Hawke Sapphire v Frontier v Endurance (1 Viewer)

Roy C · Dec 8, 2015

giosblue said:
To be honest Roy, I don't think you can go far wrong with any scope with a fixed 30xLikeas been said previously, it's when your pushing the mag and losing light. The old Optolyth with the fixed 30x was excellent. I've come into a few bob so I thought I would treat myself in my old age.

Thanks for that Ron. I am in my 70's now and money is no object but at the same time I do not like wasting money lol (brought-up in the 50s when money was very tight!) . Most of my use would be on the estuary so I guess I would need a fair mag? The weight of these scopes is no big deal as I am used to big DSLR lenses where 2KG is considered lightweight.
The only other scope I have owned was around 15 years ago when shopping was done locally, Went into the local optics shop and bought the only scope they had in stock (a cheap Nikon) easy shopping!. The trouble these day is that we have too much choice and so many different opinions/reviews :-O

giosblue · Dec 8, 2015

Roy. if you really want to pull the birds in, a Kowa TSN883 25x60 with 1.6 extender should do the trick.
Go on spoil yourself. I had it demoed to me a couple of weeks back at Martin Mere WWT.
Impressive. Roy, have you looked through a Kowa 883 yet?

Yes! and you're right about too much choice, you end up going round in circles. I'm not a member of any birding club or society and I don't travel far, so for me the Kowa might be overkill . I'm still working so don't have the time to do what I would like to do.

If you're going to spend around the £1400 mark, take a look at Kowa and push the boat out.
And remember, you will always get a good price if you ever sell it.

Oh! and by the way, I'm very good at spending other peoples money. lol

giosblue · Dec 8, 2015

Here are three I'm looking at.
The Kowa is one classy piece of kit.
Still not made my mind up yet.
It's between the Kowa and the Opticron.
The only thing bothers me is, would I use it enough. I don't think I would.
We'll see.

Once you stop looking at what you're looking through and focus on what you're look at, any one of these would do me.
I'm not sure keep swapping and being hyper critical is a good thing. I think the answer is, get the best you can afford and enjoy your birding. At any given price point it's not chalk and cheese.

mayoayo · Dec 8, 2015

So the Optolyth is gone after all?..ok..fresh start...for me the 823 is gonna have to stay good for a while but i have to say that my only ,finally,test of the new swaro Atx ,was quite an impressive experience..the 883 also made me wow ,first time i tried it,but the Swarovski Atx gave a view ( of a Goshawk eating a Cattle egret,no less!,)that i never experienced before and fully made me understand the term "micro contrast"
Enjoy the views

giosblue · Dec 8, 2015

The Optolyth with the Baader was very good, but like you say., a fresh start. I've had it for more than 20 years.

The Kowa is good though, mainly the FoV compared to other scopes I've seen.

Roy C · Dec 8, 2015

giosblue said:
Roy. if you really want to pull the birds in, a Kowa TSN883 25x60 with 1.6 extender should do the trick.
Go on spoil yourself. I had it demoed to me a couple of weeks back at Martin Mere WWT.
Impressive. Roy, have you looked through a Kowa 883 yet?

Yes! and you're right about too much choice, you end up going round in circles. I'm not a member of any birding club or society and I don't travel far, so for me the Kowa might be overkill . I'm still working so don't have the time to do what I would like to do.

If you're going to spend around the £1400 mark, take a look at Kowa and push the boat out.
And remember, you will always get a good price if you ever sell it.

Oh! and by the way, I'm very good at spending other peoples money. lol

I never even knew you could get extenders for scopes Ron, just had a gander on the web and it looks interesting.
The trouble is there is no big optics shops where I live so I have never looked through any of today's scopes, also there are very few birders in my area so I have to rely entirely on reviews/opinions of folk on the web.
I have been an enthusiastic bird photographer for years now but fancy doing some bird watching for a change. I don't travel far from home so something like the Kowa could also be an overkill for me!!! Still going round in circles :-O

giosblue · Dec 9, 2015

You sound pretty much like me Roy, even though you can afford it' it's hard to justify the expense when you can get nearly as good for a lot less money. And it's hard to find somewhere fairly local where you can see a range of scopes.

Further update for you, Roy
In have Decided to send the Hawke and the Kowa back.
The Hawke really looked the part, but I didn't like the helical focussing and the optics were a bit below par.
The reason I chose the Opticron, was not only on price, but because the Opticron with 32x fixed was equal to the Kowa ( maybe even better) when set at the same magnification. The 32x on the Opticron is a stunner and this is what I normally use on the zoom. The Opticron when using the zoom is not as good as the Kowa, but it is still very good.
I've just ordered a Opticron HR66 gaed. to see is that's as good as the ES80. the reason for this is because the ES80 is quite long and I would prefer something smaller if I can still get good optical quality.
So there you go, that my choice and hopefully the end of my quest for a new scope.

