Swift 820ED - ridicules ! But what a marvelous CS !!
For a while now I've been a very happy Swift ZWCF 10x42 and after a recent accident, I decided to "upgrade" to the 8.5x44 820ED. What a failure !
(just to make it clear, this is regarding the latest model of the 820ED, quoted as weighting 24.6oz)
If so far I was a very satisfied Swift costumer and I kept on telling everyone how good and quality the Ultralites were, the new 820ED are a frustrating binoculars, it said that it was "designed by birders and for birders", I'll tell you one thing, These binoculars are just barely usable in the field:
1. The eyecups does not have a lock position. You set it to the open state, you walk 10 meters, put the binoculars back to your eyes, boom, the eyecups are down again, until you re-open it, the bird is gone.
2. The eyepiece part is HUGE. Bigger than any person's eye, the obvious outcome of this is that once you look at anything with a sun behind you, the sun reflects on the part of the eyepiece that your eye does not cover and you get flares in the lens. This badly effects the viewing experience.
3. Light transmitting - You would expect that with a 8.5x44 (versus my previous 10x42) you'd get more light transmitting, I compared it with an objective camera's sensor to the 10x42, it is pretty much identical, the less magnification and bigger objective lens is useful for nothing. Just added weight.
4. The diopter issue was not fixed! Where ever you read about the Swift binoculars you read about this problem, one would expect that this will be fixed, but it's not, you walk around, you look at the diopter and it is moved from the 0 position, why not setting an option to lock it ?
That's my user review on this, probably should be titled: STAY AWAY !
For a while now I've been a very happy Swift ZWCF 10x42 and after a recent accident, I decided to "upgrade" to the 8.5x44 820ED. What a failure !
(just to make it clear, this is regarding the latest model of the 820ED, quoted as weighting 24.6oz)
If so far I was a very satisfied Swift costumer and I kept on telling everyone how good and quality the Ultralites were, the new 820ED are a frustrating binoculars, it said that it was "designed by birders and for birders", I'll tell you one thing, These binoculars are just barely usable in the field:
1. The eyecups does not have a lock position. You set it to the open state, you walk 10 meters, put the binoculars back to your eyes, boom, the eyecups are down again, until you re-open it, the bird is gone.
2. The eyepiece part is HUGE. Bigger than any person's eye, the obvious outcome of this is that once you look at anything with a sun behind you, the sun reflects on the part of the eyepiece that your eye does not cover and you get flares in the lens. This badly effects the viewing experience.
3. Light transmitting - You would expect that with a 8.5x44 (versus my previous 10x42) you'd get more light transmitting, I compared it with an objective camera's sensor to the 10x42, it is pretty much identical, the less magnification and bigger objective lens is useful for nothing. Just added weight.
4. The diopter issue was not fixed! Where ever you read about the Swift binoculars you read about this problem, one would expect that this will be fixed, but it's not, you walk around, you look at the diopter and it is moved from the 0 position, why not setting an option to lock it ?
That's my user review on this, probably should be titled: STAY AWAY !
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