HAWKE ENDURANCE ED 15-45 X 60
The best optics and outdoor products tried & tested for you £499 I PICKED OUT DETAIL ON TWO GREENSHANKS AT EXTREME RANGE THANKS TO THAT EXTRA PUNCH
Maybe it’s my age, but I find myself liking the idea of compact and travel spotting scopes more and more all the time.
The advantages are obvious. They take up less room and less of your weight allowance if you’re travelling by plane, but even in regular, day to day use at home, they’re just a lot more convenient. Particularly if you’re also carrying a heavy camera set-up around, they keep your load manageable, and allow you to get on with enjoying birding, rather than your heart sinking at the thought of any long walk.
This addition to Hawke’s
Endurance ED range is certainly impressively small. I had no problem fitting it in the inside pocket of my coat, or even in one of the main front pockets, and it’s lightweight – at 895g it’s really not much heavier than some binoculars out there.
Straightforward
It’s nicely put together, too, with good rubber armouring, and a straightforward design.
The wide, rubber-covered eyecup twists up to give a maximum 20mm of eye relief. There don’t seem to be any intermediate positions, but the eyecup stays in place well, anywhere.
The zoom control on the eyepiece is just over a finger wide, and well-ridged, making it easy both to find without taking your eye away, and to grip. It moves smoothly and a little stiffly, which is good, so it can’t be moved accidentally very easily.
There are two focus wheels. The main one, just about a finger wide, travels a long way moving clockwise from close focus to infinity (I’ll admit, I lost count), but it moves smoothly, and the fine focus wheel (slightly narrower), enables you to get your focus just right. Both are textured for grip, and there’s enough of an obvious separation between the two that, again, you can move from one to the other easily without having to take your eye away from the eyepiece.
Excellent
There isn’t a rotating collar, which is a shame but not exactly a deal-breaker, but there is an excellent stay-on
carry case, a removable tethered objective lens cover, and an eyepiece cover.
It’s the optics that really matter, though. No amount of user-friendliness and good design will make up for a sub-standard view.
No need to worry here, though. At the lowest magnification, 15x, the image is very sharp, with only a tiny bit of softness at the very edges, bright and with a very natural colour. At 25x-30x, the magnification at which I’d expect to use the scope most of the time, it’s similarly good. Field of view ranges from 49m@1,000m at 15x, to 26m@1,000m at 45x – at the lower magnifications, it feels good, partly because of that sharpness to the edges.
Extra punch
There is, of course, a fall- off in performance as you increase the magnification towards the top of the range. But that’s true of all zoom eyepieces, and as we always say, most of the time you’re probably going to use it at about 30x. At 45x, the image feels much darker and more claustrophobic, but it’s still sharp enough to do the job – I picked out detail on two Greenshanks at extreme range thanks to that bit of extra punch.
At all magnifications, there was a distinct lack of colourfringing (or chromatic aberration, if you prefer), even when viewing against bright light, so the ED glass is clearly doing its job well. Similarly, it performed really well at dawn and dusk and on the many murky days that we’ve had this summer.
Finally, close focus is an impressive 2.5m, so bugwatchers should be pleased.
If you’re in the market for a compact scope, you really need to try this out. It’s an excellent all-round bit of kit which won’t break the bank or your luggage.
SPECS
Eye relief: 20mm
Field of view: 49m-26m@1,000m
Close focus: 2.5m
Weight: 895g
Length: 308mm
RRP: £499
Supplied with: Stay-on case, removable tethered objective lens cover, eyepiece cover
Web: uk.hawkeoptics.com
VERDICT
It provides a lot of optical punch in a very compact, lightweight package, with a nice, straightforward design.
OPTICS
DESIGN
VALUE
OVERALL