Check Today's Price

Pros - Excellent image quality - Includes photography adapters - Reasonable price point Cons - Short eye relief - Narrow field of view - Uses BK–7 prism glass

Welcome to my review of the BNISE HD Straight Spotting Scope. BNISE is a new name to me, so I was anxious to see how this particular spotting scope fared in a field of fiercely competitive manufacturers. Let’s see what happened during my review of this model.

BNISE has designed this scope around a 60mm objective lens, which tends to offer good light transmission. The first drawback I noticed was the eye relief: it’s tiny, at 13.5mm to 17mm. If you wear eyeglasses, this might not be the spotting scope for you.

The scope itself is fairly compact, mesuring just 13 inches and weighing only 1.43 pounds. It’s definitely small and light enough to pack with you into the field.

What Comes in the Box?

Naturally, you’ll want to know what comes with your purchase. In the box, you should find the following:

• BNISE HD Straight Spotting Scope
• Carrying case
• Tripod
• Camera photography adapter (Canon only)
• Phone photography adapter (for any phone less than 90mm wide)

The carrying case is padded and quite nice, but the tripod might as well not have been included. It’s plastic, the legs don’t adjust independently, and it’s shaky as all get-out. The photography adapters are nice inclusions, and I found that the phone adapter works perfectly with my iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s Plus.

What’s the Magnification of the Scope

This model provides magnification from 20X to 60X, and the image quality is quite good throughout the entire range of power. You get plenty of contrast and resolution with a razor sharp image. The color reproduction is almost entirely free of chromatic aberration.

The glass’s field of view is short, allowing you to see only 90 feet of terrain (from 1,000 yards) at 20X magnification and 45 feet with maximum zoom.

How Easy is the Device to Use?

The magnification wheel and focus knobs are right where you’d expect them to be if you’re already familiar with spotting scopes. You adjust the magnification by twisting a wheel on the eyepiece, and focus using a knob at the center of the housing. Both controls move smoothly, but offer enough resistance to keep you from accidentally misaligning your image.

What’s the Light Gathering Capability Like on the BNISE HD?

BNISE has developed a spotting scope with good transmittance, but it could definitely be better with more premium components (more on that in a moment). Still, the scope is good for hunting, target shooting, wildlife viewing, and even backyard astronomy.

The air-to-glass surfaces of the optics are fully multicoated, maximizing the potential light transmission of the setup.

How Are the Optics and Focus on This Glass?

The porro prism design of the BNISE HD Straight Spotting Scope uses BK–7 prism glass, unfortunately. As good as the image and light transmission are, this scope could be so much better using BaK–4 glass. As it is, there is little to no phase shift, pointing to good use of phase correction coating on the prisms.

Focus is quite good, allowing you to achieve a razor sharp image across all the magnification powers. Close focus distance on this model is about average at just over 16 feet.

What’s the Housing Like?

The housing is rubber armored, giving you a great grip on the spotting scope even when your hands or slipper or enclosed in gloves. The tripod mount on the bottom of the scope, unfortunately, does not rotate, but it least it’s included.

How Durable Is It?

This spotting scope is bothfogproof and waterproof, since the lenses are O-ring sealed and the optics chamber is nitrogen-purged. If you do experience damage or defects to your spotting scope, BNISE covers the device with a worldwide lifetime, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.