optics

[Cliffer]

I am kind of confused about all those spotting scopes out there. Most people want to know about seeing bullet holes and not how far can they see clearly an animal. I' am interested in a gold ring compact in 15-30x or the excursion flp in 15-45x. Does anyone have any experience in these two or the cabela's 20x binoculars.

[Perry67]

Good thread... just remember boys, Binoculars are for finding things, Spotting Scopes are for looking at things... Their is a big difference! Don't try and have a tool made for one job try and do another! It doesn't work that well... Buy the best binocular you can afford and then buy the best spotting scope you can afford knowing you will use the binoculars a lot more than the spotting scope!

[NorCalRefuge]

Better quality glass usually trumps higher magnification - to a point (obviously 6x super high quality glass can't compete with a 45x even if it's crap glass).

Be careful of the Amazon special spotting scopes. They are light weight, and shake a LOT even on a quality tripod, making it difficult to actually see down range.