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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Kowa Genesis 22 - Next big thing (1 Viewer)

Some comparisons
Weight in grams, length in inches, FoV
(The Leica and Hawke's FoVs seem to me to be .1-.2 deg. more than stated by them.)

315g 4.1” 7.5° 8x22 Kowa Genesis

345g 4.3” 6.8° 8x25 Swarovski CL

240g 3.8" 6.5° 8x20 Leica Ultravid
270g 3.8" 6.8° 8x20 Nikon Premier/HG
245g 4.0” 6.7° 8x25 Hawke Sapphire ED

Hint to British Bird Fair visitors: to compare them in use will be nicer!
 
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Pete_gamby, thank you. (How did I miss those?) The Opticron's optical quality is not up with the best of course (I have used the 10x25 though not the 8x21.) The Kowa will be a market rival to the Swaro.

315g 4.1" 7.5° 8x22 Kowa Genesis
330g 4.1" 7.5° 8x21 Opticron DBA Oasis

309g 4.4" 6.8° 8x25 Zeiss Terra ED
345g 4.3" 6.8° 8x25 Swarovski CL

235g 3.8" 6.5° 8x20 Leica Ultravid BL
270g 3.8" 6.8° 8x20 Nikon Premier/HG
241g 4.0" 6.7° 8x25 Hawke Sapphire ED
 
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Hi from Italy. I've received today two specimen of Kowa Genesis 22, I hope to start my observation during the week-end
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I likes me some Kowa (own a Genesis 10x) but their marketing-speak is high- "IMMERSE yourself in nature"... How much can you immerse yourself through 22mm lenses? :-O
 
I had a quick look through these at Bird Fair on Friday. Build quality was solid, and optically they were good. The focus wheel was sloppy though on the 8x pair I tried, which considering they will retail close to £600 in the UK was disappointing. I tried a load of compacts and by far the best for me (in terms of optics and build quality) was the Swaro 8x25 CL.

I'll be interested to to read a proper review of the Kowas though.
 
Hi from Italy
I've published my impressions here:
http://www.binomania.it/recensione-binocoli-kowa-genesis22/
Thanks for the attention
Piergiovanni

Nice review :clap::clap::clap:

As expected the XD lenses put the Kowas in a leadership position among the Zeiss, swaros and Leicas who remain almost immovable selling their binoculars more due to its reputation than innovative optical ideas.

Bravo Kowa !!! i will upgrade my 10x25 ultravid for your 8x22 model.
 
I use an 8x25 Viking Vistron and a Carson Scout 8x22.

I also have 3 folding bins, a Hawke Endurance 10x25 and two 8x20's, a Pentax ED and RSPB HD. The 8x20's have ED lenses etc the 10x25 not but it is the more useful bin. I actually returned a Hawke Sapphire 8x25 ED and got the lower end model 10x25 Endurance and it's better in my opinion mainly because it's much easier with eye placement and still works well at dawn dusk so seems to have better transmission.

The Carson cheap reverse porro and Viking old model Vistron have no fancy glass and yet are more useful than the other 3 double hinge models because the Vistron is like a proper single hinge bin with large focus wheel and tough thick rubber armour and great glare resistance and the Carson is very light and compact, about 170g and would easy fit a shirt pocket no folding required and about 18x cheaper than this Kowa.

I've started to think that these fancy lens high end double hinged mini bins are something of a gimmick for the extremely gullible customer (and that would include me previously ) and the result of bad design concept. I certainly wouldn't buy another 8x20 roof as ultimately they are just bad for usability outdoors with glare problems and tricky eye placement (really only a back garden or event or for the zoo bin) and these at only 22mm I don't imagine can be that much better but I don't understand Italian so maybe I missed something in the review that explains otherwise and I suppose my Carson is 22mm and it's definitely useful outdoors in particular.

If the Kowa's are better than my Carson 8x22 -also with a 7.5 deg fov- then that would be good and expected except that they are larger and heavier and as I say cost an extreme amount by comparison. It seems a no brainer. I'll keep the Carson & Vistron and eventually upgrade those to something similar.

The Kowa seems to fall in between my two preferred compacts and frankly out of my budget in any case but I am curious about them as it would be good to get one that could replace my two but I'm not at all certain this would be the case with this Kowa but I'm sure it will satisfy those who are into these expensive toys no matter how actual real world useful they are. I'm sure they are better than nothing at a not quite nothing price.

Maybe someday I will get to try one and see what it can do and if they are different from my hitherto experience then I will be truly amazed. Just saying some fancy jargon like Wow XD lenses doesn't swing it for me on it's own any longer.
 
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In regards to the FoV, Kowa's website lists 7.5 degrees, but other sites claim 315ft/1000yds - does anyone know which is the real measurement? I'm assuming 7.5 is not accurate but it seems odd the Kowa site would list inaccurate specs whereas others (e.g. Eagle Optics) would be correct.
 
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