What does the Swarovision field flattening lens actually do for the image? Anyone see a benefit under 2 miles?
It makes the binoculars (EL’s) and the spotters (TX) crisp and clear further out into the edges of the FOV. In my experience it also increases my depth of focus. Basically it makes almost the entire FOV the “sweet spot”
I’ve seen plenty of benefit to them but it’s related to my glassing style and hunting areas.
For perspective - I hunt mule deer, whitetail deer and antelope on the wide open prairies. I have my optics mounted always on a tripod or window mount and the field flattener really helps me catch movement or a sun glint out of the corner of my eye that I don’t get without it. Even with the SLC’s. I have found that I tend to find a lot more game in my peripheral vision than when I’m picking apart the area I’m looking directly at.
I hunt elk, moose and sheep in the Rocky Mountains. I climb up high and set up for the day where I can really pick apart miles and miles of country. The field flattener makes the same difference here where if I’m looking at something I found in the binos, I catch a lot more with the full field of view. Biggest difference being the BTX because you’re getting a huge field of view at a great distance with essentially a high mag Bino. So while I might be looking a few miles out the extra depth of focus with the huge clear FOV allows me to pick up a lot more that I used to miss.
I do pack in my 95mm on more and more hunts now. The more I use it the more I consider it worth its weight in gold and it’s worth the pounds in the pack for me and my style.
Optics are about as subjective and personal as boot choices. My Swaro set up is a personal choice and I find a benefit over any of the other scopes I’ve used (Leupold, Vanguard, Vortex & kowa). Any 65mm for me to count rings on a sheep from a couple miles out isn’t as good as the 95 so it gets a nod in my pack. If I’m hunting elk and just checking to verify the leagality of the animal 65mm all the way.
I spend a lot of time scanning through the spotter on a lot of hunts / scouting to find game and not just pulling up to check something I found with my binos. I can spend all day behind a Swaro where I struggled to do that with other spotters and would end up leaving them behind, wishing I had it, packing it in again and repeating the cycle. So for my style, the lighter scopes would end up being dead weight or left behind which defeated the purpose of that investment all together.
If you’re glassing animals up with your binos and just trying to verify, sounds like you’re already pretty dialed with the 65mm razor. Nothing wrong with that at all. They’re ok glass for most situations. If you’ve already compared them to one of the best on the market and don’t see a difference why consider fixing what ain’t broke?
The Nikon ED50 or Kowa 55 might be the ticket for you, Maven also has their new pack spotter out. I don’t like them due to the limited FOV, less light gathering (haven’t tried a kowa 55 yet but if it’s like my 88 then should be amazing) the Kowas don’t have a rotating collar which is a deal breaker for me. The maven has a pretty limited zoom so I don’t consider that one either. If you’re enjoying the vortex glass why not one of the 50mm razors? They dim out a lot sooner than swaros in my experience and don’t have a rotating collar but one of my hunting partners has one, loves it and uses that for everything.
The ultimate pack spotter to me would be a Swaro 65 STM if I could only pick one. However these are discontinued and next to impossible to find.
