Where to see a scope? (1 Viewer)

My wife and I are re-starting birding after a 20 year hiatus and are looking at getting our first scope. Around 35 years ago we bought our binoculars at a great store with lots of stock to look at and compare. Sadly this store long since closed.

I'd like to visit a store with a good selection of spotting scopes in stock so I can see and compare for myself. I'm located in Florida (USA) and willing to travel within the US and Canada. I've found a couple of stores online, one in Cape may, NJ and the other in Louisiana, but have no idea if they have scopes on hand to view.

Thanks,

Mike

Hi Mike and welcome.

The store should have good outside viewing possibilities and allow you to spend time comparing them.
Somewhere like New York city may have scopes but limited viewing.

There may also be fairs with makers samples.

Regards,
B.

Hey @subagon,

You are in FL, which is fantastic! FL does have birding festivals, where top optics manufacturers show up with their optics! I have found these festivals to be great for viewing and purchasing optics.

I think there were a couple in FL just recently. More can be found here: https://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/...te=02&location=All&page=2&festivalsearch=next

Good luck birding!

Cheers,
Kumar

subagon said:

My wife and I are re-starting birding after a 20 year hiatus and are looking at getting our first scope. Around 35 years ago we bought our binoculars at a great store with lots of stock to look at and compare. Sadly this store long since closed.

I'd like to visit a store with a good selection of spotting scopes in stock so I can see and compare for myself. I'm located in Florida (USA) and willing to travel within the US and Canada. I've found a couple of stores online, one in Cape may, NJ and the other in Louisiana, but have no idea if they have scopes on hand to view.

Thanks,

Mike

Click to expand...

The Cape May store (part of the the well known Cape May Bird Observatory) carries a wide range of scopes and is very customer friendly, so you should have no problem checking out your options.
Do note that their birding festivals in spring and fall have exhibitions of birding gear which allow one to directly compare scopes from a range of manufacturers side by side.
The various New York stores such as Adorama or B&H offer discount prices and a good selection, but their staff is more photography oriented.

Thanks for the replies, but I jumped the shark and ordered a scope yesterday. I found what I hope is a great deal online. I'll update early next week if it turns out good or bad.

Hi,

first of all, welcome to birdforum!

Maybe spend the time until your scope arrives with reading up a bit on testing scopes so you can decide quickly if it is a keeper or you want to test the return policy... Kumar (bf user name mskb) went through the same procedure lately and there are a number of threads on this...

I wish you good luck with example variation - aka the great scope lottery!

Joachim

subagon said:

My wife and I are re-starting birding after a 20 year hiatus and are looking at getting our first scope. Around 35 years ago we bought our binoculars at a great store with lots of stock to look at and compare. Sadly this store long since closed.

I'd like to visit a store with a good selection of spotting scopes in stock so I can see and compare for myself. I'm located in Florida (USA) and willing to travel within the US and Canada. I've found a couple of stores online, one in Cape may, NJ and the other in Louisiana, but have no idea if they have scopes on hand to view.

Thanks,

Mike

Click to expand...

Mike,
Come visit NY. We've got spotters on display and an awesome NY Pizza shop right next store

Update...

To close out his thread, I ordered a Kowa TN-883 on amazon from a seller named "Photo Bargain". The scope and eyepiece were listed for $2450. I noticed that this was the normal price of the scope body (no eyepiece). Right away I was concerned that this was some type of mistake or at worse, fraud. The ad claimed free returns so I ordered it hoping for the best. Several days passed without any updates to the order. I was about to contact Amazon to see if they had any updated when I checked online again and saw the order had been canceled by the seller without any explanation. I can only guess the price had been a mistake and the seller was unwilling to honor their listed price. I did see that "Photo Bargain" has several negative reviews and would caution anyone to take care if ordering from them in the future.

Still wanting a scope, I ordered an Opticron MM4 60 and it arrived yesterday. The plan was to buy two scopes (wife and I don't share well), a "travel" scope and a large scope (80mm+). Since this is our first scope we went ahead with the lower-cost option, for now, to see if a scope matches our birding style.

Mike