Kowa tsn 773 vs Razor 85mm, huh?

[Rawmeat]

Before everyone goes nuts on me this comparison was brief, in the evening in dim going to dark conditions. I glassed a couple of buildings and telephone poles from my deck trying to decipher detail difference.

I sold my Razor to buy the Kowa tsn 773. I had decided it was time to get one of the best. I borrowed my buddy's beat up Vortex gen 1 razor 85mm so I could justify that $1400 I spent on the upgrade.

I might be crazy, but in my conditions tonight, i could not see a difference in clarity. The Kowa was as bright, which is good being 8mm smaller. The Kowa definitely has more fov, which was the only real advantage. That and eye relief, the Vortex is tough with glasses at 60x. The Kowa will also pack smaller but only weighs 4 oz less.

So I said it. Not really impressed. I have seen so much talk of people dogging Vortex lately that I expected to see a clear difference. My brother in law thought the same when he looked through them.

Is it a good Vortex, bad Kowa? Or not the right situation for the Kowa to shine? Just me? Maybe my eyes aren't good enough to see a big difference.

Either way, I will be doing some more glassing in the next couple days, so maybe I will get a clearer picture. As of right that $1400 is making me a little sore.

 

[Shrek]

If I remember correctly the 773 doesn’t have the flourite crystal lens the 883 does and the 883 I looked through didn’t impress me at all. Kowa is getting a lot of hype recently but it doesn’t surprise me in the least you found little to no difference between a 773 and a Razor 85. My experience is that Kowa makes ok optics but is being sold as great. I haven’t been hanging out with the birding people at all in the last year so I haven’t been able to check out any new samples.

 

[rickjames80]

I hate to say it, but the Razor is pretty good. I have compared it to an ATM 80 HD and a Cabela's Euro. I feel both the ATM and Euro are better, but it's not by a mile like some report. The differences are so small to me that if you don't have them side by side for a period of time most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

[snakelk]

Based on your observations comparing the Kowa and the Razor, I'd buy a Meopta S2 instead. I participated in a side-by-side comparison of several spotters, including an 85mm Razor and a Meopta S2 (along with a 65 Swaro, and a couple of Leupold Gold Ring), and there was no question which scope topped the list. The Meopta was that much better than the Razor, with the biggest reason for me being the eye relief and actually being useful on 70x. The Vortex was like a lot of other spotters I've looked through on high power, difficult to focus and poor eye relief. Maybe we had a bad Razor, I don't know, but after that comparison I knew which scope I wanted.

 

[danmayland]

If I remember correctly the 773 doesn’t have the flourite crystal lens the 883 does and the 883 I looked through didn’t impress me at all. Kowa is getting a lot of hype recently but it doesn’t surprise me in the least you found little to no difference between a 773 and a Razor 85. My experience is that Kowa makes ok optics but is being sold as great. I haven’t been hanging out with the birding people at all in the last year so I haven’t been able to check out any new samples.

The 773 does had fluorite lens coating.


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[danmayland]

The difference is in the shadow detail. That’s what separates the men from the boys. The “ok” glass vs. the exceptional glass. You will find there’s significantly more detail in the low light shadows with the kowa. If not then maybe it’s your eyes. Everyone see differently and it’s possible your eyes adjust better to the Vortex.


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[Shrek]

The 773 does had fluorite lens coating.


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I believe the 883/884 have a flourite crystal objective lens not just a coating.

Edit : the 883/4 have the pure flourite crystal lens and the 773/4 have the XD lens which is lessor quality and performance. I got that directly from the Kowa website.

 

[danmayland]

I believe the 883/884 have a flourite crystal objective lens not just a coating.

The 773 uses the exact same lenses as the 883/884.


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[Shrek]

The 773 uses the exact same lenses as the 883/884.


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Not according to Kowa.

 

[danmayland]

Not according to Kowa.

Yea I just read trough that. I stand corrected. You are right. The 773 has the xd lens


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[Schaaf]

OP, what eyepiece were you using? I find that odd. My 773 is on another level from everything I’ve looked at. Including Swaro, Meopta, and Vortex.

 

[peddler]

The 773 does not have a fluorite lens only the 88mm series has Fluorite.

 

[28bang]

The 773 does not have a fluorite lens only the 88mm series has Fluorite.

The 553 and 554 have it too.

 

[peddler]

The 553 and 554 have it too.

Forgot about the little one.

 

[Mercyme]

Hi,

if it's just about budget, I cannot really recommend the 773, as the price difference to it's larger brother, the 883 is marginal (bhphoto wants USD 1999 for the 883 body which includes a usable aluminum tripod and USD 1699 for the 773 body alone - the 25-60 wide angle zoom is USD 569 in any case).
The 883 is currently the end of the road in spotting scopes (ok, there's still the big swaro ATXs that some like too, but they are equal at best and quite a bit more expensive). You will not want to replace this for a long time and there is the 1.6 extender if you ever want more than 60x - and it performs well up to 96x.

The 773 is seldom seen or reviewed, the few reviews to be found say it's a great scope, but the 883 is just a bit better and brighter, 2.5cm longer and 200g heavier (with a total package weight of >4kg who cares) and only $300 more...
The main difference is obviously 11mm less aperture which might sound not much but means a quarter more area and thus light gathering capability. Both have doublet objectives with 500mm focal length, the 773 with an ED glass element and the 883 with fluorite crystal instead. Since the 773 has a more relaxed focal ratio of f6.5 as compared to the rather fast 883 with f5.6, it works ok with an ED doublet while the fast 883 needs fluorite (or a triplet objective which is usually not used in spotters). Both have good CA control with the 883 said to be slightly better here too.

Here's some more comments on the Kowas...
kowa 773 vs 883 - BirdForum

I don't think the old Vortex Razor HD 20-60x85 being still sold is a match for both of them, mainly due to the not so wide angle zoom... the Vortex has 2.2 degree true field at 20x or 44 deg afov and the Kowas have 2.3x at 25x or 57 deg afov - on the high mag end at 60x it's the same: Vortex 1.1 deg true or 66 deg afov and Kowa 1.32 deg true or 78 deg afov.
There seems to be a new model called Razor HD 27-60x85 which looks quite different (Swaro style focus ring vs double focus on top) but has a wide angle zoom 27-60x with a field comparable to the Kowa, but I haven't found any reviews.

Maybe a good example of one of the Vortex models might come close to the Kowas, but bad ones certainly have been around...
People complain about Kowas too, but not about optical performance...

Vortex Razor HD 85mm vs Zen Ray ED2 82mm - BirdForum

On the plus side there's the very generous warranty by Vortex which seems to be close to Swaro levels...

happy owner of a 30 year old Kowa TSN-3...