Nikon ED50 eyepiece suggestions?

[slatty]

Looking for advice on eyepiece for the ED50 fieldscope. I'm a few field days now into using it (with the 13-30x eyepiece), and loving the size and glass. I'm finding that i'd like more eye relief though, it's quite shallow. Do you put an eyecup on it? Also i'm wondering if anyone has experimented with eyepieces with more zoom and what they think. Thanks for any advice on this.
Mike

 

[Blockcaver]

Slatty, I have the Nikon ED50 scope as well....and a surplus Wide Angle 27X eye piece I never use for it. PM me if you are interested in buying it. The fixed 27X lens has higher resolution than the 13-30X zoom when I tested it on an eye chart a few years ago, and more eye relief as I recall (could test that if you are interested).

 

[Wrongside]

I don't own a ED50, but have buddies with them and have looked thru several samples, with various lenses. I was most impressed with the fixed eyepieces, in terms of usability, eye relief and resolution.

Personally, I'd jump on Blockcaver's offer.

 

[Blue72]

You can make a simple adapter that will accept any 1.25 Astro eyepiece

Adapting 1.25" Astronomy Eyepieces to the Nikon ED50

Owners of the little Nikon ED50 spotting scope who want wider fields than zoom eyepieces provide and do not have a full assortment of the hard-to-find Nikon wide field fixed focal length eyepieces may want to adapt astronomy eyepieces to their scope. An excellent post suggesting this was made by...

www.birdforum.net

 

[Blue72]

If you also look at birding forums, while the 27x has its fans. Many likethe brighter and wider view of the 20x or 16x eyepiece

 

[Newtosavage]

I have the 13-30x Nikon eyepiece I'd be willing to trade for a fixed 20x

 

[oenanthe]

There's a summary chart of Fieldscope eyepieces here:
https://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/sportoptics/scopes/mc/spec.htm (click on the Specifications tab).

The 27x has much better eye relief (17.8mm) than the MC1 13-30 (12.9mm) or the MC2 13-40 (14.1mm).

I have all three of these. The 27x has nearly the same field of view (2.7) as the zooms on 13x (3.0). What that means is that you get a wide, clear view with no fussing with the zoom, and good eye relief at the same time.

If I'm using the scope for birding or casual wildlife viewing the 27x is usually my first choice. The MC1 zoom only gives 33x, so not much more magnification than the 27x, and way less than the MC2 with 40x. The main thing the MC1 has going for it is that it is about two ounces lighter than the 27x or MC2.

The MC2 does give higher magnification and sometimes if you have good light the 40x can be useful for e.g. judging sheep. So if I'm taking the ED50 sheep hunting it will have the MC2 on it. But usually I just suck it up and take my ED82 instead of the ED50!

Oh, one other thing - the 27x and the MC2 have twist-up eyecups as opposed to the plain rubber eyecup on the MC1. That also helps with ease of use.

 

[slatty]

Thanks guys this is all good stuff. Loving the scope, it's great that you have all the eyepiece options so nice to know about all that.