Gosky 12x55 HD Monocular Telescope with BAK4 Prism & FMC Lens, Lightweight with Smartphone Adapter - For Bird Watching, Hunting, Hiking, Traveling

I’ve been an avid amateur photographer most of my life, owning expensive well-known equipment as well as taking a flier on not so well known equipment, including a fair number of monoculars and binoculars. I was intrigued by the specs on this 12x55 Gosky monocular and for the price thought it well worth ordering. I was surprised and quite pleased when it arrived. It’s essentially the right weight, size, brightness, ease of focus and accuracy of focus. It’s well-made and easy to hold while using the same hand to operate the top focus wheel, which is continuous, very smooth and does not rush through the places you may wish to stop the focus for the picture you want. I use Amazon’s return policy and send things back that I don’t like, and in my opinion, this is a keeper. The holder that comes with it for taking a picture with your smartphone through the monocular looked a little daunting, but when I got to the point of actually setting up my smartphone in it -- when you’ve done it once it’s quite simple, and after you’ve tightened the unit at the right place so its center hole is properly over your phone’s camera lens (easy to do because you’re looking at your phone screen while positioning it), then the next time you want to take pictures, you put the phone in the holder, slip the entire unit over the rear lens and it’s in the right position for pictures. Then while it’s on the monocular, you’re always looking at your phone screen to see where the monocular is pointing and the way the monocular focus wheel is adjusting, as well as being able to manipulate your phone’s zoom, or any other photo/video feature on your phone to your liking in connection with the picture you’re about to take. You can of course do that either hand-held or with the monocular on your tripod. In my view, the monocular alone is definitely worth the price and the five stars. In addition to Gosky’s smartphone attachment, I’ve added two things to their package which I think enhance its use. They’re both purchasable on Amazon. The first addition is to remedy what may be an issue for some (including me). The rear lens cap is completely removed from the monocular when it’s in use. (The front lens cap stays attached and drops down out of the way.) The issue is of course is what to do with the removed rear lens cap when using the monocular. For me, sooner or later, I’ll be distracted trying to get a picture, and when I’m done, I won’t have the slightest idea what I did with the cap. So I bought on Amazon a small package of Altura Lens Cap Holder Keepers which consist of an elastic circular strap that can be slipped around the front of the monocular and a nylon tether that reaches to the back lens cap and sticks to it with a small circular adhesive tab. Thus, you can just pull the cap off and let it hang from the monocular, or pull off the elastic strap with tethered cap and, for instance, put the elastic around your wrist. Altura Lens Cap Holder Keeper . The second addition is a three-item package from CamKix, consisting of: (1) a small hand-held button (Bluetooth paired to your smartphone, iPhone or android) attached to a wrist strap, that will activate the shutter for photo/video so you don’t have to press anything on your smart phone when it’s attached to the monocular (reducing any person-made vibration); (2) a 7 ½ inch hand-held monopole that screws into the monocular for convenience, plus it can also be opened into a (surprisingly sturdy) table-tripod which can be used for a smartphone by (3) using the included screw-on holder for your smart phone (group pictures of friends, etc.), further, the smartphone can also be used that way on the monopole just by shutting the tripod. CamKix Camera Shutter & Tripod .

Absolutely love this! Wife & kids got it for me as an early birthday gift, so that I could use it while we were on vacation in the Driftless Area in Wisconsin. Used it a bit for looking into the distance in the daytime at cows, hawks, scanning the trees on the forest line, etc. The real treat, though, is the night sky. Crisp view of craters and striations on the moon, brightening and additional detail of starry areas and the haze of the Milky Way, Mars looked more like a planetary disc than a red star. Use a tripod, especially at night for steadying the view. Super simple to use. One-handed, nice and compact, great optics. Attaching a tripod is a piece of cake. Attaching a phone for added digital magnification is an easy process, but can be a bit troublesome to keep in place while manipulating the positioning of the monocular. I think that's largely due to my phone pushing the limits of the included phone holder. However, once in position, you can take some amazing photos/videos just by using your phone's camera!

I mainly bought this for taking on hiking trips. To view wildlife and such. I compared the optical performance to my Pentax 12x 50mm binoculars. The resolution is very close in quality, if not equal. The magnification is as advertised. My binoculars cost about 3 times as much! Very pleased with this part. The phone attachment is a bit cumbersome to use and takes a bit too much time for my tastes. Once on works fine. But as others have noted you need a tripod or a monopod to take decent pictures. I used a monopod and was able to finally get clear focused images. With a remote shutter I was able to get even better-quality shots. So in summary. Excellent for viewing. Very good optics. Excellent value and quality. Decent for phone photos. But I am DSLR user and so I do not expect it be that good in quality. 4.5 out of 5

Wonderful Monocular Kit! I just received this, & have only played with it a very short time, but so far I am very impressed with the quality of this monocular. I’m no expert, but the optics are very good! The monocular has some heft to it, but I like that. It looks and feels of excellent quality, and workmanship. I am expecting it to hold up for many years of use! Oh, and you will need a steady hand at the 12x power! A monopod, or tripod, or another way of helping to steady it may be necessary. It has very good clarity and smooth operation of the focus knob. The hand strap is a wonderful accessory for handling and using the monocular. I love that it’s included as part of the package deal. All included accessories are of nice quality. The carry case has a belt loop and holds just the monocular itself. It is nice, very durable material. I haven’t attached the hand strap yet, so not sure if it will fit in the case together, it might, but the smartphone adapter probably won’t fit very well. Actually, I purchased a separate larger carry case for the monocular and all accessories, with room for a small desktop tripod. So while the carry case that is included is good quality, I would only use it if I do not want to carry along the different included accessories, or anything else I may purchase to use with it. It is still nice though, and will probably work well for wearing via the belt loop, or hooking it on other gear using a separate carabiner. I think this kit is a great value for the price. I did quite a bit of shopping around and reading before I made this purchase, and I think I made a good decision!! Fast shipping, I received it in 2 days via Prime. Very well packaged. I would buy this again in a heartbeat.

