Spotting scopes

Beluebow said:
If you can't see the difference between a Viper and Razor you either have amazingly poor eyesight or amazingly great eyesight, I'm not sure which.

Some buddies and I got together to compare spotting scopes side by side at 1300yrds....The scopes were Kowa TSN-883 Prominar...NF TS82(Meopta)....Vortex Razor...........it was pretty much a wash between the Kowa and the NF with the slight edge going to the NF. For dollars spent the Razor did very well........Nothing I've seen compares to the Swaro BTX.
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WHERE does the older zeiss diascope 85 FL wind up in the comparison chart? i've never been able to put mine side by side with the swaro's.

one thing that turned me off of the swarvoski was the body focus, i had a nightforce spotter and the body focus was hard to use to focus far away cause my hands would jiggle the scope,, with the zeiss i can just barely touch the little focus knob on top
 
rockwind said:
WHERE does the older zeiss diascope 85 FL wind up in the comparison chart? i've never been able to put mine side by side with the swaro's.

one thing that turned me off of the swarvoski was the body focus, i had a nightforce spotter and the body focus was hard to use to focus far away cause my hands would jiggle the scope,, with the zeiss i can just barely touch the little focus knob on top
Click to expand...

I have no personal experience with that spotter.....The body focus on my NF is harder to adjust than the Swaro buy a country mile.
 
Swarovski uses Schott glass, which is Zeiss. Schott glass is the go to glass for most high end optics. The difference is in the coatings. Between Zeiss and Swarovski, one tends to be a little warmer, the other a little cooler.
 
dnb86 said:
And if you're like me, and you re-search the hell out of everything and you're always looking to see, what's the closest thing to swarovski…… Just save the money for that extra year too and be done. It's totally worth it.
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That's exactly how I am too, do a lot of research before I buy something because I don't want to regret buying it. I like the buy once cry once motto especially when it comes to optics
 
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rockwind said:
WHERE does the older zeiss diascope 85 FL wind up in the comparison chart? i've never been able to put mine side by side with the swaro's.

one thing that turned me off of the swarvoski was the body focus, i had a nightforce spotter and the body focus was hard to use to focus far away cause my hands would jiggle the scope,, with the zeiss i can just barely touch the little focus knob on top
Click to expand...

rockwind said:
WHERE does the older zeiss diascope 85 FL wind up in the comparison chart? i've never been able to put mine side by side with the swaro's.

one thing that turned me off of the swarvoski was the body focus, i had a nightforce spotter and the body focus was hard to use to focus far away cause my hands would jiggle the scope,, with the zeiss i can just barely touch the little focus knob on top
Click to expand...
I have the Diascope 85 as well. I haven't been able to compare side by side with Swarovski, but I have looked through both. The difference is in the coatings, as both are Schott glass. I prefer the Zeiss over the Swarovski, but it comes down to personal preference. The contrast on the Zeiss tends to be cooler. It's easier on my eyes. That being said, my scope is currently in Germany. I lost the fine focus. They couldn't repair it on this side of the pond...
 
My opinion is that for pure clarity and minimal chromatic aberration the Kowa scopes with fluorite lenses (meaning the 55/88/99mm scopes) are the highest image resolving scopes from a lab standpoint on the market but you can't go wrong with Swarovski, Zeiss, or Leica either. The 77mm uses Schott lenses. A lot depends on what you're looking for and I'm speaking as a person that can afford all of the above… not from a value point of view.

Again at this level you can't go wrong but confirmation bias is a thing too. IMO the Vortex scopes don't really compare to the alpha glass but it's not to say that they are not great values. The goal and materials just was never intended to be on par with the best of the best so compromises are bound to happen somewhere. If an individual doesn't see the difference then save the money I guess.
 
I have both a Razor spotter and a Viper, the Razor is better in every way! With that said I have been side by side with both the Swarovski and the Nightforce spotters and they are way better than my Razor. I upgraded my binos three years ago from an older pair of Zeiss to the Swarovski's and hope to someday own the Swarovski spotter. My eyeballs just love that Swaro glass!! cheers, Jason
 
lancetkenyon said:
I have the 95mm too. It sees way past legal hunting light as it is.
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A decent moon and I can see half-way decent with my 10x42 SLCs. I was blown away the first time I did that. The next summer I bought the ATX 65, someday I'll add a 95mm obj and upgrade to the NLs. Big 💵💵.
 
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Taken at a mile through my spotter and an iPhone.
 

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