£2,089
Matt Merritt
Last year, I bought Kowa’s new TSN-66A scope, after being hugely impressed by it on test, and when a guest on one of our reader holidays let me try theirs out (on a Great Grey Shrike, I seem to remember). It manages to pack the superb optics for which Kowa scopes are renowned into a compact and lightweight package.
So, the chance to test their new TSN-55A was something I’d been looking forward to a lot.
First impressions are that it’s really small (just 275mm in length) and light (965g) – that’s always a good start for a travel scope! I was able to carry it easily in one of the main pockets of my birding coat, which can save you some valuable space in your luggage if you’re flying.
In fact, on my way back from picking up the scope, I called in at Eyebrook Reservoir and was watching a Wood Sandpiper on the far shore through my binoculars. Sadly, I didn’t have a tripod with me, but I was able to get good views of the bird by using the scope like a monocular, or by perching it on a gatepost. It’s light enough that it was still able to deliver good views.
As usual with Kowa, the build quality is excellent. There’s a lens hood, but no rotating collar (the size makes one impractical), and there are two focus wheels mounted above the barrel.
Each is about a finger wide, and the main wheel takes around 1.5 clockwise turns from close focus to infinity, moving very smoothly and relatively loosely. Using it alongside the fine focus wheel, it’s easy to find focus quickly and precisely, and to maintain it on a moving subject.
Close focus, incidentally, is quoted as 2.8m – in practice, I found it nearer to 2.6m, but either is impressive for a scope.
It uses the same TE-11WZ II wide angle zoom eyepiece as the TSN-66A, offering magnification of 17-40x in this case. The zoom control is very wide and moves smoothly and with moderate resistance, making it very easy to use, and the eyecup twists up and down to four distinct positions, which stay in place very well. The eyepiece isn’t interchangeable.
The view is bright, thanks to the pure fluorite crystal lens, and has a very natural colour, with excellent contrast. I struggled to find any colour fringing even against the brightest light.
As was the case when using it with the TSN-66A, the first thing that struck me about the eyepiece was how wide the view felt. Field of view is 64-35m@1,000m, and you really feel like you get the full benefit of that – there’s very little softness at the edge of the view.
One of the potential pitfalls of scopes with small objective lenses, and of zoom eyepieces when used anywhere near maximum magnification, is that you lose a lot of brightness. But this one performed very well, even in the low light of dusk, and even when cranked right up to 40x magnification. The view never felt cramped at maximum mag, either.
**Verdict
**This is an outstanding travel scope with an excellent eyepiece, managing to remain very compact and portable while sacrificing little in terms of optics. The view is very bright, sharp and wide, in pretty much all circumstances – take a look if you want some quality optics for globetrotting with.
kowaoptic.com