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I have looked at just about all the spotting scopes out there, that leupold gold ring is the only thing that will accomodate us eyeglass wearers even a little. That is going to be what I buy,
AK jeff, do you have any info on them upgrading the lenses I didn't know they did this, I have been looking for a used one but all the decent ebay units are going for upper 600's I can buy a new one with my discount from midway for around $740.

All the big euro glass like leica and zeiss require me to crame my glasses into the eyepeice and push my eyeglass lense back slightly to get a full FOV. The spotting scope I would love to look at is the Pentax PF 80ed with its 22mm of eyerelief but noone in my area has one they got good reviews on BVD

They've upgraded the coatings to the 12-40X spotter just as they have for the new scopes. The new one is called the 12-40X 60mm HD. The older model looks like it's still available as well, so be sure you see HD in the model number.

Jeff

I have the Pentax 80 ed and a Swarovski sts 80, there's not much difference with the variable powered eyepice. But when you go to the straight power eyepiece the Pentax is clearer in my opinion. Both are heavy, I use the Pentax for digiscoping mostly with a williams adapter and a Nikon Koolpix 990.

The Pentax I bought new off ebay with the $150 rebate so it costed me $650. I sold my Leupold 12-40x60 for $600 and bought the Pentax mainly because I could remove the eyepiece and use my camera adapter. The Leupold was a very nice back pack spotting scope and never let me down and was easy to video tape big game thru also.
I don't know about the Minox spotter but I have the 15x58 binos and they are some great glass for the money. Bought them on closeout for $650. I use a Bogen wilderness tripod and fluid head it's heavey but stable.

That's an excellent point and I forgot to mention my eyeglasses. Eye relief is critical.

GB, how does the pentax compare to your older leupold 12-40x60?? as for optical quaility?? what is the eyerelief like on the pentax unit, can someone with glasses get a full FOV. I have been wanting a nice spotter and have been leaning toward the leupold gold ring cause of the generous eyerelief. no one in my area carries the pentax spotter so I have never had a chance to see it

There is plenty of eye relief on my Leica 77 APO scope with the 32x eyepiece. I'm a lifetime glasses wearer. I don't have experience with the variable eyepiece, but testing it in the store (before I bought my scope), it seemed there was a lot less field of view, even at 20x. Having owned the 32x for several years now, I haven't really felt the need for a variable either in the field or at the range.

I have tested all the german spotters, they just don't have enough eyerelief for me. I will admit they all had variable eye pieces. I think 32x would be too much power in some cases. In other cases 32x would prolly be great. So I want the flexablity of the variable. The leupold gold ring impresses me most, I just have never looked through the pentax unit to compare