Pentax PF-80ED 80mm ED Waterproof Spotting Scope - Angled - with Case - Limited Liftime USA Warranty, Requires Eyepiece

2021-05-02T06:18:47

This is my first Pentax scope and I am impressed which is not easily done. Having a second scope to compare it to is awesome. My other scope is a Tele Vue refractor so I have an excelect scope for comparison. My scope use is for off shore bird watching from bluffs. Thus, ranges of 1,000-7,000 feet off shore are daily events. I wanted a more rugged scope for beat around field use. Just for the record the Televue is better in every way except it is not water protected, heavy, and somewhat fragile so not suited for field use and also more than five times the price. That this scope holds up against the Tele Vue is the deciding factor you should take away from my monolog. The only drawback is the oculars Pentax is peddling for this scope are inferior to the scope and degrade its optical quality. With good oculars (I use three - 9mm Nalger, 24mm Panoptic, and a 32mm Pelosi, it produces a clear, sharp, view with good color and contrast to the limits of air quality. Just keep the power at/under 50X and it is a delightful scope. One final point is to use a quality filter to protect the front lens. I cheaped out and the view was degraded to a noticeable extent.

RICHARD H.

2017-09-29T18:11:15

I bought this over 2 years ago from Adorama (good service by the way) and very satisfied. I am a very advanced astronomy buff so have very high standards for my equipment. My favorite eyepieces for astronomy are Pentax (have full set) and since they are a perfect match for this scope the choice was obvious. Advantages.....the scope is sealed and nitrogen filled to prevent internal dewing. It has ED glass and the eyepieces have the same nitrogen fill and ED glass. Nice that you can change out the eyepieces and not have to worry about moisture getting into the scope or eyepieces. But if you don't want to use the Pentax eyepieces that is fine since the scope takes any standard 1 1/4" astronomy eyepiece and I have tried many brands and all work fine. I like the angled version since I can lock it on a subject and have people of different heights look through the scope easily. The straight model isn't as convenient for that but you may find the straight version is a bit faster to find the subject. I chose the 65mm version rather than the 80 to save weight. The 80mm scopes are falling out of favor for a lot of people who don't like all the weight and bulk. The 65 easily fits into a day pack or over your shoulder and since you don't need a extra heavy duty tripod you save weight there also. I would only consider the larger aperture scopes if you plan on doing a lot of viewing in very dim lighting....I find if you just put a lower power eyepiece on the scope you will have no problem even in darker conditions. By the way I also have used the scope for bench rest target shooting and it works great.

ROBERT B.

2016-11-03T11:32:44

I have owned a few scopes. This one is typically PENTAX.. Fabulous!! RJM

Robert M.

2016-09-05T09:17:16

They are discontinueing the production of Pentax spotting scopes. This scope completes my collection of 100mm,85mm,and 65mm. There optical properties are without peer when used with the SMC XL and XW eyepieces.

PHILLIP W.

2015-12-08T11:18:33

I bought the first version of this when my 80 mm was stolen. Optics as good as anything. Very portable and waterproof. Zoom kit is a waste for birding. A 30 mm fixed eyepiece is best. The expensive one, not the cheap one. Pentax uses better, wider astronomical eyepieces than other mfrs. Angled is usable by wider range of people height without adjusting tripod.

Steven M.

2014-10-18T21:00:00

An ED spottingscope with possibility to use astronomical 1,25" eyepieces: that's the reason I bought it. And it didn't make me dissapointed. Compact size, nice design and with excellent image quality. I mainly use it with Meade 5000 26mm plössl and Baader Hyperion 13mm eyepieces(15 resp. 30x). The color correction is good and even at higher magnifications false colors are very absent. I have hard to find anything negative with this scope and would buy it again. Highly recommended.

