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Thursday, January 26, 2012Spotting scope magnificationIn terms of how much magnification you can use, effectively, in a spotting scope, your geographic location is a factor. Out in the great wide-open spaces of the western U.S., the skies are not cloudy all day, according to the song, anyway. There’s an element of truth to that, because the climate is drier and, in many areas, the air is also thinner due to the elevation. Drier, thinner air makes for better images in spotting scopes and also more usable images at higher magnifications. There were birdwatching days when I had the magnification on my birding spotting scope pegged at 60x for hours at a time and I could have used even more magnification had the spotting scope been able to provide it. When I moved back east to Chicago, where the elevation is much lower and the air thicker, not to mention much more humid, 60x on my spotting scopes almost never happened. Most days, 30x or 40x was about it before image quality began to fade, even though my little Kowa 663 had the optics do deliver great images all the way up to 60x. I currently live in northern Wisconsin where I swear the humidity is even higher, on the average, than it was in the Chicago area. In two years, have yet to see a single day when 60x in one of my excellent spotting scopes could deliver great image quality. I’m long overdue for a trip to my beloved great wide open spaces out west. Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam ... Comments: |
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