Expert: Tom Hall - 5/22/2002

Question
what do you think of this scope? I am a bird watcher and also do a fair amount of bird observing over water. I am very serious about buying this scope. I have a pair of superior e nikon binoculars but I always wish I could zoom in.                 thank you!

Answer
Dear Greg;
At the company I work for we have three people who own the Swarovski HD scopes, and if I had the disposable cash instead of the three boys I would have one myself. They really are one of the finest combinations of durability, ease of use, ( a lot of us love the helical style focus ) and optical quality. Most of us here pick it as the sharpest and brightest of the large aperture scopes , especially at high power or difficult lighting. And as a bonus - Swarovski is so customer service oriented. Anything you do to the equipment they will fix, and we have not heard of any charges from Swarovski repair for some time.

You don't mention if you might want to use the scope for anything other than visual use, but the Swarovki performs excellently with the telephoto adapters, and in particular with digital cameras used behind the zoom eyepiece for "digiscoping" at very high power. Check out some of Mike's pictures using the Swar. at

http://www.mailbag.com/users/maverick/avian.html

No question you should enjoy the Swarovski.
Please feel free to mail back if you have any other questions. Thanks!  Tom Hall.