Fieldscopes (1 Viewer)

[Alexis Powell]

A very useful eyepiece, so thanks for sharing this information. Old 60ED FS II and III bodies are fantastic scopes, even by modern standards, and they are practically free compared to prices of new scopes of comparable or better build and optical quality, but it can be hard to track down a 30x WF or MC (which I consider the best do-all eyepiece for most birding purposes) for those old scope bodies. This adds a very appealing option, especially for eyeglasses wearers. I've missed stumbling across these on eBay, or maybe I dismissed them out of hand as not a genuine Fieldscope eyepiece, so this was a new one on me. Very cool!

--AP

 

[Hermann]

Interesting stuff. Maybe Nikon really made a number of these for the Japanese market. I personally don't believe these eyepieces were made by a third party, they are just too well made. Perfect workmanship. But I've never seen any references to these eyepieces anywhere, and they didn't include this eyepiece in their range of DS eyepieces. [snip]

Optically the eyepiece is - like all the Nikon wideangles - excellent. I use the rubber "eyecup" of a DS eyepiece in order not to scratch my eyeglasses. Contrast is, like I wrote before, a bit better than the contrast of my old WF eyepiece. The coatings are different. The eyepiece works very well indeed with glasses, even better than the old WF eyepiece, as you can get closer to the eyepiece lens.

Replying to my own post is bad style, I know. However, I've used the eyepiece quite a lot by now, and I can add a few more details in case someone comes across one of them:

• It's heavier than any of my other eyepieces at 220 gr. That's 40 gr. more than the 27/40/50x DS eyepiece. That's its main disadvantage, I think.
• Optically it is indeed visibly better than my rather old 20/30/38 MC eyepiece, no doubt due to its more modern coatings. Better contrast, more natural colours. The optical construction itself is AFAIK the same as that of the MC, but my old MC eyepiece was made for the Fieldscope II/EDII and the ED78. The new one is marked for the 50mm and 60mm scopes and the ED82. Nikon tends to improve the coatings of their optics all the time without making a big fuzz it seems. I like that.
• I use it with the rubber eyecup of of the DS eyepieces (managed to get the last two Nikon still had in stock in Germany ... ), and with that eyecup the eyepiece is truly excellent if you wear eyeglasses. Better than the MC with its screw-up eyecup, and also better than the ancient 30x WF with its rubber eyecup. More eyerelief.

I use the eyepiece mainly on my ED50 in combination with the MC zoom for higher magnifications. I do most of my birding on my local patch this year, and the ED50 works very well in that sort of habitat.

Hermann