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Zeiss moving out of Wetzlar (1 Viewer)

2. The interface between eyepiece and eye. Here, current binoculars are probably less than perfect. A couple of smart ideas may help improving the 'ease of view' and thus the usability of the instrument. This is the area in which people like you and me could possibly contribute most. We shall find some time for discussions about that.

Cheers,
Holger

Hi Holger,

I agree with you completely. This is the most likely area we might be able to make some noticeable improvements. It seems that even in the 3D cinema and head-mounted virtual reality, they don't quite know how to deliver a wide-field stereo image to the eye: http://doc-ok.org/ So, yes, I'll be more than happy to work together and investigate this further. I have your email, I will send you a note.

Cheers
-Omid
 
Hi, Believe me when I say that the Zeiss building in Wetzlar is still shaking upto its fundaments. They are still digesting this reality. The impact is HUGE.

I think you and I are on the same page regarding long range hunting.
Long range is military stuff/sports long distance target shooting (done it, seen it, got the T-shirt) and it should stay there.

Jan

Hi Jan,

I agree with your assessment. Zeiss moving out of Wetzlar is no small event. It has far-reaching economic and psychological impacts on the sports optics industry of Germany.

Regarding, long-range shooting and scopes specifically targeted to that market I agree with you there too. Long range "shooting" is a great sport but, to me, there is no such a thing as long range hunting. This forum is dedicated to bird-watching so it's not proper to discuss rifle-scopes here. If you are interested, send me a PM and we can discuss riflescopes offline.

Sincerely,
-Omid
 
No taking them off and on. I just lift or raise them a couple of inches and they rest on the forehead. It only takes a 1/4 of a second and works great for me. I have never been able to get comfortable using binoculars with eye glasses. Luckily I do not have any significant astigmatism to address.
Hi Bruce,

I tried that, but didn't find it satisfactory. For one thing your glasses get dirty. Then of course there is the small adjustment period (I have transitions lenses), and the whole hassle of having an extra task for the hands to do (when they are probably occupied carrying the necessary big stick). I found quite often in the time taken to do all this that I would miss a fleeting glance at a geewhizzit or other rarity (such as a powerful owl chick at the extremity of its range in the woodlands, grey falcon scooting along, etc).

In the end I decided to just go with glasses always on as being easier. Great that your solution works for you, and I will grant you that there is quite an adjustment/learning period involved, and "fit" and "ease of view" of bins becomes an important consideration. Now that I am 'schooled' in alignment it has become a natural process that I hardly ever give conscious thought to. :t:

There definitely is room for improvement with the interface along the lines that Omid mentioned though.


Chosun :gh:
 
...

Quite generally, I don't believe that the plain optical parameters of binoculars can be improved significantly: A little bit of extra edge-sharpness, transmission, slightly reduced weight - not much left to improve here. Instead, I see two major directions for further improvements:

1. Image stabilization. This is high tech and could only be achieved with a team of experts and huge investments.

2. The interface between eyepiece and eye.

....

I guess you are right since you know more about binoculars and physics than me, but what keeps me wondering is: why it is so expensive to coat binocular lenses...? When there is not much room for improving the functionality of a product, you often see the focus of R&D departments shifting to cost savings. Does anyone think that progress can be made in the area of lens coating costs?
 
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It is simply not true that producing or coating lenses is hugely expensive.
Nor does it cost much to add image stabilization. The evidence is all around us in the form of cheap point and shoot cameras.
Consider that the new Sony RX10 IV offers a 24-600mm zoom, five stops or better image stabilization and 4K video, for $1700 on Amazon, about $1100 less than the Zeiss 8x42 SF.
The Sony lens is a Zeiss design and I'm confident it sports the latest Zeiss coatings. The number of units sold is probably in the same ballpark, as the RX10 IV is a pretty specialized camera.
Yet the main objection indicated by RX10 IV reviewers was the excessively high price. That suggests the alpha binoculars are in pricing bubble. Eventually, that will burst.
 
;)
Hi Jan,

I agree with your assessment. Zeiss moving out of Wetzlar is no small event. It has far-reaching economic and psychological impacts on the sports optics industry of Germany.

