Troubador's Review of Bushnell Legend M 8x42 and Trophy 8x32 (1 Viewer)

Synaps · Nov 22, 2017

Chosun Juan said:
....
Also, anyone want to have a crack at putting together some precisely defined stats to see if the backlash extent/ focus stiffness correlation hypothesis holds any water ? (though not as much water as a Leica !
.... :eek!:

Chosun :gh:

I am far from the most experienced person on this forum when it comes to binocular mechanics, so if I am talking nonsense, feel free to correct me, but...

I assume slop noticeable in the focus wheel is most likely a result of poor fitting tolerances of the parts inside the focussing wheel, whereas stiffness can result from other parts as well, such as the resistance of the lenses moving up and down in the tubes, or the resistance of the little adjustment arms through their little airtight sealings.

On the other hand, the only 2 bins I have seen that had slop, had lightly turning focus wheels....

Addition: to ensure lifelong, low friction and high speed functioning of binocular focus wheels, the ball screws might be an option :-O

http://www.anaheimautomation.com/manuals/forms/ball-screw-guide.php#sthash.ujtzDpHl.dpbs

BruceH · Nov 22, 2017

Chosun Juan said:
Bruce,

I double checked and my ED3's were as I described - definitely magenta coatings on the objectives - looks like your photo of your Bushies.

Anyone have any concrete info on the number of coating layers for the dielectric mirror on the Bushie ?
..........
Chosun :gh:

Well, it looks like Zen Ray did a midstream coating change with the ED3. That may explain why we differ on what we see for color balance.

Legend M Coatings:

The Bushnell web site for the Legend M shows either symbols or states the following coatings.....

- Di-electric coatings
- Ultra wide band coating
- RainGuard HD water repellent lens coating

In addition, the side of the box says ......
- Fully multicoated optics

Strange to say, they make no mention of phase coating but I think it is safe to assume based on performance and price that it has phase coating. I noticed more sites do not mention it any more since they think that is assumed.

Knowing how much you like marketing hype (

), here is what I found on the Bushnell web site:

DIELECTRIC PRISM COATING: Dielectric coating on the prisms improves reflectance to greater than 90 percent. The result is a deeper, richer and more reproducible color images.

ULTRA WIDE BANDCOATING: This anti-reflection coating process that is customized for every lens element in the optical path, in order to allow the best possible light from the front glass all the way back to the eyepiece. The result is maximum brightness and true color across the light spectrum.

Rainguard® HD: The only state-of-the-art, patented and proprietary hydrophobic and oleophobic lens coating keeps water, fog and oily fingerprints from wrecking your vision. Water drops from rain, snow, sleet and even your own breath bead up into much smaller droplets that scatter less light. Ensuring that you never miss your moment.

PC3 Phase Coating: Our exclusive PC3 Phase Coating is applied to bring each image into sync after it has been halved and rejoined once it has been previously split in a roof prism optical system.

Fully Multi-Coated Optics: All air-to-glass surfaces feature multiple layers of anti-reflective coating. Fully multi-coated optical systems deliver the brightest, highest-contrast images with the least amount of eye strain because only a very small percentage of light is lost before it reaches the viewer's eye. (Part of the fully multicoated designation)

And now for the part you have been waiting for ..........

XTR Technology: Our exclusive XTR technology utilizes 60 layers of coatings on each prism that conserves, harnesses and optimizes the available light. XTR delivers a world-leading 99.73 percent light transmission per lens for a combined light transmission of 90 percent. (Part of the fully multicoated designation)

The web site and the box do not state XTR technology for the Legend M but the box does say fully multicoated and the XTR description on the web site includes the fully multicoated icon. So, there are dots to connect that the Legend M has XTR coating but that is an assumption. Don't you just love the marketing folks that put all of this together for us in such a clear understandable prsentation. 3

adhoc · Nov 23, 2017

These very-many-layered coatings have always intrigued me. Opticron have been stating for years that their Oasis coating has 64 layers. Here we have 60. Why so many? Is it that, among these, the same material has to be applied multiple times separately in succession, for some technical reason? What is, typically, the thickness of all the layers together? I shall appreciate it if someone could direct me to an explanation, or briefly explain; this will probably enlighten a lot of readers. Thank you!

Troubador · Nov 23, 2017

adhoc said:
These very-many-layered coatings have always intrigued me. Opticron have been stating for years that their Oasis coating has 64 layers. Here we have 60. Why so many? Is it that, among these, the same material has to be applied multiple times separately in succession, for some technical reason? What is, typically, the thickness of all the layers together? I shall appreciate it if someone could direct me to an explanation, or briefly explain; this will probably enlighten a lot of readers. Thank you!

Hi Adhoc

My understanding of anti-reflection coatings (and I am open to correction by more knowledgable members) is that the coatings work via a process called 'interference'. Each layer applies this 'interference' to a very particular frequency of light, or in other words a colour. And so it is that if 60 coatings are applied, then that coating system vastly reduces the reflection of 60 colours of light. The more layers of coatings are applied the better the degree of control is across the visible light spectrum.