Swedpat

2013-10-13T21:00:00

I have this scope. I have tested it at the following powers, targeting the 1. Moon, and 2. Trees in my backyard. The Moon looked great at 20X and 30X (achieved with a simple Vixen NPL 20mm and a barlow lens from a GSO barlow unit). These powers are quite "hand-holdable" if one can accept some normal shake. Very tight and pleasant. At 55X (7mm Vixen Lanthanum eyepiece), the image became rather grainy on both the Moon and the Trees (when viewing the trees, it was an overcast day in October). Backing it down to 48X (12mm Vixen with barlow) was enough to achieve a very pleasant view on the trees and Moon. I briefly tried 97X power on the Moon (4mm Vixen eyepiece) and there was no false color but it was grainy. This scope is simply not designed for this kind of thing. Anyway, I bought it to use as a "go anywhere" scope, hoping to get from 20-40X out of it, at good quality, and it does that easily. The images are sharp all across the field. As I said, very satisfying. It weighs one kilogram (a bit over two pounds. About the same as a liter/quart of milk). Good work, Pentax.

John

2013-05-07T21:00:00

I can score rifle targets at 400 yards with this spotting scope.

KYLE N.

2012-12-30T19:00:00

The thing that makes me happiest about this scope is the fact that I can used my high end Meade Superwide and Ultrawide eyepieces with it. I popped in an 8.8mm Meade Ultra Wide and was blown away with the brightness and clarity. The 15mm Superwide was even better...

ANTHONY D.

2012-05-19T21:00:00

Very compact and easy to carry. A bit heavy but feels well made, not like a cheap piece of plastic. I like the scope cover it works well with a pocket in the front to hold the lens caps. I bought the Pentax SMC XW14 lens that in this scope is 28X. It has a bright crisp image with wide field of view, a bit particular about eye placement but no biggie. For the price, an excellent spotting scope. My first purchase from ADORAMA and I have to say the best customer service I have experienced in a long time. Fast, friendly and honest. The first place I am going to look online from now on, highly recommended!!!

TONY C.

2012-01-29T19:00:00

Its been 2 - 3 weeks I have been using Pentax 65 Ed for Digiscoping. I use it with Baader Hyperion 17mm eyepiece and my Ricoh GX 200 for digiscoping. GX200's Lens adapter (HA1) attached to Baader EP 43 mm thread perfectly. The quality of digiscoping pictures taken with this combination is much better than cropped images from Sony A850 with sony G 70-300 mm lens taken from same distance (100 yards)

NAVEEN N.

2012-01-04T19:00:00

Great for birding and big game scouting. This scope is in the same league as the $2,000+ scopes, i.e. Swaro, Howa, Leica, etc.

All A.

2011-10-16T21:00:00

I bought this to replace my heavy PF-80 for back country packing. It is small lightweight, and the optics are clear and bright. I ordered it with the xf zoom eyepiece, but replaced it with the more expenxive, xw zoom eyepiece, and couldn't be happier.

DAVID H.

2011-09-03T21:00:00

i use this scope for spotting deer and elk, and whatever else i want to look at, even used it to check out the moon once. darn good choice here, and the price was awesome too, compaired to my buddies high dollar name brand spotting scopes.

donnie

2011-02-20T19:00:00

I'll qualify my comments by saying that I haven't had an opportunity to use the scope at a distance beyond 100 yds. yet but so far I'm very pleased with it. Image quality, features and design are comparable to high end spotting scopes. The scope takes standard U.S. astronomical eyepieces which helps it to get the best out of the 80mm low dispersion objective lens.

RICHARD W.