Regarding, long-range shooting and scopes specifically targeted to that market I agree with you there too. Long range "shooting" is a great sport but, to me, there is no such a thing as long range hunting. This forum is dedicated to bird-watching so it's not proper to discuss rifle-scopes here. If you are interested, send me a PM and we can discuss riflescopes offline.

Sincerely,
-Omid

Hi Omid,

And than later on to find my writing on a Forum. No thanks;)

Second, I have nothing with riflescopes (anymore) so it wouldn't work anyhow.

I do wish you all the best with your enterprise. If it performance the way you say it does..... no worries mate.

Jan
 
etudiant,
Have you ever seen or used a coating facility?
Gijs van Ginkel

I've visited several, mostly in the electronics industry.
They are expensive, but they are also hugely productive. For instance, Canon alone has built well over 100 million lenses for its digital cameras, very fine optics with exquisite coatings and glass. Those volumes enable lower unit costs.

Sony produces much less than Canon and hence has fewer economies of scale. That they can engineer and sell their RX10 IV for so relatively little shows the alpha binocular prices are in a bubble. Perhaps Zeiss is moving to lower cost sites because they share that concern.
 
I've visited several, mostly in the electronics industry.
They are expensive, but they are also hugely productive. For instance, Canon alone has built well over 100 million lenses for its digital cameras, very fine optics with exquisite coatings and glass. Those volumes enable lower unit costs.

Sony produces much less than Canon and hence has fewer economies of scale. That they can engineer and sell their RX10 IV for so relatively little shows the alpha binocular prices are in a bubble. Perhaps Zeiss is moving to lower cost sites because they share that concern.

But they do sell thousands of the Sony RX cameras, vs god knows how many of high end Swaro/Zeiss/Leica binos. Unfortunately we live in a niche world of optic lovers :( vs mass market semipro photographers where they can make money from volume...
 
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It is simply not true that producing or coating lenses is hugely expensive.
......
Consider that the new Sony RX10 IV offers a 24-600mm zoom, five stops or better image stabilization and 4K video, for $1700 on Amazon, about $1100 less than the Zeiss 8x42 SF.
The Sony lens is a Zeiss design and I'm confident it sports the latest Zeiss coatings......

I read on the website of a large Chinese binocular manufacturer that coatings made up for the largest part of their costs. This was a manufacturere where anyone could order large quantities of binoculars made to desired specs. From simple to ED glass with sk15 prisms and super coatings. His claims about costs seems legit to me. Furthermore I am not at all sure that binocular optics can be compared that easily to photographic lenses. For one, the RX10 IV has a 25mm processing sensor and binoculars are usually designed to have 4-5mm exit pupils. I am happy to be educated though
 
We had this discussion before on Birdforum, so it seems that we are repeating ourselves over and over.
In short: a binocular producer has to invest in people let us say 500 employees average earning 30.000-40.000 euros per year (Meopta has 2500 employees, but a number of them (quite a few actually) do not work in binocular production but for production of optical-electronic devices). The company has to buy some machinerie to do the metal and glass works, let us estimate 10 million euros altogether for the machinerie. Add the buildings to it, maintenance of buildings and machines, heating or cooling of the buildings, costs of materials for the instruments to be produced like different kinds of metals or plastics, high quality optical glass, coating materials,research facilities, sales organisation worldwide and alltogther one obtains a respectacle amount of money. And that money has to be earned before profits can occur. As customers we are very egocentric and we often do not care about working conditions (many examples can be found), low wages etc. the only thing that matters to us is: get a top quality instrument and we want to pay as little as possible. If you take all factors into account I have described: that seems difficult to reconcile with each other.
Why do we go to China, Vietnam, The Philippines, Singapore for fabrication of optics, computers etc.? To save costs on wages of the people who are doing all the work. There are rumors, that repsctabel Japanes companies are moving production facilities to low-wage countries to avoid labor costs. Big names from all over the world are connected to this way of business, we all can know them from our news papers. So why complain about a few more euros to be paid if we can be sure of a life long pleasure of top quality instruments if we are certified of top quality, excellent service and long lasting pleasure of the instruments made?.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
....As customers we are very egocentric and we often do not care about working conditions (many examples can be found), low wages etc. the only thing that matters to us is: get a top quality instrument and we want to pay as little as possible. If you take all factors into account I have described: that seems difficult to reconcile with each other.
Why do we go to China, Vietnam, The Philippines, Singapore for fabrication of optics, computers etc.? To save costs on wages of the people who are doing all the work. There are rumors, that repsctabel Japanes companies are moving production facilities to low-wage countries to avoid labor costs. Big names from all over the world are connected to this way of business, we all can know them from our news papers. So why complain about a few more euros to be paid if we can be sure of a life long pleasure of top quality instruments if we are certified of top quality, excellent service and long lasting pleasure of the instruments made?.
Gijs van Ginkel

