Eyepiece replacement for Nikon Fieldscope III? (1 Viewer)

A friend has kindly offered to give me his old Nikon Fieldscope IIIA. He lost the eyepiece but seems to think I can find a replacement somewhere. I know nothing about scopes, but I'm hoping I can find something that will fit.

Here's what he says about it:

"It has a 60 mm diameter outer lens. It comes with a field case and indoor storage case. Unfortunately, the original 40X eyepiece dropped out while I was carrying the scope in the field and was lost years ago. I believe a replacement eyepiece would be designated as either Mc or Ds. Replacement eyepieces of a variety of powers can apparently be ordered from dealers in Japan and have sold perhaps in neighborhood of $300. A fixed 30X or a zoom eyepiece might perhaps be more useful than the lost 40X. In its day, roughly about the early 2000s, the Fieldscope III was highly rated..."
As I have Nikon DSLR cameras, I am hoping to also perhaps use this for digiscoping.

Thanks for any possible leads. Happy birding!

Hi,

first of all, welcome to birdforum!

The non- ED Fieldscope III is still a good scope - I would recommend to get a 30x wide EP.

The following EPs are still available new from Nikon, the magnification for your scope will be the first number when two are listed, the middle one, when three are listed.

https://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/sportoptics/scopes/ds/index.htm
https://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/sportoptics/scopes/mc/index.htm

Joachim

jring said:

Hi,

first of all, welcome to birdforum!

The non- ED Fieldscope III is still a good scope - I would recommend to get a 30x wide EP.

The following EPs are still available new from Nikon, the magnification for your scope will be the first number when two are listed, the middle one, when three are listed.

https://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/sportoptics/scopes/ds/index.htm
https://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/sportoptics/scopes/mc/index.htm

Joachim

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the welcome and links. I guess I've got some homework to do. Looks like a lot of choices out there.
What is an "ED" scope?

animalartist2 said:

Thank you very much for the welcome and links. I guess I've got some homework to do. Looks like a lot of choices out there.
What is an "ED" scope?

Click to expand...

Sorry to have to deliver bad news, but unfortunately (even though Nikon still shows them on their website), only the 27/40/50x DS and 13/20/25-40/60/75x zoom are widely available these days (e.g. on Amazon USA as direct import from Japan) because the 50ED is the only currently made Nikon model that uses these eyepiece series. You will also be able to find the 16/24/30x DS and 20/24x MC (old model, not extrawide, but quite nice) fairly easily (and usually new) on ebay. Others only turn up surprisingly infrequently.

ED refers to Extra-low Dispersion glass. Such scopes can be optically superior by virtue of having less chromatic aberration. The Nikon 60mm Fieldscopes were available in regular and ED versions.

--AP

I have an older 30x mc with the fold down eyecup that I barely use. Please DM me if this is of interest, and we could discuss a price & postage. I think somewhere in the region of $100 all in would be fair.

Alexis Powell said:

Sorry to have to deliver bad news, but unfortunately (even though Nikon still shows them on their website), only the 27/40/50x DS and 13/20/25-40/60/75x zoom are widely available these days (e.g. on Amazon USA as direct import from Japan) because the 50ED is the only currently made Nikon model that uses these eyepiece series. You will also be able to find the 16/24/30x DS and 20/24x MC (old model, not extrawide, but quite nice) fairly easily (and usually new) on ebay. Others only turn up surprisingly infrequently.

ED refers to Extra-low Dispersion glass. Such scopes can be optically superior by virtue of having less chromatic aberration. The Nikon 60mm Fieldscopes were available in regular and ED versions.

--AP

Click to expand...

Thank you. My friend says he thinks this is an ED version.

We are in touch so I will confer with him as well. I'm still pretty confused by the terminology- need to understand the basics before making a choice.

animalartist2 said:

Thank you. My friend says he thinks this is an ED version.

We are in touch so I will confer with him as well. I'm still pretty confused by the terminology- need to understand the basics before making a choice.

Click to expand...

Although with a 30 wide, even a non-ED version will be just fine.

Joachim

If if is the ED version, I think it will say so on the scope, and if not, it will at least have a red decorative ring around the objective lens cell (easily visible decorative feature).

--AP