Lee

cocco · Nov 24, 2017

adhoc said:
What is, typically, the thickness of all the layers together? I

As I understand it, the optimum thickness would be around 150 nanometers for each layer (quarter of lambda of a given wavelenghth the reflection of which shall be dimmed). So 60 layers should be around 10 micrometers (a bit more than I thought it would be before calculating this estimate), but I might be utterly wrong.

cheers - cocco

henry link · Nov 24, 2017

A large number of layers is probably confined to the prism mirror coating. The graphic below shows the number of layers for Swarovski coatings as they were about 10-15 years ago. The last column shows the number of layers for each type of coating; SWARODUR - 4, SWAROTOP - 3, SWAROBRIGHT - 30, phase coating - 3.

Chosun Juan · Nov 24, 2017

cocco said:
As I understand it, the optimum thickness would be around 150 nanometers for each layer (quarter of lambda of a given wavelenghth the reflection of which shall be dimmed). So 60 layers should be around 10 micrometers (a bit more than I thought it would be before calculating this estimate), but I might be utterly wrong.

cheers - cocco

Yes, 1/4 wave is the correct methodology and in the ballpark, a bit less maybe ~8 micron for 60 layers - it's a bit like the KFC recipe - no-one knows the precise ingredients! :cat: though it would only apply to the dielectric mirror coating as Henry said. I think I recall seeing somewhere that the latest SWAROBRIGHT mirror coating is 70 layers. It would be interesting to know how this compares to the Zeiss mirror coatings in the x32 FL and SF ??

Bruce, at the price level of the Bushie M, I doubt it has the full fat 60 layers, and given the identical optical train as the Zen, I would think it has the same 40 layers for the mirror coating. I think you might have gone beyond joining potential dots and into drawing a long bow ! 3

Have a look through the Bushie's objective end and tilt the binocular slightly until you are getting a reflection off the prisms - do you see a slightly iridescent bright greeny colour as I do on my Zens ?

Zen lists fully broadband multicoated optics at each glass/air interface as having 99.7% transmission, though dielectric mirror 'transmission' of an S-P prism is typically only around ~99%. As no-one has ever seen a transmission graph of the Zen ED3, I think the overall transmission and colour rendition (in my unit anyway) is pretty much identical to the Bushie M ~90% o/all ....... very nice for the price, and sensational for 160USD ! :t:

My Zens are the upgraded model (with maybe a later generation of coatings than your unit) with absolutely minimal standoff (rim to ocular lens surface) eyecups in order to increase ER for glasses wearers - are your eyecups the same?

Chosun :gh:

BruceH · Nov 25, 2017

Chosun Juan said:
Bruce.... I think you might have gone beyond joining potential dots and into drawing a long bow ! 3
..............
Chosun :gh:

That could be! Just because the dot connect does not mean they follow the correct path, thus the comment about it only being an assumption. I always wonder how the general marketing hype that describes the product technology, such as XTR coatings, can apply across the board since different models come from different manufacturers. I suspect each uses their own coatings.

Chosun Juan said:
................
Have a look through the Bushie's objective end and tilt the binocular slightly until you are getting a reflection off the prisms - do you see a slightly iridescent bright greeny colour as I do on my Zens ?

Chosun :gh:

I gave it a try but I did not pick up any color reflections off the prism. Sorry.

Chosun Juan said:
.........
My Zens are the upgraded model (with maybe a later generation of coatings than your unit) with absolutely minimal standoff (rim to ocular lens surface) eyecups in order to increase ER for glasses wearers - are your eyecups the same?

Chosun :gh:

Check out the photos in post #25 to see how the Zen Ray eyecups on my unit compare to the one you have.

My Zen Ray ED3 10X43 was received direct from Zen Ray in June, 2013. It was a replacement from Charles for my original unit received in April, 2013 that had a diopter setting problem out of the box. I am not sure why it took a while to get the replacement out. Maybe he was waiting on a new shipment to arrive.

adhoc · Nov 27, 2017

Thanks everyone. The question now is, what exactly is hidden within that mysterious "1x30" in the superb diagram conveyed by Henry, or in the 60 or 70 "layers"*? Is it in principle only what Lee has explained or are there other layers for different purpose/s?

Also I would very much like to see a video of any coating/s being applied to a lens or prism but all the relevant videos I have yet found on the internet (all or nearly all on YouTube) on the making of binoculars skip showing this! Thanks for any tip-off here.

