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Posts Tagged 'kowa'
New ultra-compact scope: KOWA TSN-55 PROMINAR
June 13 2024, Stefan Rieger
KOWA, the Japanese manufacturer of premium spotting scopes has revised its range of ultra-compact spotting scopes. The TSN-55 PROMINAR is the successor to the popular TSN-550 model. The most significant innovation is the design of a new eyepiece based on the well-known TE-11 WZ wide-angle zoom eyepiece. This results in a magnification range of 17-40x and an extreme field of view of up to 65m at a distance of 1000m using the lowest magnification. In addition, it has the well-known, previously unrivaled quality fluorite crystal lens of course and the dual focus gives you absolute control over the sharpness at your fingertips with the option of a separate fast or fine focus.
All of this combined with extremely compact dimensions and a weight of less than one kilogram underlines the slogan ‘Travel Light – See Bright’. Available as TSN-55A with angled view and TSN-55S with straight view.
Deliveries will start at the beginning of July, so make sure you get one of the first models already today!
New Kowa compact spotting scopes! For all those, for whom a spotting scope had previously been too big and unwieldy.
July 1 2017, Stefan Rieger
Kowa has recently introduced not just one, but four new compact spotting scopes. These convenient and travel friendly “telescopes” are ideal for all those, for whom a spotting scope had always been too big or too heavy. Or for those who already have a spotting scope, but do not use it because it is too impractical.
Kowa offers two quality classes, both with the choice of straight or oblique view. The inexpensive series TSN-500 offers a 20-40x magnification with a front lens diameter of 50mm. The conically shaped focusing knob gives you the feeling of an almost separately controllable coarse and fine focusing drive. The optics are obviously fully multi-coated. The spotting scope comes with a tripod connection and a sighting aid.
The model TSN-501 offers you the inclined or angular view, the TSN-502 is a scope with straight view. The recommended retail price of the manufacturer is 299 € incl. VAT.
When looking for maximum quality in combination with small dimensions, you will surely be interested in the TSN-550-Series with Prominar lens!
This small spotting scope has the same fluorite crystal glass as the bigger sister series TSN-770 and TSN-880. It has a magnification range of 15-45x and is also equipped with a fixed zoom eyepiece. The dual focus allows you to quickly focus roughly, and then point the fine focus to the beak of the bird. The lens shade is extendable and rotatable. The sighting aid is particularly helpful for first-time users of a spotting scope.
The fluorite crystal lens material minimises imaging faults, so that no disturbing colour fringes impair the viewing experience or make the determination of birds a difficult task. However, these high-end optics are not cheap, but they are worth every penny. The recommended retail price is 1799 € incl. VAT. The scope with the oblique view has the model name TSN-553 and when favouring the straight view you should decide on the TSN-554.
The smartphone adapters from Kowa are suitable for all 4 models. With their help, you can take pictures of your observations. For the TSN-550er series you need the adapter ring TSN-AR66Z, for the TSN-500 a specific adapter ring will be introduced in the near future.
Both model series are available from the 18th of August. Just reserve one of the first models for yourself!
Novelties from the Birdfair 2016
December 1 2016, Stefan Rieger
Every year the most important tradeshow for ambitious bird watchers (twitchers) and nature photographers takes place in Egleton, Rutland in England: the Birdfair. This tradeshow may just be the biggest end-customer fair for followers of this hobby in Europe. More and more manufacturers use this platform to present their new products.
Here some of the highlights of this year’s fair:
ZEISS featured the new Conquest Gavia spotting scope. A completely new development with an oblique viewing position and a new wide angle eyepiece. The premium manufacturer from Wetzlar now also uses the large focus ring, as some competitors also do. At the same time ZEISS presented a range of useful accessories, for example, a new Carbon tripod set or a photo adapter for cameras with filter threads in various diameters, which are clamped by the eyepiece. And due to their cooperation with the company ExoLens, ZEISS now, for the first time, has a Smartphone digiscoping solution. It consists of a adapter ring and the so-called ExoLens Bracket (holder for the smartphone). These brackets are available for the Apple iPhone 6/6s and the Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 edge. ZEISS presented even more adapter rings, so that the ExoLens Bracket can also be used on the currently available binocular models from ZEISS.
Apart from that, ZEISS had a revised version of the Victory SF on display for examination. Here the colour of the rubber armouring was changed to black, following public requests. And also the eyepiece caps now have an additional locked position. This allows an even more individual adjustment for eye relief. The focus mechanics have also been slightly improved.
The other major manufacturer from Wetzlar, LEICA, already announced a few weeks ago, that they would present some new products during the fair. The new Leica top model of the type 42 binoculars is available under the name Noctivid. This name is derived from the Latin “Noctis”, meaning Night, and surely reminds friends of Leica photography of the fast Noctilux lenses. However, with a transmission of approx. 92% (acc. to the manufacturer), it is still no night vision equipment, but for the needs of ornithologists it is surely more than adequate.
For most nature observers it may be more important that Leica can now also compete against major competitors in the close-range area. With a close range distance of only 1.9 meters you can watch butterflies, dragonflies, spiders and other insects. Furthermore, the new Noctivid now comes with an open bridge structure, which considerably improves handling, especially when holding the binocular with one hand. Apart from that, Leica currently offers a complete combination consisting of spotting scope, camera and all necessary adapters. Optionally with angled or straight view, 82 or 65 mm lens diameter.
For twitchers no longer an insider tip: The company KOWA has expanded its Genesis model range. Besides the previous type 44 and 33, they now also offer pocket binoculars with a 22-millimetre lens diameter. This “hand full of binoculars” is available with 8-fold and 10-fold magnification. Due to the Prominar XD lenses, it can easily compete with the top-level binoculars from ZEISS, Leica or Swarovski. Unfortunately “high performance optics” cost a lot of money, the prices recommended by the manufacturers are therefore comparable with the prices of top models from Europe.
Nikon also presented new products: the new Monarch ED spotting scopes and the new Monarch HG binoculars. Both the scopes as well as the binoculars were equipped with a “Field Flattener Lens”, which reduces the field curvature and thus increases the marginal sharpness. Unfortunately Nikon only offers digiscoping solutions for their in-house system camera Nikon 1 and the compact cameras with small zoom range, which are becoming increasingly rare.
Last but not least, the new Legend E-, L- and M-Series from Bushnell are now available. These binoculars rather appeal to the ambitious novice of this hobby, who is looking for a very good pair of mid-range binoculars and for whom a ZEISS Conquest HD, Swarovski SLC or Leica Trinovid HD is simply too expensive. At this point we can offer you the predecessor Bushnell Legend Ultra HD in 10×42.