Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Compact Spotting Scope Choice

Kowa 501/502 series vs. Athalon Ares 15-45X65

If the stars align and the weather cooperates I’m going to take a week off in December to chase mule deer in the Sandhills. I have a Cabelas EuroOptic spotter which is about as handy as a telephone pole to pack along. I want something that is light and clear enough to use and also fit into a day pack for hiking the yellow mountains. I was going to get the little Kowa but everyone seems infatuated with the Athalon brand. Any experience and opinion you’d care to share are welcome!

Kowa Prominar 550 series.

I know, I know, it ain't cheap. It's in a class by itself, and if a guy wants a quality, packable spotter that will do excellent in the field, at the range, or from the pickup window, this is it.

If you can't swing one of the 550's, then the Kowa 501/502, maybe......

Comparing a 50 mm vs 65 mm spotting scope. Not exacly apples-to-apples.

Another vote for the kowa 550 series. More $ than either of the two you mentioned but worth it IMO. Agree entirely with what ac wrote.

I was going to bring that up--big disparity there.

Compact means 50mm. The Nikon Fieldscope ED50 is a very nice and quality scope. These can be found used, and use the Fieldscope eyepieces.

I say wow every time I use mine.

A few of us who hunt together needed a good compact spotter and about the best thing we found for the money was the old Leupold Compact scopes. They come in 20x, 25X, 30X , with and without crosshairs, available with/without rubber armoring, and you can usually find the Cordura covers for them to protect them while in your pack. I keep one in my pack at all times with mini tripod and hardly even notice it is in there. They can be found quite often on ebay and pop up from time to time on craigslist, facebook marketplace, and other places like LGS and pawn shops for bargain pricing.

This is an example, but I notice prices have gone up a bit since I looked at these last...

[img]https://www.ebay.com/itm/154656917209?hash=item24024546d9:g:1WUAAOSwVKthbI-W[/img]

Bob

I can vouch for the Kowa spotters. We used his 60 mm spotter on both of our sheep hunts here in AK. I was going to take my 62mm Televid, but decided to go with his as it is smaller and lighter. Didn't feel like we gave up much in optical performance. The eye box and relief is a bit more sensitive than the Leica.

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your thoughtful responses. I’d like to go with the Kowa Prominar but the price is a bit over my budget at this stage of my life and how much actual use I’ll get out of it . The Leopold, Nikon and Kowa are all in the running.

I just have to get over my poor old body’s reaction to the COVID booster shot I got on Friday…bleack!

I settled on the Athlon Chronos 12x36x50 as recommended by Doug at Camera Land. For backpacking use, this spotter works fine for me. Super light and easily fits in a water bottle holder with room to spare. I used it last season and it did what it was supposed to. An option you may want to consider. Not Alpha Glass, but it is not that far from it and I agree with Doug now that I have used it, it is the best value for money in compact spotters.

I sure like my 66mm kowa 664 w/20-60x eyepiece. It's pretty light.

The Vortex Razor 13-33x50 is pretty decent in the <$700 range. You could darn near buy 3 for the price of a Kowa.

It's not good enough at really long distances. Out to 3/4 - 1 mile it works, beyond that it it begins to lose a lot of resolution. In my neck of the woods Vortex is by far the most popular in binos and spotters, I've spent time looking through every generation of the Vortex 50mm.

That's the problem, unlike binos, there are no good spotters I've looked through that are half the money of the alpha's but only a step, even a short step from the alpha's. This is especially true on the 50-60m packable spotters.

There's the Prominar 55mm, then a fair step down the Leupold Gold Ring 12-40x60. The Leupold is compact, rugged, a usable magnification range, 60mm is the sweet spot for small spotters, but it's heavy, and for the street price I think the glass should be better.

Yes, that's another good consideration. It's light, but kind've bulky to use with a monopod, so a tripod can easily double the weight.

Alaska range?

I also have the 62mm leica. Love it.

Chugach - Upper Coal Cr. (DS-160)

I hope you killed two good ones.
Sheep hunting is the best there is!