Looking for a nice travel scope (1 Viewer)

[Canyac]

Hi all!

So, I am on the hunt for a travel scope. It is going to pair my Zeiss victory pocket 8x for hiking/travelling.

I hope that people would have suggestions. I am thinking 300€ - 800€ price range. Compactness is priority, while maintaining good usability.

I read about models such as the bresser pirsch 9-27×56 and Kowa TSN-501 and Opticron mm3/mm4 50mm. Celestron hummingbird too.
But I am a bit stumped. The TSN looks interesting, very light, cheap and decent. The opticrons are heavier, better, expensive.

Also, we both wear glasses, so eye relief is important.

I was hoping someone might point out some recommended models and maybe some good tips for selecting our first scope.

Thanks in advance, take care!

 

[Hermann]

Opticron hands down. Try the Kowa though, maybe you'll find the optical quality sufficient for your needs. Also try if they work with your glasses.

Celestron and Bresser ... Well, I don't know. The Celestrons I looked through were quite weak IMO. Don't know the Bresser.

Hermann

 

[JTweedie]

I have the Kowa. I got it when I was dipping my toe into the scope market. It doesn't have premium optics but I find it's handy to have with me to give that little extra reach that the binoculars don't give. While all scopes work better on a tripod, I think it's usable for short handheld views of distant birds at the lower magnification. However upping the magnification results in a marked reduction in optical quality.

People have praised the Opticron, so you might like to try them both and see what you prefer.

I've since got a premium Kowa scope, but whenever I'm looking to travel light, then the 501 easily goes into my bag and I can use it when needed, mainly to confirm identification of distant birds rather than getting extended views. I also don't use it for digiscoping, it's purely just to get that extra reach for confirmation of what I'm seeing.

 

[CMB]

The Pentax PF-65ED II with a long eye relief, fixed magnification, 1.25” astronomy eyepiece might also work. The caveat is that fixed astronomy eyepieces are often not water resistant. The Pentax zoom lens is long eye relief and water resistant, but won’t provide as crisp images as a fixed power astronomy eye piece.

We need optics with long eye relief (18-20mm) due to eyeglass prescription. When starting out the Pentax line with fixed power astro eyepieces allowed us to get scope setups with long eye relief, very good terrestrial optical quality up to 40x, and no chromatic aberration (color fringing) - without breaking the bank,

We have an Opticron MM4 GA 60 with SDLv3 eyepiece arriving tomorrow. I can’t comment on the optical quality yet. It is one of the few scopes on the market with a water resistant/proof zoom, 18-20 mm eye relief, and a lighter weight. It is about 13 ounces lighter weight than our Pentax PF-65EDA II paired with a fixed power astronomy eyepiece. We purchased this to be a travel/hiking scope that has a long eye relief zoom, ED glass, and is weather resistant.

The 50mm Vortex Razor HD (11-30x zoom) has eye relief that ranges from 16-19mm. That 16mm end can be unseable for some eyeglass wearers.


When you need long eye relief due to eyeglasses, nothing beats being able to test out the scopes in person or buying from a place with a generous return policy because manufacturers can measure eye relief specs differently.

As an example:

We have upgraded our main Pentax 80mm scope with long eye relief fixed power astronomy eyepiece to a Kowa TSN-883 with TE-11 WZ zoom. While Kowa’s specs state that zoom has 17mm eye relief, we have found the “working eye relief” to be more generous.

In contrast we compared the Kowa side by side with a Swarovski 85mm ATX. Swarovski’s specs state 20mm eye relief through the whole zoom range, but we found the working eye relief to be less than the Kowa TSN-883 due to the ergonomics of the scope and the Swarovski ATX did not work for us.

Good luck with the search.

 

[CMB]

We've had some time with the Opticron MM4 GA 60 ED with the SDLv3 eyepiece. So here is a quick review since the OP asked about Opticron and mentioned they need a scope with an eyepiece that has long eye relief.

As others have said this is a fantastic little scope. It makes a great scope for anyone looking for good moderate priced scope as their primary scope, or as a lighter weight travel scope.

My spouse is nearsighted (myopia). Her prescription is between -7 to -8, and she has astigmatism so she always keeps her glasses on when using optics. Most optics don't have enough eye relief for her.

The Opticron SDLv3 eyepiece specs say the eye relief is 20-18mm through the zoom range. My wife has found that this eyepiece works for her. At the maximum zoom of 45x she needs to have the eye cup all the way down (and her glasses are on the eyecup) but she said she has no kidney beaning, blackouts, and sees the full field of view through the ocular.

