Originally posted by Wes Hobarth: "Catch the reviews in BBC Wildlife Mag for March 06. Swaro's come third, I always knew they were for Dudes, Ultravid's which I PX'ed for my previous vids came second, Zeiss a dismal third, but first was Nikons. Can you really trust this Mag?
Wes"
Thanks to Wes, I have now had a chance to look at this so called test too. I think it is important to know how the results were apparently obtained: One person (in the presence of a reporter) tested one sample each on a simple outing. The three criteria (optical quality, focusing, handling) seem to have been dealt with on a very subjective level. Thus, minimal focusing and weight, while being mentioned, do not seem to have affected the rating at all. And while handling is clearly a very subjective matter which includes one's personal physiognomy and size of hands, the other parts of a test should essentially be based on some objective and comparable criteria. Looking at the text, this seems to be doubtful at best. Quoting from the info given for the Nikon 8x42: "Very bright and sharp, even the distant geese in the fog." And: "Looking at the whites on that shoveler, they really are white. Cheap binoculars often make whites look slightly dirty." This sounds as if only in the Nikons, those whites are really white (though the other models they looked at are all in the same price range). And how sharp can distant birds be that one sees in the fog? Unless those binoculars have some fog cutting ability, which I doubt.
There are other strange wordings: Of the Leica Ultravid 8x32 it is said that "they were easily the smallest binoculars here". But in fact, there is only 1 millimeter difference to the Zeiss FL 8x32. And for the Swarovski EL 10x42 it states: "It takes a long time to get something into focus, but on the plus side, this means there is a very good depth of field." Now if making such a connection is not complete bull...! (Or else, some of our experts here on BF need to explain this to me.)
And as wonders go, both Ultravids (8x32 and 10x42) had "very smooth" focusing. Now, from my experience, I have yet to encounter a situation where of any two randomly selected Ultravids of the models tested here, BOTH have very smooth focusing. Sure, there are fortunately such samples, but many more have that gritty focusing (up to the point where fine-focusing is impossible). For the Zeiss FLs, however, the "test" did have both samples with less that ideal smoothness. My experience, again, is the contrary. There are some that are not as smooth as they should be, but mostly they are OK.
What bothers me about such a warped compilation is the fact that many people probably use the info to base their choice on, thinking it is reliable as they found it in a publication from a reputable source. It's just the same as those infamous Cornell tests. But compared to this one here, those tests are at least based on impressions by a number of persons.
Wes"
Thanks to Wes, I have now had a chance to look at this so called test too. I think it is important to know how the results were apparently obtained: One person (in the presence of a reporter) tested one sample each on a simple outing. The three criteria (optical quality, focusing, handling) seem to have been dealt with on a very subjective level. Thus, minimal focusing and weight, while being mentioned, do not seem to have affected the rating at all. And while handling is clearly a very subjective matter which includes one's personal physiognomy and size of hands, the other parts of a test should essentially be based on some objective and comparable criteria. Looking at the text, this seems to be doubtful at best. Quoting from the info given for the Nikon 8x42: "Very bright and sharp, even the distant geese in the fog." And: "Looking at the whites on that shoveler, they really are white. Cheap binoculars often make whites look slightly dirty." This sounds as if only in the Nikons, those whites are really white (though the other models they looked at are all in the same price range). And how sharp can distant birds be that one sees in the fog? Unless those binoculars have some fog cutting ability, which I doubt.
There are other strange wordings: Of the Leica Ultravid 8x32 it is said that "they were easily the smallest binoculars here". But in fact, there is only 1 millimeter difference to the Zeiss FL 8x32. And for the Swarovski EL 10x42 it states: "It takes a long time to get something into focus, but on the plus side, this means there is a very good depth of field." Now if making such a connection is not complete bull...! (Or else, some of our experts here on BF need to explain this to me.)
And as wonders go, both Ultravids (8x32 and 10x42) had "very smooth" focusing. Now, from my experience, I have yet to encounter a situation where of any two randomly selected Ultravids of the models tested here, BOTH have very smooth focusing. Sure, there are fortunately such samples, but many more have that gritty focusing (up to the point where fine-focusing is impossible). For the Zeiss FLs, however, the "test" did have both samples with less that ideal smoothness. My experience, again, is the contrary. There are some that are not as smooth as they should be, but mostly they are OK.
What bothers me about such a warped compilation is the fact that many people probably use the info to base their choice on, thinking it is reliable as they found it in a publication from a reputable source. It's just the same as those infamous Cornell tests. But compared to this one here, those tests are at least based on impressions by a number of persons.
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