New mid-priced telescopes from Kowa and Nikon

Kowa has introduced a new 660 series to replace the popular 610 series of telescopes. For testing, I got the angled models 661 and 663 Prominar, the latter of which features an objective made of ED glass. In order to provide a suitable reference, I included Nikon's recently introduced Spotting Scope 80 A with a 33x wideangle eyepiece in the test. In its new models, Kowa has increased the objective diameter from 60 millimeters to 66 millimeters in order to improve the brightness and, in principle, also the resolution of the new scopes. The shape of the scopes is a little rounder, and the scopes are still very lightweight with main body weights just a hair over a kilogram. The scopes have a sliding lens hood, and the focus knob is of Kowa's traditional one-finger type on top of the body. On a tripod, the scopes were decidedly rear-heavy, but otherwise their handling was very good. The Nikon in turn weighs nearly 1.5 kilograms, and its body is rather long and quite front-heavy. The Nikon also has a sliding lens hood, which at least in this individual was so loose that it would slide open or closed on its own if the scope was carried in a non-horizontal position. Nikon's focus knob is similar to the Kowa's but better in the sense that you can twist it between your thumb and forefinger, thereby introducing less tremor to the scope while focusing. Kowa and Nikon both call the scopes waterproof, and the Kowas also are nitrogen purged and thereby less likely to fog up inside. Nikon's price includes a very functional stay-on case; for the Kowas a case must be purchased separately.

I tested the resolution of the scopes with a target which has ca. 8 line pairs/mm. With the Nikon at 33x magnification, the lines could just barely be resolved from a distance of 9.35 meters, with the Kowa 661/30xW from 8.6 meters and with Kowa 661/27xW from 7.9 meters. Unfortunately I was not able to get Nikon's 20-60x zoom for the test. Kowa offers two different zooms for the 660 series, a 20-60x and a 20-40x "High-Grade." With these zooms the limiting distance of resolution improved with increased magnification, but with the first of the zooms even 60x magnification did not increase the distance beyond 10.65 meters, and the High-Grade zoom at 40x yielded 9.95 meters. The overall image quality was not very good in either of the zooms, and the eye-relief offered by the 20-60x zoom was so short that even without glasses I felt like I should have pushed my cornea through the eye-lens and into the eyepiece in order to see the full field. If we take the different magnifications of the wideangle eyepieces into account, we can see that their resolutions are quite equal but that the Kowa is slightly sharper than the Nikon. I expected the Kowa 663 Prominar to have better resolution than the 661, but--probably due to individual variation--the opposite was the case. It was impossible to make the image of this 663 to be quite as sharp as in the 661 although the measured difference in resolution distance was very small. However, I am convinced that with representative samples the 663 is just as sharp as the 661, so I have not recorded the results of the 663 into this test. In brightness and contrast, both of the Kowas were a little better than the Nikon and their colour rendition was also very neutral, while the Nikon exhibited a moderate yellowish bias. In viewing against a bright light all three performed very well, and even viewing right next to the setting sun was relatively easy. The superior colour correction of Kowa's 663 was clearly visible in its image. Colours were purer and the edges of high-contrast objects remained nearly free of green or purple fringing. In this respect the 661 and the Nikon were significantly inferior and very close to each other. Among the eyepieces, Kowa's 30xW is the wideangle already familiar from Kowa's first fluorite Prominars, and offers excellent viewing comfort and very good image quality all the way to the edge. It is also very suitable for viewing with glasses. However, in direct comparison Kowa's 27xW was a little sharper at the centre of the image. It also exhibited somewhat better contrast and purer colours than the 30xW, but its eye-relief was significantly shorter and edge performance much poorer. In viewing comfort, Nikon's 33xW is comparable with Kowa's 27x, and its image quality is also nearly as good. Kowa's zooms I cannot bring myself to recommend: their viewing comfort and field of view are severely compromised and the amount of additional resolving distance they bring is not very significant. This brings me to the most significant shortcoming of Kowa's new scopes: since Kowa already has excellent wideangles and a top-quality zoom for the 820 series, why could they not design the 660 series to use these same eyepieces? This is all the more regrettable in view of the manufacturer's/importer's decision to raise the prices of the 660 series scope bodies to an entirely different level from the 610 series prices. With the Nikon, the available eyepieces are better in line with the scope's price and performance.

As a whole, Kowa's new offerings are good telescopes, but among the eyepieces tested, only the 27x and 30x wideangles can be recommended to discerning birders. Also the difference in performance to the best scopes on the market is quite substantial. The 610 series was priced very competitively and deserved a high recommendation in its class, but unfortunately it seems that with the new 660 series the price has risen more than the performance has improved. The Nikon Spotting Scope 80 A in turn is a little behind the 661 in optical quality and also significantly larger and heavier, but it's price is much more reasonable.

Corollary: Kowa 501Z

In conjunction with the above test, I also tried Kowa's other new offering, the 501Z 'midget' telescope. It has a 50mm objective and a non-exchangeable 20-40x zoom eyepiece. The entire scope weighs only 395 grams and costs under 2000 FIM. In resolution tests I got a distance of 7.5 meters at 40x magnification and 7.25 meters at 30x magnification, or significantly under the distances provided by the larger scopes in the above test. Image brightness and contrast were acceptable and colour rendition was decent. In viewing against bright light, reflections were marring the image significantly more than in the larger scopes. Up to about 30x magnification the image looked acceptable, but beyond that the scope was clearly pushing its limits. However, the tiny Kowa is a real telescope which is quite easy to view with and which lets you identify birds at two-three times the distances normal binoculars can. It's field of view is also wider than in most zooms. This scope can be recommended especially to those for whom an ordinary telescope is too large and heavy. It can also be adequately supported by very light, even table-top type tripods.

Kimmo Absetz