Decent Scope for under $500!!!! (1 Viewer)

[streatham]

I just had a look at the Skyline by Vortex over the weekend at the Connecticut Audubon Society Eagle Festival and was pretty blown away. I was talking to a friend who owns a store and was saying if someone could do what Pentax had done with bins with the DCF and make an acceptably priced decent scope to apppeal to begginer/intermediate/budget restricted birders they'd clean up the market. He then told me to try out the new Skyline 80mm by Vortex. As a birder not an optics junkie I was blown away by the image from this scope which has a really bright and usable image even zoomed up to 60X (admittedly in good light conditions - but still). I wouldn't trade my Swarovski for it but it certainly is a great option that I would seriously recommend people not wanting to dive straight into spending $1500+ on a scope to have a closer look at. Intrigued if others have seen this product and what their impressions are.


It seems like Stokes/Vortex are making some great product for birders on a budget. I looked through their $199 dollar Talon/Diamondbacks and was absolutely blown away as were a number of tour leaders I was talking to there - decent bright roofs for under $200!!!! Also enjoyed seeing the Meopta product. The image on the Meostars was cracking - i'd love to see what they could do with an 8x32 especially if they could speed up the focusing a little (i'm used to my LX's).

Luke

 

[Jim M.]

I agree the vortex skyline is a very good low-priced scope. The reviewers at birdwatching.com made it their pick for the under $500 range. I compared the non-ED 80 mm version recently to a top-of-the-line Swarovski 80 mm and Kowa 88 mm; it held its own at 20 power in terms of resolution, and the ergonomics and usability were comparable. It is also about 6 ounces lighter than the Swarovski, and 11 ounces lighter than the Kowa. But you definitely cannot get the detail at 60x that you can with the other two scopes; though it is good enough to discern broad features. (For example, looking at a distant street sign at 60x I could read its lettering with the two more expensive scopes, but not the vortex). But if you do not need detailed rendering at 60x, or do not want to pay hundreds of dollars or more for that ability, it will serve very well.

Jim

 

[Tero]

The beginner scopes are much the same, and all have 20-60x zoom. Good to 45x as fas as I am concerned. But the Vortex scope does have some user friendly features, and they wven give tips on setting up for digiscoping.

 

[Alexis Powell]

The beginner scopes ...all have 20-60x zoom.

I find it very disappointing that so many scope users are addicted to zoom eyepieces that wide angle fixed eyepieces (with excellent eye relief) in the most useful powers (30x, 50x) are generally not available for inexpensive scopes (and apparently now, the Zeiss scopes). The unimpressive performance of scopes in the $300-$600 range is usually a reflection of the limitations of their zoom eyepieces. There's little point, in my opinion, to powers <30x for most scope work (I think those powers are mostly used to get a bit more FOV out of the constricted FOV limits of zooms, rather than for the magnification itself), so most cheap 20-60x zoom eyepieces, which start showing their optical limits above 45x, are in practice 30-45x narrow-field eyepieces. Since the difference between 30x and 45x is often practically inconsequential, I'd much rather have a nice view through a 30x wide than the "versatility" of a narrow field zoom.

In fact, I wouldn't buy a scope for which fixed WA eyepieces were unavailable. I can't imagine buying the ED versions of the Vortex Skyline given their lack of eyepiece choices, especially when there are similarly priced and much more versatile alternatives, such as the Nikon Prostaff and the Pentax 65 ED and ED II scopes.

--AP

 

[Tero]

If your zoom actually works at 60x, then the 20x is of some help in locating the bird, centering and zooming in. Otherwise, 20x is not needed.

 

[Mike Penfold]

Lower eyepiece magnifications are a good place to start when you're setting up for digiscoping, and your camera's at 3x optical zoom to avoid vignetting. Otherwise, it's easy (for me at least) to lose the bird altogether.

During the Red-necked Grebe surveys north of Dyers Bay on the Bruce Peninsula, birders hope for overcast weather, because they can't effectively use anything like 60x in sunny conditions.

Mike