applied.
As an alternative, consider a stabilized set of binoculars . They are nowhere near as powerful as a scope can be, but are a lot more widely useful while still offering better than normal hand held binocular viewing.
 
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