wanderer55
Well-known member
Vortex Vulture 8.5x50 - First Impression
I have purchased a Vortex Vulture 8.5x50mm binocular. It's one of the Coyote Brown "blems" from CameraLandNY. I took it because of the discount price and because of the specs.
I have been having problems with some of the binoculars I have owned or tested. The Nikon 8x40 Action & 7x35 Action, the Pentax 10x50 XCF, the Focal 8x35 and the Sears 8x40 all seem to have a ring/shadow in the outer edge of the fov. I have seen it in other Porro prism bins as well. It's semi-opaque and it tends to be different from bin to bin. Some bins have a larger ring and some smaller. I guess the only description I can think of, is it's like a shadow all around the edge of the fov. I wear eyeglasses and I can't see my hand in front of my face without them. On the bins I tried without glasses on, I found the rings would become less noticeable, but still there and I cannot go without glasses. I'm beginning to think that people with glasses are just out of luck when it comes to optics. First, it's another piece of glass/plastic between the eye and the front objective. Second, there is all kinds of scattered light between the eye and the eyepiece, because the glasses hold the bins away from the eye. I always see glare in bins with my glasses on, that isn't there when I take my glasses off and the view is much better without them.
My wife's Leitz 8x42mm Roof prism bins had almost no ring at the outer edge of the fov and it was hardly noticeable. The Bushnell Legend 8x42 roof prism bins also had almost no ring at the edge of the field. Many of the Roof prisms I tried seemed to have less of a ring or no ring at the edge of the field. From discussions with others, the thought was that maybe it's just my eyes not being able to see the whole Afov in a wide field bin. The thought was that if the correlation was directly related to Afov, then it could be that I am having a problem with my eyes not being able to deal with wide fields. Once I got to thinking about that and got the specs on all of them, I could see there was a correlation and the narrower the field, the better the view, with less of an opaque ring at the edge of the field. The wider the Afov, the larger and more pronounced the ring was.
Taking this into account, I decided two things. I need to try a fairly narrow field of view (less than 5.6*) and I want to try larger objectives to see if that will help the seemingly dim aspect of smaller objective bins, since everything I have looked through from 50mm up, seem much brighter to me. So........... that is why I decided to try an 8x50 or 8x56.
After researching, I decided to go with these 8.5x50 Vultures. The specs seem to be what I was looking for (only a 5.4* Afov) and the Price ($159.99 + free shipping), was one I could afford.
These Vortex Vultures are actually a discontinued model, or more precisely, they have transitioned to become Vortex Diamondbacks. The new Vulture lineup is 10x56 & 8x56 and they really are All New, including ED (XD) glass in the New Vultures coming out Soon..... The Diamondbacks have also gone through changes, so even though the physical specs are the same between the 8.5x50 Vulture and the 8.5x50 Diamondback, the Diamondback has upgraded coatings and Argon purging instead of Nitrogen purging.
The Coyote Brown color ended up being an issue for Vortex, with visual color blemishes and imperfections in the outer rubber coating. That is the only reason these were sold at a discount. I know first hand from 26+ years in molding plastics and rubber that certain colors are just bad news to molders, since they never seem to blend correctly and part to part variations make certain colors a real headache. Anyhow, it doesn't bother me at all, since I know it does not affect the quality of the rubber coating and the Discount from $229 to $159 is reason enough for me to try out one of these bad boys.
Here are the specs on the 8.5x50
Magnification- 8.5 x
Objective Lens Diameter- 50 mm
Eye Relief- 21.5 mm
Exit Pupil- 5.88 mm
Linear Field of View- 283 feet/1000 yards
Angular Field Of View- 5.4 degrees
Close Focus- 9 feet
Interpupillary Distance- 61-74 mm
Height- 6.9 inches
Width- 5.6 inches
Weight- 31 ounces
Tripod Adaptable- Yes
Phase Coated- Yes
Fully Multi-coated- Yes
Nitrogen Purged- Yes
I asked about which coating is used for the back coating on the prisms and I was told its proprietary and will not be disclosed for any of their binoculars.
The other reason for choosing Vortex is their Unlimited Lifetime Warranty:
VIP Warranty
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now on to First Impressions:
For me, opening the box is always a treat, to see what a new acquisition is, for the first time. I think the first visual impression tends to set the tone.
Nice Box! Well it is.......
Ok, inside the box is the zippered Hard Case and everything is inside it. Very similar case to the Bushnell. Inside the case are the Vulture, the case & bin straps, a cleaning cloth and a slip of white paper (probably a QC check). The inside of the case is like the Bushnell, except here I see a center zippered pocket, to put the cleaning cloth in.
So, now for a few photos. They are down at the bottom of the post. First thought, it's heavy! Well I already expected that, it's an 8.5x50. After removing the plastic bag from the bins, I immediately see that the upper rain guard falls right off. Its way too big to ever stay on. It's a sloppy fit. Second thing is that the lower objective covers are loose enough that they might just come off in the field (I think so).