Roy C · Dec 9, 2015

giosblue said:
You sound pretty much like me Roy, even though you can afford it' it's hard to justify the expense when you can get nearly as good for a lot less money. And it's hard to find somewhere fairly local where you can see a range of scopes.

Further update for you, Roy
In have Decided to send the Hawke and the Kowa back.
The Hawke really looked the part, but I didn't like the helical focussing and the optics were a bit below par.
The reason I chose the Opticron, was not only on price, but because the Opticron with 32x fixed was equal to the Kowa ( maybe even better) when set at the same magnification. The 32x on the Opticron is a stunner and this is what I normally use on the zoom. The Opticron when using the zoom is not as good as the Kowa, but it is still very good.
I've just ordered a Opticron HR66 gaed. to see is that's as good as the ES80. the reason for this is because the ES80 is quite long and I would prefer something smaller if I can still get good optical quality.
So there you go, that my choice and hopefully the end of my quest for a new scope.

Nice one Ron, hope it all goes well and you are pleased with your choice.
I was talking to a neighbor this morning who was a birder many years ago and he still had his (20 year old) Kowa Prominar TSN-4 so he has let me loan it for a while to try it out. Its a 77mm scope with a 30x fixed eyepiece - at least it will give me an insight into whether or not 30x will be OK on the estuary. I have only tried it out from my garden so far but for a 20 year old scope it looks pretty good to me and I am amazed at how light it is.
Its a straight scope and what struck me was just how high you had to have the tripod to get it to eye level - maybe a angled one would be better???. It only has a single focusing ring and I am thinking that one of these with dual focuses rings might be better for quickly locating the bird - what do you think? I wonder just how much better today's scopes are optically to this 20 year old scope?
Another thing I will have to consider is a decent tripod head - I use a Gimbal with my Camera set-up but they are not much good for scopes. What head do you use??
Anyway that's enough rambling from me and thanks once again for your thoughts Ron.

giosblue · Dec 9, 2015

When I Bought my Optolyth, it was a choice between the Kowa TSN3/4, I choose the Optolyth, mainly because I had some Opto bins which I was pleased with. Good scope the 4 and with a 30x should give really good results.
Personally I use an angled scope, much better on a tripod. My tripod is an Slik, with the old style friction head.
That's probably the next upgrade when I've finally decided on the scope.

I think the old top scopes are very good, but the zooms that were around then were poor.
New stuff is better though, but not by the margin you might think.
I've just been looking through the Opticron with the 30x, sharpest image I've ever seen from a scope.
Just to give you an idea how good it is, I've had the Kowa for a couple of weeks, so I have a feel for how good it is. However, when I put the 30x on the ES80, I thought, "Bloody hell, that's sharp"

Roy C · Dec 16, 2015

giosblue said:
I've just been looking through the Opticron with the 30x, sharpest image I've ever seen from a scope.
Just to give you an idea how good it is, I've had the Kowa for a couple of weeks, so I have a feel for how good it is. However, when I put the 30x on the ES80, I thought, "Bloody hell, that's sharp"

Ron, are you saying that the Opticron ES 80 GA ED with a fixed 30x would be a lot better than the Kowa TNS-4 with a fixed 30x ? just trying to get an idea of different scopes as I only have access to the Kowa TSN-4 so cannot compare myself.