This is replacing my backyard binoculars and am very pleased with them. I have extreme difference in my vision with one eye very nearsighted and the other almost no correlation needed. Binoculars were driving me crazy trying to get both eyes adjusted. Now I can almost set my monocular for my most used position and just fine tuning as needed. I want a good quality & did some research for my particular needs and after looking at reviews and suggestions from professionals I discovered some must haves: quality of the lens, coating for true colors, protection from the elements and overall customer satisfaction. This is pretty lightweight handheld and as I stated I can adjust it while looking through it. I would recommend it for backyard birdwatching. I tried the camera holder but doesn’t work on my iPhone 13 with the protection case. I have another camera stand if I can just find it.

Gosky monocular is okay. Hard to hold still need a tripod. At least I do. Price is okay it is worth the price. Easy to carry hooks on my belt. Fairly good viewing.

I'm not anybody's expert on optics, but I know what my needs are and what works for me. I spend a lot of time traveling on a motorcycle, and prefer a compass, a map, and a monocular to a GPS. Due to retinal hemorrhaging in one eye, I get more from a monocular than binoculars. Relative to my experience, the amount of light this one provides, its clarity, weight, and compact size are perfect for my needs and surpass the quality of all other such in its price range that I've seen. I also appreciate the twist-up eyecup as it's not always convenient for me to remove my glasses while still wearing a full-face helmet. When I did need service help (an issue that I suspect was peculiar to my particular unit) I was actually surprised at the promptness and clear willingness to help on the part of Alan at Gosky service. Honestly, the alacrity with which my issue was addressed and then ultimately resolved impressed me. Y'know, when I read reviews on Amazon, sometimes I suspect some of them are being written by the companies themselves, and I can see how my glowing review here might seem as if it were just that. Well, it's not. I'm a real person living in Burlingame, CA, (and am probably the only person in a 20 mile radius named Achilles, so I'm not exactly hard to find and verify), and I'm telling you that unless your needs are significantly different from mine, I don't think you can go wrong with this product or with the folks at Gosky.

This is a nice little scope. For the price I would say this is a heck of a buy. I would put the glass and capabilities in the same group as the Vortex Viper line. I like to look at the stars and the moon to determine light gathering capability and with cell phone attached I was very impressed by the quality of the photos. Some finer details about this scope which could be improved on are: adding a fine focus as this would definitely help objects at a distance. If you don't have a tri-pod you are going to need to get one to take pics, there is no way you're going to hold anything near 12x zoom still enough. This is not really a 55mm or even a 50 mm objective. Its smaller than both of those numbers and shouldn't be called 55mm. There were some negative reviews I read about the glass quality. You need to bear in mind you are not paying for Burris, Nightforce or Swaros at this price point. You are however getting a quality scope at a very low price which I was able to use and see a lot of great detail on trees, animals out to 400 yards, and even the moon, which is around 240,000 miles away. I would recommend this scope for hunting, camping, and general use. Get a tripod and use Gosky's picture taker that connects to your phone and you should be set. I didn't use the picture taker for my pics, I just used a 5 sec delay.

Have been using for a few days now no negitives at all. Sits on the kitchen counter next to the window. Watch the deer and birds. Lite, easy to use while wearing glasses. Camera mount works great.

It is a nice product value for money. thanks

Ich habe einige Ferngläser und Monokulare ausprobiert. Dieses ist preislich an die hundert Euro und es lohnt sich die Mehrausgabe im Vergleich zu den günstigen 12x60 um die 45 €! Ich nutze es beim Bogenschießen im Bereich bis zu 70m. Ich kann meine Pfeile/Nocken noch sehr gut erkennen. Dieses war bei den anderen nicht immer der Fall. Das Restlicht ist auch bei bewölktem Himmel ausreichend. Abgesehen nutze ich u.a. auch eine Schießbrille. Hier habe ich ich jetzt den perfekten passenden Begleiter im Turnier, was mit einem Fernglas immer etwas problematisch war. Natürlich gibt es auch kleine Nachteile! Es ist aber Jammern auf höheren Niveau. - Die kleinen Ösen für die Aufhängung von Tragebändern ist etwas dicht am Korpus. Hier muss mit ganz schmalen Schlüsselringen gearbeitet werden. Das Gute wiederum, es sind 2 vorhanden!

Gran nitidez de la imagen. Alcance fantástico. Cosas que a simple vista pasan inadvertidas, se ven con claridad. Lo recomiendo. Merece la pena. Estas son las primeras fotos y vídeo que he hecho. Ampliando un poco se elimina el efecto agujero que aparece al principio.

Clear and bright Focus