I am very sensitive to color fringing (chromatic aberration) and can see it very easily in optics. This scope controls color fringing very well. This was tested at 6,600 ft in an arid climate with no clouds. We can get very harsh lighting to test contrast. I can see a small amount of color fringing on extremely high contrast objects. Most of the time I don't see or notice it with this scope/eyepiece. Honestly for me the color fringing is controlled better than on the Swarovski ATX 85mm scope I tested out. I know that may sound crazy to some folks, but that is my experience. My wife does not see any color fringing.

The image through this scope is very clear and crisp. We find the colors to be very neutral.

Love the dual speed focus. The fine focus is very light to the touch and has very very low resistance. It moves in very small amounts that really lets you dial in the focus. We find the fine focus is so fine that we do use the corse focus to move quickly.

Love this scope. It has very good eye relief for those with a high prescription. It controls color fringing very well. It has smooth focus and a crisp image. It is light weight.

Now I understand why people like this scope so much.

 

[Hermann]

We've had some time with the Opticron MM4 GA 60 ED with the SDLv3 eyepiece. So here is a quick review since the OP asked about Opticron and mentioned they need a scope with an eyepiece that has long eye relief. <snip>

Love this scope. It has very good eye relief for those with a high prescription. It controls color fringing very well. It has smooth focus and a crisp image. It is light weight.

Thanks for this review. I'm thinking of replacing my Nikon ED50 with the MM4 50mm at some stage as my travel scope because the (narrow) Nikon zooms don't work with my glasses. Your review covered all the details I'm interested in. Great stuff.

Hermann

 

[CMB]

Thanks for this review. I'm thinking of replacing my Nikon ED50 with the MM4 50mm at some stage as my travel scope because the (narrow) Nikon zooms don't work with my glasses. Your review covered all the details I'm interested in. Great stuff.

Hermann

It's been a long time since I looked through a Nikon scope, so I can't offer a comparison to it. Nikon's short eye relief always takes them out of the running for us.

Here's two points of comparison that I hope may help add to the brief description above:

I have a pair of Zeiss Conquest HD 10x32 binoculars. To me, the image in the Opticron/SDLv3 60mm is more crisp and sharper than the Conquest.

In terms of color fringing (CA), I think the level of CA I see in both the Conquest and the Opticron 60mm with the SDLv3 is pretty comparable. I can induce it in both around the edge of the field of view, but it is well controlled in both and I don't find it objectionable or intrusive in the Opticron. When the image is centered in the Opticron I don't see any CA. Again we are talking about looking at very high contrast objects: shadowed limbs against very bright white clouds, brightly lit Aspen tree trunks and limbs against the deep shadows of canyon walls, etc. Looking at the tail feathers of a male Mallard in full sun, there is a some CA visible around the white feathers backed by the black ones, but I am specifically looking to find CA. When I look at the Mallard and just watch it, I don't notice it - especially if the Mallard is in the scope's center of view.

Comparing it against our Pentax 65mm ED scope that has a fixed power TeleVue DeLite 11mm astronomy eye piece (~36x) is interesting.

To the best of my knowledge, both Opticron's SDLv3 and TeleVue's DeLite eye pieces have 8 elements in five groups. Both use high index glass which helps control CA. But the TeleVue is a fixed set of lens groups, while the SDLv3 groups have to move to zoom. The TeleVue DeLite has an eye relief of 20mm, while E.R. on SDLv3 ranges from 20-18mm.

Both scope bodies use ED glass on the objectives.

I think these two scope setups are more similar to each other than different.

I think the Pentax/TeleVue combination controls CA a little better than the Opticron/SDLv3. BUT... I think the Opticron/SDLv3 combination is slightly more crisp and clear. And I think the Opticron/SDLv3 setup handles the 40x-45x magnification range slightly better than the Pentax scope does.

The reasons we replaced the Pentax with the Opticron are:

• Opticron/SDLv3 setup provides a 15x-45x zoom range while the Pentax/TeleVue is a fixed ~36x
• Opticron/SDLv3 setup is water-resistant and the Pentax/TeleVue combination is not. The Opticron/SDLv3 combination also seals out dust better than the Pentax/TeleVue
• The Opticron/SDLv3 setup does all this while weighing 10 ounces less than the Pentax/TeleVue

So why didn't we just get a Pentax zoom for the Pentax 65mm scope? Because I don't think the Pentax zoom is as good optically as the Opticron SDLv3, and the Pentax 65mm with zoom weighs quite a bit more than the Opticron/SDLv3 combination.

 

[Bill Atwood]

+1 on Opticron MM4.