giosblue · Dec 16, 2015

Ok Roy, this is my take on fixed vs zooms. If you've read some of my posts will will know that I am just getting back into birding after a long lay off. I'm still working and I work six day a week, so I don't get that much time to do anything. I'm a keen cyclist and I ride my bike on my day off, Sunday. That's the reason I didn't buy the Kowa, it simply wouldn't get used enough at this moment in time.
Because I have had the Optoltyh for more than 20 years and the zoom was very poor and I mean POOR. I decided to take a look at the latest scopes on the market and I went to Martin Mere a couple of months back and took the Opto with me. I did a comparison with a Opticron ES80.ED with the SDLv2 ep and Swaro ATS80 HD with 25x50 zoom. The zoom on the Opto was a non starter, so I compared my 30x on the Opto with the zooms. The 30x on the Opto I thought was equally as good as the Opticron when set at the same mag, but not quite as good as the Swaro. Remember, I'm comparing fixed 30x with zooms. I then decided I wanted a zoom, it had just been demonstrated to me that they were as good as my 30x and possibly better, so I bought a Baader zoom to fit to the opto and this was a huge improvement over the Opto zoom. However, I hastily sold my fixed Opto ep's which left me with the Baaders zoom. By this time I had got the bug, so I decide to explore more recent options. Ideally I wanted a smaller scope and I tried a Pentax 65mm ED, which was very good, not sharp enough at max zoom with the Baader, so I was back to looking at bigger scope. I tried the Kowa and the Opticron side by side and there is no doubt the Kowa was the better scope when using the zooms. I also tried a fixed ep on Opticron 32x on the ES80ED and to be honest I was quite taken by it's sharpness, equally as sharp as the Kowa set at 30x. So, concluded that my old Opto 30x ep was has good as the Opticron zoom set a 30x. However if we had put a fixed 32 in the Opticron side by side with the Opto, when I was at Martin Mere then I would have known the the Opticron was better.
My view is, and it is only from my very limited experience, that fixed ep's are better than zooms, even top zooms.
Would the Opticron with a fixed 30x ep be better than the your Kowa TSN4 with a fixed ep?. If the Kowa had the latest 30x ep I think the only difference would be the newer scope would be a tad brighter, I don't think there would be that much difference in sharpness and contrast
Having said all this, there is more to a scope than sharpness and contrast. The view though the Kowa 883 is really nice and once you've been there, you do miss it.

Hope this helps.

Roy C · Dec 16, 2015

giosblue said:
Ok Roy, this is my take on fixed vs zooms. If you've read some of my posts will will know that I am just getting back into birding after a long lay off. I'm still working and I work six day a week, so I don't get that much time to do anything. I'm a keen cyclist and I ride my bike on my day off, Sunday. That's the reason I didn't buy the Kowa, it simply wouldn't get used enough at this moment in time.
Because I have had the Optoltyh for more than 20 years and the zoom was very poor and I mean POOR. I decided to take a look at the latest scopes on the market and I went to Martin Mere a couple of months back and took the Opto with me. I did a comparison with a Opticron ES80.ED with the SDLv2 ep and Swaro ATS80 HD with 25x50 zoom. The zoom on the Opto was a non starter, so I compared my 30x on the Opto with the zooms. The 30x on the Opto I thought was equally as good as the Opticron when set at the same mag, but not quite as good as the Swaro. Remember, I'm comparing fixed 30x with zooms. I then decided I wanted a zoom, it had just been demonstrated to me that they were as good as my 30x and possibly better, so I bought a Baader zoom to fit to the opto and this was a huge improvement over the Opto zoom. However, I hastily sold my fixed Opto ep's which left me with the Baaders zoom. By this time I had got the bug, so I decide to explore more recent options. Ideally I wanted a smaller scope and I tried a Pentax 65mm ED, which was very good, not sharp enough at max zoom with the Baader, so I was back to looking at bigger scope. I tried the Kowa and the Opticron side by side and there is no doubt the Kowa was the better scope when using the zooms. I also tried a fixed ep on Opticron 32x on the ES80ED and to be honest I was quite taken by it's sharpness, equally as sharp as the Kowa set at 30x. So, concluded that my old Opto 30x ep was has good as the Opticron zoom set a 30x. However if we had put a fixed 32 in the Opticron side by side with the Opto, when I was at Martin Mere then I would have known the the Opticron was better.
My view is, and it is only from my very limited experience, that fixed ep's are better than zooms, even top zooms.
Would the Opticron with a fixed 30x ep be better than the your Kowa TSN4 with a fixed ep?. If the Kowa had the latest 30x ep I think the only difference would be the newer scope would be a tad brighter, I don't think there would be that much difference in sharpness and contrast
Having said all this, there is more to a scope than sharpness and contrast. The view though the Kowa 883 is really nice and once you've been there, you do miss it.

Hope this helps.

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain Ron - I appreciate it :t:

giosblue · Dec 16, 2015

Another thing to remember Roy, the differences I've mentioned are not "night and day" I've since sold the Optolyth, but I would be perfectly happy going birding with it with the fixed 30x and that was 20 odd years old.
With the latest 30x I would expect to be even better. I think because more modern scopes are a bit brighter, the zooms would work better on them rather then an old scope. I don't know, I'm only guessing.
Anyway, what do you think of the TSN4?

Roy C · Dec 16, 2015

giosblue said:
Anyway, what do you think of the TSN4?

I have not had the chance/weather to try it out on the estuary yet but it looks pretty good to me when playing around in the garden (the only other scope I have owned was a cheap Nikon spotting scope about 20 twenty odd years ago, that had a 15-60 zoom lens if I remember and it was fine at 15x-20x but over that it was very poor).

Hawke Sapphire v Frontier v Endurance (1 Viewer)

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