After two years of hunting with my buddy carrying his Leupold HD spotting scope with him, I'm finally convinced that I may need to get something.

I use 10X42 EL's and have a doubler, but I couldn't count horns on a deer very well this year and my buddy whipped out his spotter and nailed it. I typically set my binos over my stoney point "V" and adjust it to the height I need to hold it steady. Couldn't quite get steady enough with the doubler on.....my buddy's spotter was nice and clear and still. The deer was at about 650 yrds

I really didn't want to back pack it around the whole time, but we've been using his spotter more and more and I'm starting to get convinced. He actually sits and glasses for deer thru the spotter .... where I typically would find the deer in the binos then switch to the spotter when needed. I also tend to move a little more than he does, so taking it out and in would slow things a bit.

So I'll spend the money for good glass, but want to keep it on the light/compact side of things. Leupold has some compact scopes, but I'd really prefer some Swaro, Zeiss, or Leica glass. Maybe I don't need all that though, as I've done fairly well in the past without a spot. maybe the compact Leupolds would suffice?

I am eye balling the Gitzo Series 00 Carbon 6X Tripod - 3 Section G-Lock and then the Swarovski ATS 65 HD.

Any comments, experiences, recommendations etc... are much appreciated.

Also, where are you carrying something like this in your Kifaru LongHunters? Just in the big main pouch? Or attach to outside or ?

Thanks.

Nikon 50mm ED (angled). Slik Sprint Mini tripod.

+1, except that I have found I prefer the straight to the angled after going back and forth for quit a while now.

Ed,
how does that scope hold up in the wind? Do you have any problems with holding it steady while on a tripod or when your using a pack to rest it on? What about lowlight capabilities, with the 50mm objective i'm a bit worried about using it near dark or on cloudy days. I need to upgrade from my XL II.

Ditto on the Nikon Fieldscope 50 mm ED 13-30x50. Very compact and easily packable. I borrow a buddies all the time and it is a big hit with our wives on vacation because of how easy it is to use. Check out the details at Nikonhunting.com, click fieldscopes.
Here's a pic of my buddies from the last vacation.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd363/bman940/NikonED50Fieldscope.jpg

Used that exact scope and tripod in WY on a goat hunt a few weeks ago. Did just fine in the big winds. Helped me spot the goat I eventually shot. Came highly reccomended here, and I jumped on the boat. Best gear choice I made all year.

Thanks Outdoor. I honestly think a sheep hunt is about the best gear test to date. Nothing easy about any of it. From weather to terrain, a sheep hunt tests everything and a trophy big or small deserves accolades. I'd love to see a pic of your sheep.

I think you meant "goat".

Correct, I was picturing goat and wrote sheep. I'd love to hunt both!
Thanks for correction.

Goat is next on my list too!!

I use a counter weight on my tripod:


Shown with a Leupy 85mm

That keeps the tripod steady in the wind.

As far as low light I think the Nikin 50ED is as good or better in low light than the new Zeiss Fieldscope. It is a really amazing optic, especilly for the size and weight.

This looks like a good setup. Do you use the ballhead that comes with the Slik Sprint Mini or something else?

Eric

I have a bad neck, can't stay on a bicycle over an hour. I also figured it would be more stable set up lower. I've gotta try that rock bag trick of yours. That is too cool.

Stock for me so far but that is definetely the weak link in the set up. I'm open for a LW suggestion.

I use much the same setup. A 50mm Nikon ED with the stock head on the Silk tripod. I've got a fancier head, but I leave it home while hunting. The scope is a straight model and it weighs 16 ozs. on my postal scale in the bag. The tripod goes 24 ozs. in the bag.
I've been glassing elk with mine for the past week. At over 1.5 miles, closer to 2 miles, I can tell spikes from rag horns and recognize the subtle differences between the 4, 6 pt. bulls I've seen. I've even been able to tell the basic 4 pt. raghorns from the small 5 pt. bulls if the angle is right.
This is with the sun rising behind me at over 8000 ft.
The only fault I've found is that if you like to watch these things for a while at 25-27X, the eye relief and eye box is pretty short, so it's hard on the eyes. The larger, heavier Leupold 60mm has a much more foregiving ER and EB. E

What, where, and how you are hunting I have found dictate more the spotting scope I bring. My truck spotter is a 80mm vortex skyline ED as weight isn't a consideration.

Caribou and bear hunting where legal requirements aren't as crucial or summer scouting when I just need to get a general feel for what is in the area my 50mm Minox is perfect with the 13-30X

Moose and sheep hunting when horn/antler requirements dictate if the animal many miles away is worth a closer look then the Swaro 65mm HD comes out. 20-60X is nice when the conditions allow for the 60X. I'd feel pretty handicapped if my spotter for sheep hunting in the mountains limited me to 30X....well it'd mean I'd do a LOT more walking. The extra 2 lbs of spotter weight is more than worth just hauling a 50mm 30X spotter along when you save that much time and energy chasing critters you can tell from much further away either are or aren't worth the hike.

