Kowa 88A Eye Relief (2 Viewers)

[NCstaccato]

Hello,
New to the forum. I just received my 88A with the 25 to 60 zoom today. I was setting it up and playing around with it and never really adjusted to the eye relief. I am new to spotting scopes. I have many other nice optics (scopes) that I have no problem with. I assume it's the nature of spotting scopes in general. I wear glasses and feel like I can't get my eye close enough.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[chill6x6]

Hello,
New to the forum. I just received my 88A with the 25 to 60 zoom today. I was setting it up and playing around with it and never really adjusted to the eye relief. I am new to spotting scopes. I have many other nice optics (scopes) that I have no problem with. I assume it's the nature of spotting scopes in general. I wear glasses and feel like I can't get my eye close enough.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

That's a nice scope! So I have the 88S...for me ER is enough....better than the 95STX....not quite as good as the S2 with the 20-70 EP.
Be sure the eyecup on the eyepiece is all the way in/down.

 

[Tot]

Hello,
New to the forum. I just received my 88A with the 25 to 60 zoom today. I was setting it up and playing around with it and never really adjusted to the eye relief. I am new to spotting scopes. I have many other nice optics (scopes) that I have no problem with. I assume it's the nature of spotting scopes in general. I wear glasses and feel like I can't get my eye close enough.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Take your glasses off that's wot I do

 

[Hermann]

R

Take your glasses off that's wot I do

Now, that's a brilliant piece of advice.

But you do know that when you've got astigmatism you won't get a sharp image without your glasses, don't you?

Hermann

 

[Hermann]

I assume it's the nature of spotting scopes in general. I wear glasses and feel like I can't get my eye close enough.

It's certainly not in the nature of spotting scopes. Make sure you adjusted the eyecup correctly. Play with it a bit, some eyepieces have too much ER for some people, even if they wear glasses. If that doesn't work, you may want to think about your glasses. I find close-fitting glasses work best when using optics of any description. I also don't like varifocals when I use binoculars or scopes.

Hermann

 

[BoldenEagle]

Also note that the Kowa 25-60x zoom eyepiece doesn't have constant eye relief (= at some magnification you may have better eye relief than other) even if it is advertised it does have constant 17mm. Someone here in BF may have measured the real eye reliefs.

I wear glasses and use the 25-60x regularly with my 883 and I'm generally quite happy with it but woudn't mind extra millimeter or two especially in the high end of magnification.

Regards, Juhani

 

[henry link]

Kimmo measured the eye relief in this thread.

Tried out the TE-11WZ wide zoom on 883

On Monday I tested the new Kowa TE-11WZ zoom on an 883 scope. It is not much bigger than the previous zoom, weighs 380g or about 55g more than the old version. I measured the eye-relief as 16mm/25x, 15mm/30x, 14mm/40x, 15mm/50x-60x. This is measured from the plane of the eyecup twisted in, not...

www.birdforum.net

Notice that the largest dip in eye relief (at 40x) is only two millimeters shorter than the 25x eye relief, minor compared to most zooms. If measured from the eye lens glass rather than the eyecup rim these figures would be about two millimeters longer, quite close to 17mm.

 

[BoldenEagle]

Kimmo measured the eye relief in this thread.

Tried out the TE-11WZ wide zoom on 883

On Monday I tested the new Kowa TE-11WZ zoom on an 883 scope. It is not much bigger than the previous zoom, weighs 380g or about 55g more than the old version. I measured the eye-relief as 16mm/25x, 15mm/30x, 14mm/40x, 15mm/50x-60x. This is measured from the plane of the eyecup twisted in, not...

www.birdforum.net

Notice that the largest dip in eye relief (at 40x) is only two millimeters shorter than the 25x eye relief, minor compared to most zooms. If measured from the eye lens glass rather than the eyecup rim these figures would be about two millimeters longer, quite close to 17mm.

Thanks for bringing that thread up! Those figures are quite close to 17mm indeed and I'm not arguing that the 25-60x is bad at all, but the usable eye relief is still the relevant one and also with eye relief, the 2 mm can be a substantial difference between comfort and discomfort? Individual variation between persons can be great.

I personally find eye relief perhaps even more important with scopes than with binoculars, because with binoculars with almost enough eye relief, one can sligthly push the eyepieces closer to eyes but that doesn't work equally well with a scope, as higher magnifications will magnify also shaking even if using a good tripod and head. Sometimes using the highest magnification, details are best seen if my glasses don't touch the eyepiece at all (usually a static object then).

Regards, Juhani