Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsSample rifle target photos
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2016
Added 2/9/2016: I've used it on 300-yard targets now, and my .223" / 5.56 mm holes are visible, especially on white paper. Holes in the colored part are harder, of course, but visible.
I also want to mention that the focus knob is perfect. It turns easily and smoothly, without being loose. It's placed on top, just behind the tripod mounting point, so you can rest your hand over the balance point of the scope and gently roll one finger over the focus knob, causing very little motion in the image.
[Original text -->] I read a lot of reviews and Q & A's on Amazon before purchasing the Celestron 80mm Ultima Zoom, and I have a little to add for future shoppers. While I hope to use this for viewing wildlife and maybe the moon and neighboring planets, I bought it mainly for rifle shooting, to see little holes in paper downrange. The photos I'm posting today are all the same shot through the scope, left full-frame to show how my smartphone camera sees it, and cropped to better see the holes. The target is 200 yards away, and the holes are .223 inch / 5.56mm. The grid lines on the targets are spaced at 1 inch / 25mm. Camera was an LG G4 smartphone, mounted to the Celestron's eyepiece with a Gosky Universal Cell Phone Adapter Mount, also purchased from Amazon. Photo conditions were less than ideal: a very gray afternoon, shooting through 200 yards of light rain.
The full-frame photo was reduced in size from 5212 x 2988 down to 1600 x 900, in hopes Amazon won't ruin it with extreme compression. The other two were severely cropped, but left at full resolution to show detail. It was taken at 60X, the maximum zoom, and the image suffers a bit from being pushed to the max, but not terribly. The colors aren't as sharp as at the lower end of the zoom range, and as other reviewers have mentioned, that's a compromise. If you want perfect sharpness through the whole zoom range, buy the ED (Extra Dispersion) version of the scope. It's built with lens elements made of more exotic glass that corrects the focus of the different colors of light. It will cost you about 4 times as much. This Ultima 80 is good enough for me.
Something I hadn't noticed until I viewed the photos is the curvature of the bottom board of the target frame. That's not bent wood, it's a defect of the scope, called pincushion distortion. If I was using the scope for some kind of architectural photography, where straight lines must show straight, this would be a problem, but I bought this to see where holes are punched in paper, and a bit of curvature is no problem at all. If you're photographing duck on a pond surface and don't want your water horizon to be curved, position the scope so that horizon is in the center of the frame. The top board of the target frame is centered, and it doesn't look bent at all. Better yet, back off the zoom to a lower ratio and get straighter lines and a sharper image.
The two detail shots aren't perfectly sharp, but more than good enough to see every hole, even the ones in the dark blue target. I'm impressed. The range I go to also has targets at 300 yards. That might be pushing this scope's capability. I'll try it some time when I have better weather and have settled on ammunition I can trust to fly straight that far.
On the drive home from the range I passed a tree with a huge new nest in it, and today a bald eagle was perched near it. But I was cold and tired, and if I'd stopped and got out of the car to reach the scope in the back, the eagle would have left. Would have been a great inaugural wildlife shot for my new spotting scope, but I'm left with only the memory of it, and you'll have to picture it in your mind until you get your own spotting scope and venture into eagle country. Hope you like yours; it's just right for me, at a price I can justify.