But I do dig the 50mm size and weight when I am carrying it. I also dig the 80mm for light gathering. But I'd say over 60% of the time if I am hunting I am carrying the swaro cause its the best of both worlds. If I was to have just one spotter it would be a 65mm spotter in one of the big three hands down.

The Leupold 12-40x60mm GR your buddy carries is just about perfect, IMO.

Only if its the HD version.

I can put in another vote for the Nikon Fieldscope 50 ED. It does have only 30x and it does have low light issues to some degree, but damn it is small and light!

If that's not enough, the next size up, the Nikon 20-60x 60mm ED Fieldscope III is still pretty darn small and light. But a lot more expensive.

I agree with Alaska Lanche. I had the Leupold and sold it and still have a fixed Leupold 30x fixed for Range use and have been using the Leica APO 16-48. I think it is the best of both world and worth the weight. I made the mistake the other day of just checking out a drainage I had been into again to see if any Sheep had moved in with the recent snow and wanted to go in light. About ready to hike out and took one last look to the top and there stood 3 rams. I couldn't not hike up there but had I had my spotter would have saved me a lot of vertical and time to go to another spot.

hmmmm, I like the sounds of both - the Nikon 50mm for the weight factor but, something like a Swaro 65mm for the quality and light factor....

Does the weight of the scope need to be matched to the tripod (i.e. does a heavier scope need a bit more beef on the tripod, or does it not matter?)

Also, let's talk eye piece angles. Why one over the other? does rain get in your angled pieces? seems with a short light tripod, the angled might work better if the tripod doesn't extend up enough (one could look down vs. having to get down to look thru the straight piece)???

Thoughts?

Straight or Angled is personal. I prefer straight all day long. Some instances angled would be easier to spend long periods looking through but to me a straight works all of the time. I like to feel like I am looking straight at an animal verus through something which an angled scope gives me that felt impression plus I can pan the scope easier with a straight (as your behind it moving with it) but that's me. I have a slik sprint mini but upgraded to the Jim White Tripod head which is perfect in my opinion.

I like straight over angled, looking with a angled for a long period of time my neck starts to hunt. Not with the straight.

Probably because I have a fusion in my neck.

If you need to count rings on a sheep horn from across a drainage, go with a Ziess or Swaro 65 (if you're hiking with it) or an 80 (if you don't)

Otherwise, the Nikon 50ED will do everything most of us need a spotter for. And with an amazing resolution.

I have a Manfrotto fluid head and a Benro(inexpensive Gitzo copy) tripod. I could get a lighter tripod (Slik Sprint Pro) and head but this combo just works for me.

As long as you get a quality tripod and head you should be fine. The brands you are considering will certainly work in any wind you're likely to encounter.

You might check out wide angle, fixed eyepieces for whichever scope you get. They can be very comfortable.

Here's a 50ED with a 27X WA eyepiece.

You're a much better spotter than I if you can consistently count rings on sheep from across a drainage. Even with my 65mm and good conditions at 60X on my swaro 65 HD counting rings can be an iffy deal. I am 75% thus far on the 4 sheep I have been involved with taking on age guessing through a spotting scope, but I think luck was more at work than skill. All sheep were legal by other means, so age so it wasn't the end all be all, but its nice to test yourself. However every sheep was scoped at 60x from less than 400 yards before going in for the final stalk. If you have illusions you'll be able to count annuli from a mile across the drainage with any kind of consistency I think you'd be sorely disappointed with any spotter.

As far as angled over straight I am angled guy, but its all personal preference. The angled does take some practice to learn to get your target in view. But for me its easy now and less strain for me then the straights I used to run. Personally for me the difference between the two is so little that I wouldn't pass up a good deal on either just because the angle of the eyepiece though. Good luck in your search.

Not sure if it's even on your radar or not, but the Minox 50? got some pretty high marks. There was a review floating around the optics forum a while again. I could probably dig up my post/thread if you were interested?

Of the compact spotters, the Nikon got the best marks for clarity, but the Minox was not far behind at all. It was rated much higher than the Leupold compacts. I think the weight was also pretty close to the Nikon as well.

And from what I recall, to get the Nikon up and running with eye piece it was over $400 pretty easilly?

Doug has the Minox demos on sale right now for $189 I think. He was really cool about letting me send it back if I was unhappy. I didn't bother, kept it.

