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

Crystalline clarity of the HT ? (1 Viewer)

SuperDuty

Well-known member
United States
In terms of crystal clarity, sparkle, brilliance, transmission, luminescence, etc, does the HT exceed SV, SF, FL, different varieties of Leica, or anything I'm missing ? I assume the Habicht would equal or exceed the HT, but eye relief rules it out.

Robert
 
Its transmission can be measured against the others. Maybe that has been determined and the numbers are available?

The rest is opinion.

Bob
 
I'd say it has better transmission and better control of CA. I still have no idea what sparkle, brilliance, and clarity mean and have no idea how you could quantify those characteristics.
 
In terms of crystal clarity, sparkle, brilliance, transmission, luminescence, etc, does the HT exceed SV, SF, FL, different varieties of Leica, or anything I'm missing ? I assume the Habicht would equal or exceed the HT, but eye relief rules it out.

Robert

I think when the HT moves to the head of the class is when MAXIMUM light transmission in a binocular makes a difference(when this is the case, I'd also want 50mm or greater objectives). To make things more complicated, the HTs transmission doesn't seem to be that flat...at least as flat as an SV or SF is. So that may make a difference to some eyes. OTHERWISE, no. I CAN however see how someone could favor ANY of the ones you mentioned over the others. All fine binoculars certainly.
 
Robert

There is a very good review of the binoculars you are interested in on greatestbinoculars.com. go to reviews and shootout.

I have been using an 8x42 HT as my main birding bin for nearly three years and absolutely love it. As Tobias says in his review, the HT gives "awesome 3D for a roof", and I think this is what persuaded me to choose a HT. I was lucky that I was able to compare all the top binoculars back to back. The SF wasn't available at the time.

Hope this helps

Sandy
 
Last edited:
Bob, post 4,
I have published test reports including light transmission curves of different HT models on the WEB-site of House of Outdoor & Optics, so you can extract the numbers you want from it.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
I'd say it has better transmission and better control of CA. I still have no idea what sparkle, brilliance, and clarity mean and have no idea how you could quantify those characteristics.

Sparkle... maybe it's like jazz, "Jazz is like pornography. You can't say what it is, but you know it when you see it." (Kurt Elling)
 
I think the term "Crystalline" could only be properly used when describing "Swarovski" products.....:-O
 
In terms of crystal clarity, sparkle, brilliance, transmission, luminescence, etc, does the HT exceed SV, SF, FL, different varieties of Leica, or anything I'm missing ? I assume the Habicht would equal or exceed the HT, but eye relief rules it out.

Robert

HT comfortably beats the other alphas by 4-5% in daytime light transmission. This is enough to notice in a side by side comparison and to give a few more minutes viewing in twilight. But whether you would think this equates to extra sparkle depends on your eyes and your brain.


Lee
 
Bob, post 4,
In case you did not find the test reports I referred to, I will give you some numbers here.
Daylight transmission (500-555nm for the 8x42 HT is 95% and for the 8x54 HT it is 94,9%, which is close to 95%...
Data from some colleague binoculars:
Swarovski SLC 8x56: 93,2%
Zeiss Nacht Dialyt 8x56: 93%
Zeiss Victory FL 7x42: 93,1%
Swarovski Habicht 7x42: 96% (that is a porro, so perhaps not fair to compare).

As a general trend Leica scores quite a bit lower with regard to light transmissions. It is clear that Zeiss did a good job with the HT.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
Thank you Gijs, Post 14.

I have been in and out of the house all day and did not have time to look them up.

My Zeiss Victory FL 7x42 is the brightest of the 3 modern 7x42s I own and these numbers confirm what I see. 93.1% is impressive enough for me!

My other 2 7x42s are a Swarovski SLC B from 2006 and a Leica Trinovid BN purchased new at a close out price from Cabela's after the Ultravid replaced it.


Bob
 
I'd say it has better transmission and better control of CA. I still have no idea what sparkle, brilliance, and clarity mean and have no idea how you could quantify those characteristics.
Sparkle, brilliance, and clarity are a by-product of high transmission. The HT binoculars like the Zeiss HT and the Habicht have it and it is easy to see. Once you get used to it it is hard to go back to a lower transmission binocular.
 
Bob

Some of Gijs's other test results for 8x42s, at 550nm are

Uvid+ 87.3%
SLC 91%
EL SV 89.2%
SF 89.9%
HT 95%

Many thanks to Gijs for posting these results on House of Outdoor and thanks to Jan for hosting them.

Lee
 
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