swaro 50 (1 Viewer)

A question I have asked myself is why havent swaro brought out a 50 version of their scope. IMO this would be a big seller as Nikon with their ed50 plus Opticron seem to have that market for themselves. The other top manufacturer's dont have a version either so maybe its a case of cost to develop and manufacture or maybe there is one in the pipeline. Ger.

That may be a good question, but until then, I am amazed at the performance of my
Nikon ED50, every time I look through it. It is a very good scope.

I now can see why some users have reported that they just forget about their larger
scopes, and leave them at home. They just want to carry and look throught the ED50.

Jerry

Although my scope the 80 hd atm is lightweight for a large scope I'm going on holidays in a couple of weeks and I'm not sure whether to bring the scope or not. If I had a 50 version then I would bring it along. Plus the 80 starts getting heavy when you get lost in reedbeds :-O. Ger.

I would love to see a Swaro 50mm scope, my 65mm is comparatively light but something smaller in my hand luggage would be even better. i've owned both the ED50 and Opticron GS52 ED in the past and they're both very good but have aspects that could be improved. 32mm Swarovisions remain number one on my wish list however!!
Hope someoene from Swarovski is taking note of this thread.

apbarr said:

I would love to see a Swaro 50mm scope, my 65mm is comparatively light but something smaller in my hand luggage would be even better. i've owned both the ED50 and Opticron GS52 ED in the past and they're both very good but have aspects that could be improved. 32mm Swarovisions remain number one on my wish list however!!
Hope someoene from Swarovski is taking note of this thread.

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Mine too Alex re 32mm Swarovisions. If you're reading this Dale then please let us know if Swarovski are going to bring out these bins.

Cheers,

Parker said:

Mine too Alex re 32mm Swarovisions. If you're reading this Dale then please let us know if Swarovski are going to bring out these bins.

Cheers,

Click to expand...

And the 50 scope

Swaro 50 ?

Nikon designed the ED50 from the ground up, and I assume that they subbed the manufacture to China to keep the cost competitive. As a Nikon ED50 owner with an unused Swarovski 80mm HD in the cupboard, I think they designed a product with a so-far unequalled combination of small size and low weight.

Opticron didn’t design the GS52 from the ground up. It looks like they simply added a 50mm front end to a GS range scope back end and subbed the manufacture to China. Perhaps that tells us that Opticron decided they couldn’t compete cost-effectively with the ED50 on price if they had to develop a design from the ground-up and/or they didn’t see a large enough market to justify the development costs of a ground up design. I don’t think the GS52 competes with the ED50 on weight, mainly because they took the back end from an existing range of larger scopes. However, it certainly competes with the ED50 on price, and it may be argued that it’s a more robust product.

So how would a Swarovksi 50mm compete with an ED50 ? I don’t think Swarovski would feel itself under any obligation to compete with the Nikon ED50 on price. However, they would have to be competitive on size and weight, and I don’t think sticking a 50mm lens on the front of the existing back end common to the 80 and 65mm scopes is going to achieve that. I suggest they would have to design a 50mm scope from the ground up. It may have to have a plastic or carbon-fibre body to compete on weight, which could require heavy development costs and investment in new manufacturing technology, because from memory their existing bodies are magnesium. From comments I’ve seen on the net I think they are also keen to keep manufacture in Austria to maintain quality as one of the justifications for their premium prices. I therefore doubt if they would get it manufactured in China, which will add to the cost. Perhaps they could sub a carbon fibre body to the motor racing team and car manufacturer Maclaren !

I suspect that many consumers would probably expect the price of a Swarovski 50mm body to be less than the price of a 65mm body. However, if they made a 50mm body I wouldn’t be surprised to see them charge as much, if not more, for it than an 80mm !

I’d love to see a Swarovski 50mm that equalled or bettered the ED50’s combination of size and weight as much as anyone else. However, I just don’t think they could design, make and sell one at a price that enough people would want to buy it at.

[I’d love to see a Swarovski 50mm that equalled or bettered the ED50’s combination of size and weight as much as anyone else. However, I just don’t think they could design, make and sell one at a price that enough people would want to buy it at.[/QUOTE]

I agree with much of what you say, in fact a friend phoned Swaro UK about 4 years ago, not long after the ED50 was introduced, and was told exactly that. Swaro couldn't build a small scope like it and compete on price and quality.

However, I wonder if they don't get into this market niche, that they might be missing a trick.

The market has changed even since then, and, with the proirities of many of today's birders changing more towards photography, a small, light quality scope is becoming ever more appealing with all of the other stuff we carry. It seems that more and more birders are moving away from digiscoping with their big scopes in favour of DSLRs, and are well aware of the rising cost of lenses, so why would they worry about paying around £1000 for a small scope body, maybe even more? especially if they already have eyepieces for their big scope, as I do (I also have an ED50 which also needs a different eyepiece). Like you my Swaro 80 often stays in the car boot, and I would seriously consider selling the ED50 in favour of a small Swaro if they ever introduced one.

Surely Swaro also know better than most of us, that the more they charge, the more people will want it. Seems to work well with their line of bins, so why not with a small scope?

Swaro 50 ? ED60 instead ?

Steve,

Good point and well-made. I would add that the bird watching travel business has also taken off in the last 20 years, and there are often people on this forum talking about the need for a “travel” scope and/or a tripod for “travel” to go in their hand luggage, so there’s another trick that Swarovski and all the other optics companies (except Nikon and Opticron) are missing. Dale, the Swarovski US rep., sometimes responds to Swarovski-related stuff on this forum, so I’d be interested in his comments.

Just occasionally though, I’d love my ED50 to be an ED60 with a 20-60 zoom, but the same size and weight as the ED50. The closest anyone else has got is Opticron with their IS60, but with a 16-48 HR zoom it’s 900g, or 50% heavier than the ED50. So I’d bite Mr Nikon’s hand off for an ED60 that was only say 100g heavier than the ED50 that would turn my 13-40 zoom into a 20-60. That would be pretty easy for Nikon to do because they have obviously already got the back end from the ED50. However, I suspect they won’t because it would take market share from their other 60mm scopes. I’d love to be proved wrong though !