2010-01-27T19:00:00

I am a Highpower Rifle Shooter, which means I shoot a service rifle (AR-15) chambered in .223 at 200, 300 and 600 yard matches. I use this scope nearly every week on the practice range to spot holes in targets at 200 yards for myself and others. I spent an enormous amount of time reading other reviews, comparisons, etc, etc, etc, before buying this relatively expensive piece of equipment, but my evaluation criteria is very simple: can you or can you not spot a 1/4" (made by a .223 bullet) hole in the black at 200 yards, in the shade, or worse case, on an overcast winter day. With this scope, yes, every time. Birders have done a great job testing spotting scopes and carefully analyzing the results - but they're interested in color rendition, edge distortion, and other artistic criteria, which is great, but not useful to me. I just want to see 1/4" holes in the black, and you need a very good scope to do this. The Pentax has the right magnification, excellent resolution, and superior light sensitivity to make this possible. I have to wear prescription shooting glasses, which are bigger and further away from my eye than regular eyeglasses, so eye relief is a major feature for me. The Pentax has published eye relief for the SMC 21-63mm eyepiece, which comes with the PF-80 in the kit, of 18 to 22mm, and it turns out to be satisfactory for my use (by the way, don't bet your life on the published eye relief, you've got to look for yourself, if you wear glasses). I actually bought a different scope last year (was $675 with a great reputation), but I opened it up, put on my shooting glasses, looked through it, not good enough, sent it back, all within about 10 minutes of opening the box. Eye relief was clearly, definitely, unsatisfactory. I didn't know anyone with that scope and I hadn't looked through one before buying it - big mistake. With the Pentax, I definitely have to get right up on the eyepiece if I want to see the entire field of view while wearing my glasses (I don't need the entire field through, just the middle half or so), but again, the eye relief on the Pentax is good enough, and I'm yet to look through any other scope that has what I'd call "generous" eye relief - at least with the same magnification eyepiece. I have two other scopes, a well-regarded Chinese brand 20-60x80 that cost about $300, and an excellent American brand 12-40x60. The American scope is awesome, love it, but it doesn't have the magnification or objective size to really do what I need it to do. The $300 scope is unsatisfactory. Now that I've gotten used to the Pentax, I can't actually believe how poor the $300 scope is - this comment included for those of you wondering how much they have to spend. With the $300 scope you can see the holes in ideal lighting (sun shining on the target), but you cannot see them when the target is shaded or it's overcast. Overall, resolution, light gathering and field of view are very poor compared to the Pentax in field conditions, although I think it's a pretty decent scope for its price. I've looked through a lot of other people's scopes at the range as well. Many in my sport use the discontinued Kowa TSN-80, which has normal, not ED glass. This is a good scope, but the Pentax has ED glass, and I've spent lots of time looking through both in comparison, and I prefer the Pentax. To get a scope on a par with the Pentax, you are into high end choices with ED glass from Swaro, Kowa, Leica, Zeiss, and Nikon, at least these are the scopes I considered, and I had a chance to look through each of them (except the Kowa ED). Among these, the Pentax is by far the least expensive. Any of these would be fantastic to own, but they are 1.5 to 3+ times as expensive, and I really don't think I would be any more satisfied with their performance because the Pentax is outstanding. I use this scope OFTEN. Like every weekend, so I've had a chance to USE it in all kinds of different light conditions, and I know for sure now that it delivers. I highly recommend it. One more thing regarding testing. It's great to look through someone else's scope while they tell you how fantastic it is. This topic is so subjective, but in my case (1/4" holes at 200 in the shade - yes or no) the criteria is objective. I want to point out that looking out someone's window on a sunny day isn't useful. You have to use the scope, under different conditions, just as you intend to use it, to know if it is satisfactory. Just my additional 2 cents.

WinW338

2009-12-29T19:00:00

This is the highest quality scope you can get for an affordable price. It is a terrific scope in every way. One thing: if you are going mate it with a DSLR for photography, make sure, if you don't have a pentax camera, that you can find a quality adapter that works with your brand of camera before you buy the scope.

jimbo

2007-02-11T19:00:00

Very happy with this purchase, I use it for digiscoping and birding. Very clear and crisp view and very illuminated. Used it with a DC Casio P600 up to today and are now using a Pentax K100D for digiscoping. They complement themselves very well. [...]

ramiot

2007-02-07T19:00:00

I've set this scope up side by side with may scopes costing $500+ more and my scope has shown very well. The front 80mm lens lets in light enough to see when 65's have folded up for the night. The original lens can be removed and specialty lenses (higher power) can be substituted. I've had good success just holding my digital camera against the lens photographing falcon nests. Something like this is essential for wolf and bear observation in yellowstone or alaska. I'd recommend the larger Pentax to those who can afford it and the slanted version for those who want to also use it for astronomy uses.

DG