What is better Zeiss or Swarovski??

[Smoak352]

I am in the market for a new scope. I am trying to decide between Zeiss and Swarovski. I have a Zeiss conquest, which I understand is at the bottom of the company's quality. I looked through my buddy's binoculars which were Swarovski and was amazed at the clarity. Is this because they were binoculars or because of the Swarovski glass? I do not have anywhere close that sells these scopes so I will have to purchase online.

I have around $2000 to spend.

 

[Greyfox]

I wouln't base your scope buying decision based upon looking through binoculars. The optical design is very different, and, you are using both eyes. I'm not saying that the Swaros are not good scopes, but for $2000 there are quite a few scopes with great glass that you be hard pressed to see a difference. But there is also a very wide range of other differing capabilities that you may want to assess before making yor purchase. You could spend less than your budget and get a scope you are very satisfied with. But, before you buy anything you may want to look through a few other good scopes. You might find that your Zeiss is much better than you think. IMHO.

 

[jehu]

I have a Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14X44 and a Swarovski Z3 3-10X42. Comparing the two the Swaro is clearer and sharper to my eye than the Zeiss and there is a big differance at low light with the Swao out doing the Conquest by a considerable amount. I also have a Zeiss Diavari 3-9X36 and it will run with the Swaro in clarity but the Swaro very slightly out does it at twilight for shapness of image but you could eaisly make the shot with either. I have two Swaro Z6 2-12X50 and they are outstanding glass. Just my .02 but I would go with the Swarovski. I also have the Swaro 12X50EL's which are the best Bino's I have ever owned.

 

[Sami]

It has a lot to do with personal preference. My personal choice was Zeiss Victory Diavari 3-12x56. That would be my recommendation if low light performance is critical to you. Z6 is close thought, you can't go wrong with either one.

On the low end Z3 is IMO better than Conquest but both are excellent scopes.

 

[lightwind]

As Greyfox mentioned, you cannot compare bioncular clarity with scope clairty because the use of two eyes will even out any problems that one eye will have alone. The brain fuses the two images together and does a very good job of getting more detail in the fusion process.

Having said that, I have both a 6-24 Zeiss FL T* Victory and a Swarovski 3-18 Z6. The bottom line is that they are both better than my eyes are. Both are great in low light and have outstanding resolution and clarity. You will not go wrong with either of these high-end scopes.

You can count on both of these scopes being among the best in image quality. The real differences in the scopes comes in the details such as turrets, zoom range, and reticles. I chose the Swarovski for the 6X zoom range. I chose the Zeiss for the reticle. They are on very different rifles for very different reasons. They both have outstanding images. As others have mentioned, there are other scopes with similar quality such as Premier, US Optics, and Schmidt and Bender. You won't go wrong with any of those, but pick the scope based on qualities other than the image quality because all of those I have mentioned are pretty nearly the same.

 

[T3-OleMan]

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f18/nf-swaro-zeiss-scopes-wwyb-69398/#post484012

Only thing I failed to mention is I took NF out of the list because of weight.
I'm older than dirt & tooooo weak-fragile- out of shape and shutting down fast to let a few Ozs stop me from climbing that Mt. One more time (I don't like punishment at 10,000ft & alone), cause that's where the ELK are.
Good luck on your choice. $2,200 will get you there.

Here is my post and purchase on same thing. I wanted a German Glass and they were equal so I got ZEISS. Good luck