And I am packing it more often. I have a nice Zeiss 65MM that never gets carried anywhere. Just too big and bulky. I've got $1700 inot it probably. Hate to even leave it in my truck. I packed that Minox just 2 days ago searching for Washington Mulies. And I was able to see a very micro forkie at well over 1000 yards. I saw him 2 days prior at 30 yards and he is maybe 7" long and as thick as a #2 Pencil. But I could tell which one he was out of 5 deer at that distance. And being semi socked in and grey the conditions were less than easy to pick up that "antler" if it even counts as that.

Granted, once you get up over 22X or so, the image is not nearly as good. And the focus ring is my big biotch. It's large and difficult to "crack" and get moving initially.

But I like the straight scope, has a really nice, screw on ocular cap that's metal, and comes with an objective cover as well. Nice, soft neoprene case as also, but you really can just chunk it in any area of your pack, or Camelbak for that matter, and not worry about it.

I am not counting annular rings for sheep either, but for it's size and weight, it's a nice addition to your pack for 3pt vs 4pt verification.

The Nikon may be better and clearer. But $300+ dollars better and more stoutly built? Possibly not.

I didn't mean to imply you could do it every time from a mile away. Just trying to illustrate the difference in the two criteria.

If I lived where you lived (which I hope to someday) I might pop for an alpha spotter to micromanage horns at long distance. In the meantime, my $400 used Nikon will work for most of what I need it to do.

I do know however that if I were going to try and count annuli rings at any distance, the bigger scope with the higher power eyepiece would win out.

Larger, same quality spotters always win out. Running my 80/82mm Nikon ED against my little 50mm Nikon ED shows that easily when both are set at 25X. Crank that puppy up to 55-57X and it leaves the little Nikon far behind.
On using any powerfull optic, there is serious trade off with more power. They don't work nearly as well when the sun is high. Haze and UV radiation destroys lots of clarity which optics can't counteract.
On counting sheep annual rings with a spotter, all the serious sheep hunters I know verify their counts at much closer range before they shoot. Too much possibility of error in places where the sheep has to be a certain age. E

Good deal on the Nikon ED50 at B&H Photo. Just ordered one. For some reason the price has been going up and down over the past week. I bought on the second dip I saw. :-)

-Doug

This is just me but I'd find the same system I've used for years.

And old 20x50 Leo hard body coupled (maybe 250 bucks used) with a Bushnell field tripod (about 25 bucks and light).

Cost effective, works great and is as light as a combo as one's gonna and still have it be useful.

Dober

There are some deals to be had on them lately. I bought one last month from Natchez Shooter Supply that was advertised as refurbished. I could not tell it from new. It was the same in every regard as one friend has that was not "refurbished".

Good tip, Doug. That's a great deal. I just ordered one.

Eric

Thanks Eric. I don't know what they are doing with pricing on this, today it is up to $699!! I've seen pricing go up and down several times.

I have an ED50 (straight eye-piece) and Slik Sprint Pro. I would't recommend the compact Leupold (poor resolution and very dim). The ED50 is so light and compact that I carry it on EVERY hunt. Archery, rifle, turkey, etc. No excuse for not having a spotter. Now if I had an 80mm or even a heavy 60-65mm, I might be tempted to leave it behind.

If you don't mind a refurb, you can save a lot on the ED50 if you shop around (~$400 with eye-piece).

Interesting... I got mine for $565 yesterday, with free shipping. Also bought a Slik Sprint Mini II tripod.

Eric

That's about what I paid delivered. As far as refurb. goes, I've wondered if that's not a way around the minimum advertised price agreements. It would seem strange that they'd have that many available as refurbished. I have another Nikon product,range finder, that was a refurb. that looks like new and works like new. I realize the waranty is different, but saving atleast $200.00 on the spotter is worth it to me.

Not to mention saving a grand on a Ziess 65T...oh wait, nevermind.

Exactly!

Anyone had a chance to compare this to the Nikon?

http://www.leupold.com/hunting-and-...g-scopes/golden-ring-10-20x40mm-compact/

Yeah, there is no comparison. The only thing Leupy makes that is optically in the running with the Nikon ED is the HD version of the box spotter, at about twice the weight. They are tough though, SF ODA's have been using them for some time now.

+1

It has been plenty to date

rl11-

I have not compared them side-by-side, but own the ED50 and have used the Leupold in your link. To be honest, that Leupold spotter flat out sucks. I had a 4-12x Nikon UCC riflescope on my rifle at the time I was using that Leupold and it worked better, much better. The Leupold spotting scope was dim and resolution was not good.

There's a reason why most people consider the ED50 the best compact spotter. It simply is. Until someone makes something better, you'll have a hard time finding any reviews or comparisons where the ED50 gets beat. I know the cost for the ED50 is high, but you are not going to get close to its optical abilities with low cost alternatives.

Where can you get a 27x WA eyepiece for the ED50?

They seem to be in short supply.

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