Barry Robson wrote:
'Now that Minox have gone into a lower-priced binocular and have just bought out a porro prism range, will they be going up market and bring in a light weight top end bino to compete with Leica, Zeiss etc?
Will Dave at Minox read this and let us all know?'
well, just have to say that Dave at Minox has read this and will be 100% truthful when I say that I do not know what is happening next. Yes, I've been party to a few ideas etc but as yet no actual new product designs.
The new lightweight 'BLs' had some very good reviews in the popular birding press and the new Porros are due for review in the same magazines shortly, so with the different optical construction of Porros, we are waiting to see what the reviewers have to say. Both models had a very successful BBWF in terms of interest and sales and the Porros were given a very favourable welcome by all who tried them, the incredible depth of field being the overriding comment we received.
With reference to the 8.5x42 aspherics, I realise that the US market does have its price advantages at the moment, but am amazed that the 8.5x42s are being offered at $549.00, almost to the extent, Pezzer, that I'd be tempted to make sure that they were the newer Aspherical model you were buying and not an older non-aspherical model. For reference, the order code (on the box) for the newer aspherical model is 62124 and for the older non-asph model it's 62126.
The comparative FOV is down to the aspherical lenses used in the eyepiece construction - with most binoculars (unless you're going for the very top-end models such as Leica or Swarovski which eliminate this with highest quality glass, prisms and multi-coatings on all surfaces) you will experience some distortion to the edges of the FOV (barrelling). While giving the impression of a large field of view, this area is largely useless as it is out of focus by some degree. Aspheric lenses have been used in camera lenses for many years and now their use in the binoculars enables us to give a flat-field view and cut down this edge distortion by about 68% so you get 68% of this previously distorted area now in focus. The remaining 32% which would still be out of focus to some extent is removed and thus cuts down slightly on the FOV.
This is shown in diagramatic form on
www.minoxuk.co.uk on the aspherics page.
I've got this thread updated via my email notification, so I'll keep an eye out in case anyone wants to know anything else about the product range and its specifics or where to see / try it in the UK.
ATVB,
Dave Morgan
Product Coordinator
Minox UK.
www.minoxuk.co.uk
B