Now to look at the objective lenses. Coatings look good, but there is just a hint of difference in color, just a hint. Let's look at the eyepiece lenses. Well, they are two different colors, totally different! I mean one is blue/green and one is yellow/green. The eyecups are about 5mm higher than the eyepieces, when they are all the way down. The eyecups are also domes/rounded instead of flat. I wish they were lower and flat, due to me using eye glasses.
At this point I'm not going to review much more. I just want to look thru the bins, because I know now that I am not going to keep them. So...... I went straight out to try them out. Adjusting Interpupillary distance, I find that the main hinge should be tighter than it is. It moves too freely for me.
I focused on a sign 50 yards away, first focusing the left eye with the focus wheel, then using the diopter to focus the right eye. The diopter setting is good and stiff and will stay in place once it's set, even with no lock. Ok, they focus alright, but nothing is truly razor sharp. Now let's go to the trees 75 yards away and do the focusing again. Still the focus does not seem really sharp. The focus wheel is a little looser than I am used to and has just a tiny bit of play and I can overshoot real easy. Rocking the focus wheel really shows how short the focus throw is. I'm not used to a short throw focus and I'm finding it hard to get things exactly in focus. Just a touch and I'm off the mark either way. That's not a fault of the bins, just my being used to much older designs.
The "Sweet spot" seems to be only around 45% of the entire fov. After that it starts loosing definition and after 75%, it's fuzzy and not useable for me. Depth of field seems very shallow. I can focus on an exact object in the center of the field, but anything forward or behind the object seems to be out of focus. I remember seeing that with the Bushnell, which also seems to have a shallow DOF, but not as shallow as this bin is. Resolution seems poor to me, just looking at various signs with small print on them show a lack of clarity and I'm not even going to break out the resolution sheets at all.
Time to send this one back, it's not acceptable to me and I will not keep it. I imagine this is just a defective bin, but the point for me is that it shouldn't have ever gotten out. China still has quality issues and it will be many years (a generation or two) before they have enough manufacturing experience to produce consistently good product. Right now it's hit or miss and this just verifies my thoughts about them. The Bushnell Legend was a better optical quality and sharper than this Vulture, but the quality of the workmanship on the Bushnell was no better, or less than this bin.
Overall, I would rate the optical quality at a (4) and a (5) for fit & finish (rain guards excluded) for this bin.
As a comparison I would rate the Bushnell Legend as an (7) for optical quality and as a (4) for fit & finish. The Leitz 8x40 I would rate as a (8) for optical quality and an (9) for fit & finish. I would have rated my Pentax 10x50 XCF as a (4) for optical quality and an (4) for fit & finish, my Nikon 8x40 Action as a (5) for optical quality and a (6) for fit & finish and my Leupold Yosemite as a (6) for optical quality and an (6) for fit & finish.
Maybe those ratings help to understand how I rate bins and how this Vortex stacks up for me.
As far as the "Color issue" with the rubber, there was no color issue. Absolutely nothing on this particular bin that any buyer would have even cared about. The optics however are very obvious. Another case of worrying one thing to death while something else gets by? I think so and from 26+ years in manufacturing, It's difficult to keep from doing just that. Focused on one thing and other things get by. It's, by nature, a manufacturing woe and it happens more than you would think........ I will also say these bins are bright, very bright and I did not notice the opaque ring at all in the edge of the fov. So there's some good that I found.
Sorry Vortex, but I can't say I love it, when I feel it was a defect.
Now I have to tell the story that took Vortex from average, to High on my List! I decided to call Vortex and I got a man who listened to my problems and he wanted me to talk to service. So, I got a woman who listened to my problems and immediately said she wanted to have my bins sent to Vortex. She then blew me out of the water by telling me that a brand new 8.5x50 Diamondback would be sent FedEx to me and it would go out this very day!!! Also I am receiving a return label for the Vulture to be sent FedEx to Vortex. No Cost to me!! There may be quality issues with the Vulture I received, but the Service is absolutely Exceptional!!
When I contacted Pentax with the problems on my 10x50 XCF, they said sure send us $25 + shipping and we will fix anything. (the bin was only $55 new)!! When I contacted Bushnell about the collimation, they couldn't even tell me if they knew how to check or fix it and they wanted me to send it in and wait 6 weeks to find out!!
So Vortex may have had a Quality issue with my Vulture, but the instantaneous no questions asked reply from your people and the instantaneous shipping of a new replacement, made a bad day much better!! Unlimited No Fault Transferable Lifetime Warranty!!!
So now we see what the Diamondback will be like...........
I think it will be the same with the shallow DOF and small sweet spot, so I imagine I will have to send it back too and try something else. Hopefully it will be better, or I won't have anything to use for High Island next week-end.
