Best Long Range Scope under $300 / £300

People often write in asking for recommendations for a particular use and within a specific price range, which is perfectly understandable and a great place to start when deciding what is the best spotting scope for you.

This question relates to all those looking for higher powered scopes in what I call the Mid level price range ($130 – $300 / £130 – £300):

Answer

Thank you for the question and I will try to answer it to the best of my knowledge, but it is also very important to remember that I can only fully recommend a scope that I have actually used, tested and reviewed. So obviously the will be many, many others out there that are just as suitable and possibly even better, but I have not as yet used and so whilst I may offer them as an option that I think is worth looking at, I cannot be fully committed to suggesting them to you.

What you get for your budget

Whilst from the outside most scopes within this budget look very similar and indeed almost identical to ones that cost much more, but I think it is important to stress that in order to keep the manufacturing costs down, certain compromises have to be made.

So whilst none will match the best, it also does not mean that you are certain to get poor quality scope within this budget, you just have to be realistic with your expectations and look more carefully for the hidden gems that have made these compromises in non-critical areas.

Body
As far as the chassis goes, you probably won’t get a magnesium frame. Instead, most scopes at this level will use a polycarbonate chassis. Whilst this is not quite as tough or luxurious as a metal one, it is lighter and obviously cheaper to produce.

Even if you don’t plan on going out in the rain, I would still make sure of is that it is both water & fog proof as this a good sign that it is still of good quality and the seals will also prevent dust from entering the system.

Optics
Whilst very few (if any) in this rage will use ED glass (extra low dispersion) elements within their lenses, ensure that the optics are still fully multi-coated optics and if they mention it, look out for ones that have phase correction coatings on their prisms that are at least silver mirror coated.

Cheap spotting scopes usually have integrated eye-pieces, but there are some within this price range that have removable ones. This not only gives you more flexibility in the future as you can change your eyepiece depending on what you are using your scope for but once again is another indicator of a better quality instrument.

To start with look for scopes with a zoom eyepiece included as the variable magnification will mean that the scope will be far more versatile right out of the box. Just make sure that the price of the scope you are looking at includes the eye-piece as well.

Configuration
For longer distance observation, you obviously need higher magnifications (60x – 90x). The problem is that this higher power brings with it a number of complications that are important to be aware of:

Firstly and especially with scopes that have lesser quality optical components, it is important to choose a scope that has a large diameter objective lens. As you will be using it from a fixed point and using it on a tripod, weight, and size is not a major factor, which is good.

Larger diameter scopes capture more light and thus will potentially look to have a brighter image. Combined with a high power magnification, they will also have a larger exit pupil than those with smaller objectives, which apart from helping deliver more light to your eyes, also makes it far easier to line your eyes up with the shaft of light exiting the eye-piece and thus view the full image without any annoying black rings forming on the edges, which is often the case one cheaper high powered scopes.

So my advice is to try and go with an objective lens that is 80mm or larger.

Recommended Spotting Scopes under $350 / £300

So keeping all this in mind, below are firstly the instruments that I have reviewed and thus can recommend within this price level and then I have also added a few others that I also think may be a good choice and worth considering at the bottom of the page:

More Options

Whilst I have not used the scopes below, to me they look to be a good option and have all the right qualities to suit your needs:

Tripods:

Whilst many scopes in this category will come with what is quite often a fairly decent tabletop tripod to get you started (obviously you will need a table on your balcony!), but ultimately you will most probably want to invest in your own full-sized tripod that can more easily take the weight and keep the image perfectly still on a larger scope like this.

Over the years I have used a large number of tripods and in general, my advice is not to skimp too much in this area as not only are cheap tripods less likely to hold a large scope completely steady for a complete shake-free image which especially at higher powers is imperative, but are also often much more of a pain to set-up.

For more advice on which tripods I use and recommend, please take a look at this article: Best Tripod for Large Spotting Scopes