Down at the Reserve

 My wife and I went to the lakes at the bird reserve, we did not have a spotting scope with us. We met a bird watcher observing a Kestrel perched in a tree 200 metres away. The gentleman kindly gave us a look through his spotting scope. It was a Swarovski and  it was well used, it was obvious the the birder had been taking his scope into some rough country. The view of the Kestrel was almost perfect, the fine features of its feathers were really apparent and the colours were completely natural. What I liked about the scope was the focusing ring on the body of instrument and the fact that you did not really need to re-focus when you zoomed in. Also, there was a distinct lack of chromatic aberration or other distortions. The view was almost perfect across the field of view.

My wife took a look through the scope and immediately said I want one.  She was really impressed with the performance. Later we looked through the scope at a Kingfisher at close range. The image was very impressive.

Obviously the Swarovski performed much better than my humble Helios Fieldmaster, the list price of which is £200. The Swarovski costs well over £2,000 more. But is it 10 times better? As far as I could see the real difference in quality are thus: The Swarovski shows no appreciable chromatic aberration at any magnification, the Fieldmaster cannot match this; The Swarovski maintains its focus when you Zoom in and out , the Fieldmaster does not. There is much less degradation of the  image when you zoom right in with the Swarovski; The Swarovski is built much better and it will survive rough treatment better. Also, Swarovski's after sales service is top notch. 

My humble Fieldmaster performs quite well regarding chromatic aberration, but  when you get to 30x times the performance falls off badly. I do not notice other forms of aberrations or distortion below 40x magnification. In fact the Fieldmaster shows very little, if any,  spherical aberration, adverse field curvature, coma or astigmatism. The colours are natural and the scope resolves distant objects very well. I  can recognise Wood Pigeons from over a kilometre away. The scope resolves almost as well as my 100m Orion Maksutov- Cassegraine. The Fieldmaster can resolve the gap between the planet Saturn  and its rings at around 50x magnification from hundreds of million kilometres away.

A couple of days later we went back to the reserve with some friends and one of them looked through the scope at a duck across a small lake. Just as my wife said "wow" when she looked through the Swarovski our friend said "wow" when looking through the Fieldmaster. This made my day the humble scope does perform very well at low magnification, in fact almost as well as a Swarovski or a Leica. You are paying a lot more for a slight improvement in performance in all situations.

We all continued with our bird observations and went for a walk. The Helios Fieldmaster and tripod was beginning to weigh me down, I decided to pay a bit more money to find a lighter scope, and one which eliminated chromatic aberration at all magnifications, and most of all was easier to focus. The new spotting scope would also have to suit my wife who is increasingly enjoying bird watching. The scope would need the approval of my wife; it must have a bit of "wow" factor. I seriously considered buying a Swarovski, a Leica or a Zeiss instrument. However, I did not feel that our birdwatching activity merited buying a scope tough enough to withstand the pressures of the jungle or the desert. We are not professional naturalists so it is not vital for us to be able to distinguish between a tree sparrow and a house sparrow from 150 meters. We do not go birdwatching everyday so a less expensive model would do the job for us. I chose a 65mm Viking ED Pro.

Viking scopes are used by RSPB professionals and if they are good enough for them they are good enough for me. Also they engender a little bit of pride of ownership but they can't compete with a Leica or a Zeiss on that front.