Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Vortex, now all made in China.

Kowa TSN-883 Spotting Scope

Kowa TSN-883 Spotting ScopeThe TSN-880 series is the larger of the two newest scope lines from Kowa. We've reviewed scopes before. We've reviewed Kowa scopes before. We've never seen anything like this scope before! We received the angled fluorite model TSN-883 ("Prominar", for those of you familiar with Kowa terminology) for review from Kowa along with the TSN-773. These are 88- and 77-mm objective lens size scopes respectively. The TSN-773 will be reviewed in another article. First impressions mean a lot in this game, and the new TSN-883 makes a big one - the view through this optic is breath-taking and unbelievably bright and crisp. In short, we really liked it.

Physically, the TSN-883 is a very compact 13.5 inches long (without eyepiece) and weighs in at just over 3 lbs (53.6 oz.). For an objective this size, that weight is impressive - it's actually lighter than some 77-to-82-mm scopes on the market, thanks to its magnesium alloy casing. The body is fully sealed, nitrogen-purged and completely waterproof. So are the eyepieces! The eyepieces lock in place, with a push-button release mechanism. The lens hood pulls straight out, and as always, we recommend using it, if only to protect the objective lens from potential damage by scratching or whatever. Beyond a shallow double groove on the hood, the TSN-883 has no device to enable sighting.

When we reviewed the new Kowa scopes, we pulled out the best instruments from other manufacturers that we had in stock. While we won't tell you what the competitor models were (we still have friends at those companies…), we will say right out that the 883 and 773 blew away everything else in their class. By that we mean, these are simply the finest spotting scopes we’ve seen yet. It was a revelation in the field. The degree of detail visible was simply astounding with characteristics of feather wear so clear you would think you were staring at a museum specimen. The image brightness and clarity were riveting. We tried hard to find things wrong with these scopes, and it was really difficult to do. The image stays razor sharp right to the very edge of the field. There is no zone of blurriness, no distortion, no image-bending - nothing. We did note that at the very edge of the field on a bright, high contrast object, there was the slightest hint of color-fringing. So what? The effect is very minor, and very difficult to detect unless you’re looking specifically for it. It’s unlikely to affect a user in any way. Like we said, we had to work hard for this! The colors were absolutely true with no detectable bias. In failing light, the image was remarkably bright at 60x, delivering detail that wasn't even visible in other high end scope models we compared it to. The image quality is so high that it is difficult to write about without sounding like we're gushing.


The rest of the review can be found here, http://www.optics4birding.com/kowa-tsn-883-spotting-scope-review.aspx