I have purchased a Vortex Vulture 8.5x50mm binocular. It's one of the Coyote Brown "blems" from CameraLandNY. I took it because of the discount price and because of the specs.
I have been having problems with some of the binoculars I have owned or tested. The Nikon 8x40 Action & 7x35 Action, the Pentax 10x50 XCF, the Focal 8x35 and the Sears 8x40 all seem to have a ring/shadow in the outer edge of the fov. I have seen it in other Porro prism bins as well. It's semi-opaque and it tends to be different from bin to bin. Some bins have a larger ring and some smaller. I guess the only description I can think of, is it's like a shadow all around the edge of the fov. I wear eyeglasses and I can't see my hand in front of my face without them. On the bins I tried without glasses on, I found the rings would become less noticeable, but still there and I cannot go without glasses. I'm beginning to think that people with glasses are just out of luck when it comes to optics. First, it's another piece of glass/plastic between the eye and the front objective. Second, there is all kinds of scattered light between the eye and the eyepiece, because the glasses hold the bins away from the eye. I always see glare in bins with my glasses on, that isn't there when I take my glasses off and the view is much better without them.
My wife's Leitz 8x42mm Roof prism bins had almost no ring at the outer edge of the fov and it was hardly noticeable. The Bushnell Legend 8x42 roof prism bins also had almost no ring at the edge of the field. Many of the Roof prisms I tried seemed to have less of a ring or no ring at the edge of the field. From discussions with others, the thought was that maybe it's just my eyes not being able to see the whole Afov in a wide field bin. The thought was that if the correlation was directly related to Afov, then it could be that I am having a problem with my eyes not being able to deal with wide fields. Once I got to thinking about that and got the specs on all of them, I could see there was a correlation and the narrower the field, the better the view, with less of an opaque ring at the edge of the field. The wider the Afov, the larger and more pronounced the ring was.
Taking this into account, I decided two things. I need to try a fairly narrow field of view (less than 5.6*) and I want to try larger objectives to see if that will help the seemingly dim aspect of smaller objective bins, since everything I have looked through from 50mm up, seem much brighter to me. So........... that is why I decided to try an 8x50 or 8x56.
After researching, I decided to go with these 8.5x50 Vultures. The specs seem to be what I was looking for (only a 5.4* Afov) and the Price ($159.99 + free shipping), was one I could afford.
These Vortex Vultures are actually a discontinued model, or more precisely, they have transitioned to become Vortex Diamondbacks. The new Vulture lineup is 10x56 & 8x56 and they really are All New, including ED (XD) glass in the New Vultures coming out Soon..... The Diamondbacks have also gone through changes, so even though the physical specs are the same between the 8.5x50 Vulture and the 8.5x50 Diamondback, the Diamondback has upgraded coatings and Argon purging instead of Nitrogen purging.
The Coyote Brown color ended up being an issue for Vortex, with visual color blemishes and imperfections in the outer rubber coating. That is the only reason these were sold at a discount. I know first hand from 26+ years in molding plastics and rubber that certain colors are just bad news to molders, since they never seem to blend correctly and part to part variations make certain colors a real headache. Anyhow, it doesn't bother me at all, since I know it does not affect the quality of the rubber coating and the Discount from $229 to $159 is reason enough for me to try out one of these bad boys.
Here are the specs on the 8.5x50
Magnification- 8.5 x
Objective Lens Diameter- 50 mm
Eye Relief- 21.5 mm
Exit Pupil- 5.88 mm
Linear Field of View- 283 feet/1000 yards
Angular Field Of View- 5.4 degrees
Close Focus- 9 feet
Interpupillary Distance- 61-74 mm
Height- 6.9 inches
Width- 5.6 inches
Weight- 31 ounces
Tripod Adaptable- Yes
Phase Coated- Yes
Fully Multi-coated- Yes
Nitrogen Purged- Yes
I asked about which coating is used for the back coating on the prisms and I was told its proprietary and will not be disclosed for any of their binoculars.
The other reason for choosing Vortex is their Unlimited Lifetime Warranty:
VIP Warranty
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now on to First Impressions:
For me, opening the box is always a treat, to see what a new acquisition is, for the first time. I think the first visual impression tends to set the tone.
Nice Box! Well it is.......
Ok, inside the box is the zippered Hard Case and everything is inside it. Very similar case to the Bushnell. Inside the case are the Vulture, the case & bin straps, a cleaning cloth and a slip of white paper (probably a QC check). The inside of the case is like the Bushnell, except here I see a center zippered pocket, to put the cleaning cloth in.
So, now for a few photos. They are down at the bottom of the post. First thought, it's heavy! Well I already expected that, it's an 8.5x50. After removing the plastic bag from the bins, I immediately see that the upper rain guard falls right off. Its way too big to ever stay on. It's a sloppy fit. Second thing is that the lower objective covers are loose enough that they might just come off in the field (I think so).
