If you have been following BVD reviews and opinions for any length of time, you know that my favorite birding scope is the little Nikon 60mm Fieldscope ED (followed closely by the 60mm Kowa TS 612-14 series with the eyepieces from the larger Kowa scopes). My feeling is that anything you might gain in resolution and brightness with a larger (70-80mm) scope is more than made up for by the compactness and general field worthiness of the smaller scopes. Again, the best scope you can own is the one you have with you when you see the bird.

Kowa fires a shot...
Never-the-less, market pressures being what they are, it was inevitable that the 80mm barrier would be broken.

To provide some historical perspective on the aperture race: until the introduction of the Kowa 77mm scope, 60mm was the norm. The Kowa blew every 60mm then on the market out of the water...it provided the kind of view few scope users even dreamed was possible. The Kowa, of course, was followed by a host of big scopes...most in the 80mm size. (80mm is a traditional size for astronomical scopes...60mm scopes are for beginners, mostly department store quality; 80mm scopes are often the first scope for the serious amateur astronomer.)

The Kowa, being first out, captured the lion's share of the large scope market, while all the other brands fought for the leavings. Over the years though, some stiff competition to the venerable Kowa 77mm has come along. The Nikon Fieldscope 78ED and the Swarovski AT80HD both have far better zoom eyepieces, and perhaps a bit more resolution at higher powers. The Swarovski, Optolyth, and the Leica 80mm scopes are waterproof. The Swift and Fujinon offerings are particularly user-friendly (and the Swift also has an exceptional zoom eyepiece). The Bausch and Lomb 77mm Elite is about the most elegant looking scope you will ever see and has very good optics. The Kowa was rapidly becoming just the senior citizen in a growing family of larger scopes. Once the best was not a title Kowa was much interested in. What could they do?

Obviously they needed to reestablish their identity in the market with a radically new product...another first. Or at least I assume that was their reasoning when they thought up the 82mm scope. Bigger is better... everyone knows that. Consumers go for size! Going from 77 to 80 might be a slight optical improvement (assuming all sorts of other things are done right as well), but no one else has an 82...you can hear the marketing gears grinding.

Its Bigger...it must be better!
Let us dispose of this issue of raw size right away. In theory, a 5mm increase in objective diameter (or even the 2mm the Kowa has over the rest of the pack) could offer significantly more brightness and resolution in critical situations. By "significant" I mean that you should be able to see a difference between the image of the Kowa 82 and competing scopes, under ideal conditions, and with direct side-by-side comparison. By "critical" I mean that the extra resolution and brightness might make the difference between getting the ID and not getting it about 1-2% of the time...when light levels are very low, or distances are very great.

That is theory...it has to do with numbers on paper...not with actual scopes in the field.

In reality, putting the new 82mm up beside the best of the other scopes in its class, in direct comparison, it is not significantly brighter, nor does it deliver significantly more detail to the eye. It is an exceptional scope, with one of the best views I have ever seen, as good as any of the large scopes, and that is very good indeed, but it is not significantly better. There are many excellent reasons to buy and enjoy the new Kowa scope (read on), but the extra 5mm (or 2mm) is not one of them! In real world comparisons the extra aperture makes no visible difference...and, under the worst conditions for a scope... extremely unsteady or dirty air...the extra size might even put the scope at a slight disadvantage.

Optolyth's big (BIG!) gun...
The 100mm Optolyth, also reviewed in this issue, is simply another case in point. 100mm...4 inches...that is a lot of glass. It might have made sense for Optolyth to produce the biggest scope on the market, from a marketing standpoint, but it makes much less sense optically. With all that glass out front you would expect that the scope would be visibly brighter and provide noticeably better detail at distance...but, in actual field tests, it is not and it does not.

Just making it bigger does not make it better.

Is it war...
I would hate to think the Kowa and the Optolyth are the first shots in an aperture war. I sincerely hope they will not be followed by 85mm Swarovskis and 88mm Nikons...by 105mm Swifts and 110mm Bausch and Lombs.

80mm, as far as I can see, is very near the limit for useful aperture ...making scopes bigger is not going to significantly improve performance in the field: better eyepieces will; the introduction of aspheric elements may; stretching out the focal length almost certainly would. Simply adding millimeters to the objective diameter will not. If manufacturers want to improve scopes, they should put their R&D funds into eyepiece design! The ideal birding scope might be a 65 or 70mm with exceptional eyepieces and radically oversized prisms.

But how would you market the thing? Birders need to send a clear message to the makers...give me a better view, not just bigger scopes!