*all of different composition, or some materal/s applied more than once in succession

typo · Nov 27, 2017

Adhoc,

I don't know a lot about the various deposition technologies, but generally you just see the lenses loaden into a carousel. The rest takes place in a sealed vacuum chamber where you couldn't use a camera. This video from Edmunds Scientific seems a reasonable introduction, and the various videos on optical coating from Balzers, Opti-tec and others give some indication of the sophistication of some of the machines.
https://youtu.be/rZrq6frnheQ

David

Troubador · Nov 27, 2017

adhoc said:
Thanks everyone. The question now is, what exactly is hidden within that mysterious "1x30" in the superb diagram conveyed by Henry, or in the 60 or 70 "layers"*? Is it in principle only what Lee has explained or are there other layers for different purpose/s?

Also I would very much like to see a video of any coating/s being applied to a lens or prism but all the relevant videos I have yet found on the internet (all or nearly all on YouTube) on the making of binoculars skip showing this! Thanks for any tip-off here.

*all of different composition, or some materal/s applied more than once in succession

I have been told that the most common material used for the coating is magnesium fluoride and despositing it in many layers of different thicknesses allows it to deal with the unwanted reflection of a wide band of light frequencies/colours. Each thickness cancelling the reflection of a quite narrow band of light frequency. The only other coating that has been mentioned to me by folks who do this work is the final layer on the outside surface of the lens which nowadays is typically a 'water-repellent' coating that also is easier to clean.

Lee

typo · Nov 27, 2017

Dielectric mirror coatings combine alternating layers of high and low refractive index materials. Some of the most commonly used appear to be magnesium fluoride, silicon dioxide, tantalum pentoxide and titanium dioxide, but many dozens of other individual and combined materials are available to the optical engineers depending on the deposition technology used.

David

NDhunter · Nov 29, 2017

I just wanted to add my thoughts on the Bushnell 8x42 Legend M binocular. I am very pleased
with value here, as mentioned above. The nice wide FOV, it is bright, and I like the generous sweetspot.

I like the fit and finish, the focuser is smooth without any play, and the diopter works as designed.
The handling is very nice, and I like the position of the thumb indents.

I purchased mine on the Ebay site mentioned above, it is hard to see, how the seller made anything
on these, as they include free shipping. The markup on some optics must be quite a bit.

A comparison with my Zeiss Terra HD 8x42 was the closest thing I have on hand.
The Bushnell is better in several ways, being brighter, and the wider FOV, are impressive.

Jerry

bluespiderweb · Dec 1, 2017

Congrats on your new binoculars, Jerry! And good job on the review too-well put and helpful information given; short and to the point.

It does make you wonder how in the world you can get such a deal on something like these, doesn't it? Good to hear people continue to get the good deal, and find them appealing too.

Enjoy!

adhoc · Dec 2, 2017

A belated thanks to David and others. On the lack of videos of lens coating, yes, it is again David's Holmes to my Watson, a camera lens thrust in there will (without a special intervening glass) itself get a free coating!

Rogers is still selling the Legend-M 8x42 for $160. They stated: on November 9th: 83 sold, "Limited quantity available" (post #3288 in Bargains); today, December 2nd: 157 sold, "Limited quantity available"! OpticsPlanet: risen back to $340 but minus today's coupon code discount $306. At Adorama: $299. At B&H: still out of stock. What is happening!

In a few weeks I should be able, like Bruce, to compare this against a Zen-Ray ED3 8x42, and might post a writeup, though I always feel a bit of an impostor at this. An odd thing though: whether I do this will be subject to the ZR's sharpness, which I remember being not as expected, due I thought to a QC issue, and need to check again. (It was with me, was given it away to a friend, and will need to be borrowed for this.)

PS. Barry, this is bothering me no end, and Google is not helping me in this, what does your sign-off quote mean? Thanks!

bluespiderweb · Dec 2, 2017

Ps

No bother, no gain.

adhoc · Dec 3, 2017

Thank you Barry! But the ransom demand is too high! As a reasonable excuse: Surely, this has not bothered you as that bothered me? Again, thanks and apologies.

The thanks is for the kindness in responding as you did. As for the response itself, well... You are a bit like the mathematician Laplace. In presenting his findings, he explained difficult math will equally difficult math. But I do sort of get it, which is more than I can say about Laplace.

PS. I am just in time to beat the 24-hour deadline to edit. Please see Barry's Reason above in his post edited for my benefit! And thank you Barry, again.

bluespiderweb · Dec 3, 2017

If you bring math into this, I am leaving!

peter456 · Dec 8, 2017

I bought two of the 8x42mm legend m from rogers sporting goods and imported them to germany. I paid 400 Euro included shipping and taxes. So i got two for the price of one because they are priced about 400 Euros here. One is absolutely fine and sadly on the second one the focus mechanism doesn't work so well.

dries1 · Dec 13, 2017

I bought one of these (Legend 8X42 M glass) and I am very happy with it, great view, contrast, the focus wheel is firm but with good movement, diopter is stiff but I have not had to adjust it for viewing 60 feet to infinity. The FOV is large and with a great sweet spot. I read somewhere the model is discontinued, a shame for the money (<$160.00) it is a great deal, perhaps get two. My thanks to Barry for giving me the lead to the quality and value.

Andy W.

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