Now to look at the objective lenses. Coatings look good, but there is just a hint of difference in color, just a hint. Let's look at the eyepiece lenses. Well, they are two different colors, totally different! I mean one is blue/green and one is yellow/green. The eyecups are about 5mm higher than the eyepieces, when they are all the way down. The eyecups are also domes/rounded instead of flat. I wish they were lower and flat, due to me using eye glasses.
At this point I'm not going to review much more. I just want to look thru the bins, because I know now that I am not going to keep them. So...... I went straight out to try them out. Adjusting Interpupillary distance, I find that the main hinge should be tighter than it is. It moves too freely for me.
I focused on a sign 50 yards away, first focusing the left eye with the focus wheel, then using the diopter to focus the right eye. The diopter setting is good and stiff and will stay in place once it's set, even with no lock. Ok, they focus alright, but nothing is truly razor sharp. Now let's go to the trees 75 yards away and do the focusing again. Still the focus does not seem really sharp. The focus wheel is a little looser than I am used to and has just a tiny bit of play and I can overshoot real easy. Rocking the focus wheel really shows how short the focus throw is. I'm not used to a short throw focus and I'm finding it hard to get things exactly in focus. Just a touch and I'm off the mark either way. That's not a fault of the bins, just my being used to much older designs.
The "Sweet spot" seems to be only around 45% of the entire fov. After that it starts loosing definition and after 75%, it's fuzzy and not useable for me. Depth of field seems very shallow. I can focus on an exact object in the center of the field, but anything forward or behind the object seems to be out of focus. I remember seeing that with the Bushnell, which also seems to have a shallow DOF, but not as shallow as this bin is. Resolution seems poor to me, just looking at various signs with small print on them show a lack of clarity and I'm not even going to break out the resolution sheets at all.
Time to send this one back, it's not acceptable to me and I will not keep it. I imagine this is just a defective bin, but the point for me is that it shouldn't have ever gotten out. China still has quality issues and it will be many years (a generation or two) before they have enough manufacturing experience to produce consistently good product. Right now it's hit or miss and this just verifies my thoughts about them. The Bushnell Legend was a better optical quality and sharper than this Vulture, but the quality of the workmanship on the Bushnell was no better, or less than this bin.
Overall, I would rate the optical quality at a (4) and a (5) for fit & finish (rain guards excluded) for this bin.
As a comparison I would rate the Bushnell Legend as an (7) for optical quality and as a (4) for fit & finish. The Leitz 8x40 I would rate as a (8) for optical quality and an (9) for fit & finish. I would have rated my Pentax 10x50 XCF as a (4) for optical quality and an (4) for fit & finish, my Nikon 8x40 Action as a (5) for optical quality and a (6) for fit & finish and my Leupold Yosemite as a (6) for optical quality and an (6) for fit & finish.
Maybe those ratings help to understand how I rate bins and how this Vortex stacks up for me.
As far as the "Color issue" with the rubber, there was no color issue. Absolutely nothing on this particular bin that any buyer would have even cared about. The optics however are very obvious. Another case of worrying one thing to death while something else gets by? I think so and from 26+ years in manufacturing, It's difficult to keep from doing just that. Focused on one thing and other things get by. It's, by nature, a manufacturing woe and it happens more than you would think........ I will also say these bins are bright, very bright and I did not notice the opaque ring at all in the edge of the fov. So there's some good that I found.
Sorry Vortex, but I can't say I love it, when I feel it was a defect.
Now I have to tell the story that took Vortex from average, to High on my List! I decided to call Vortex and I got a man who listened to my problems and he wanted me to talk to service. So, I got a woman who listened to my problems and immediately said she wanted to have my bins sent to Vortex. She then blew me out of the water by telling me that a brand new 8.5x50 Diamondback would be sent FedEx to me and it would go out this very day!!! Also I am receiving a return label for the Vulture to be sent FedEx to Vortex. No Cost to me!! There may be quality issues with the Vulture I received, but the Service is absolutely Exceptional!!
When I contacted Pentax with the problems on my 10x50 XCF, they said sure send us $25 + shipping and we will fix anything. (the bin was only $55 new)!! When I contacted Bushnell about the collimation, they couldn't even tell me if they knew how to check or fix it and they wanted me to send it in and wait 6 weeks to find out!!
So Vortex may have had a Quality issue with my Vulture, but the instantaneous no questions asked reply from your people and the instantaneous shipping of a new replacement, made a bad day much better!! Unlimited No Fault Transferable Lifetime Warranty!!!
So now we see what the Diamondback will be like...........
I think it will be the same with the shallow DOF and small sweet spot, so I imagine I will have to send it back too and try something else. Hopefully it will be better, or I won't have anything to use for High Island next week-end.