I certainly would prefer a Japanese or European made Binocular, knowing that people and environment are treatet better. If not voluntarily by the entrepreneur/ management then it is because of much more strict environmental and social regulations. That doesn't stop me from checking out what the competition has to offer though, just out of curiousity. Also the price gap should be acceptable, which in many cases it still is, but you have to search well to find competitively priced Japananese or European made binoculars. Not everyone likes to or can spend 2k per binocular
 
We had this discussion before on Birdforum, so it seems that we are repeating ourselves over and over.
In short: a binocular producer has to invest in people let us say 500 employees average earning 30.000-40.000 euros per year (Meopta has 2500 employees, but a number of them (quite a few actually) do not work in binocular production but for production of optical-electronic devices). The company has to buy some machinerie to do the metal and glass works, let us estimate 10 million euros altogether for the machinerie. Add the buildings to it, maintenance of buildings and machines, heating or cooling of the buildings, costs of materials for the instruments to be produced like different kinds of metals or plastics, high quality optical glass, coating materials,research facilities, sales organisation worldwide and alltogther one obtains a respectacle amount of money. And that money has to be earned before profits can occur. As customers we are very egocentric and we often do not care about working conditions (many examples can be found), low wages etc. the only thing that matters to us is: get a top quality instrument and we want to pay as little as possible. If you take all factors into account I have described: that seems difficult to reconcile with each other.
Why do we go to China, Vietnam, The Philippines, Singapore for fabrication of optics, computers etc.? To save costs on wages of the people who are doing all the work. There are rumors, that repsctabel Japanes companies are moving production facilities to low-wage countries to avoid labor costs. Big names from all over the world are connected to this way of business, we all can know them from our news papers. So why complain about a few more euros to be paid if we can be sure of a life long pleasure of top quality instruments if we are certified of top quality, excellent service and long lasting pleasure of the instruments made?.
Gijs van Ginkel
Hi Gijs,

This may indeed have been the case ..... in the past.

Every industry, every company is under globally competitive pressure to increase productivity. Better, higher performing products and processes for less cost. Innovate or die.

It is always a balancing act between automation capital expenditure (machinery and processes requiring specification and design, commissioning, 'fine-tuning', and ongoing calibration, adjustment, setting, maintenance and replacement of out of spec parts, etc) and labour costs (organisation, recruiting, training, leadership, equiping and productivity, and wh&s requirements etc) as well as in-house versus outsourced elements, and virtual collaborative networks.

Advanced materials and/or additive manufacturing processes could revolutionize the transformative process.

Likewise, a leaner marketing and distribution (and some sales - sorry Jan) channel will also significantly reduce costs. I don't need to see pictures of sports car driving stubble chinned macho men and even tougher leather clad women along with a plethora of dead animals to generate interest in a product. Waste of money. Money that would be better off in the consumer's pocket.

The advertising to the HunTing fraternity is not even logical - It Is redundant - surely if you can count the eyelashes on a sparrow at dusk at 400 yds with the latest and greatest bins - you should be able to see a deer sized animal prior to blowing it to smithereens! :eek!: ;)

As for buildings - how wonderful to have such an income producing asset! Far from being a cost, they are revenue generating opportunities. A renewable energy harvesting skin, due design consideration for orientation, solar gain/exclusion and thermal storage, fenestration, and building envelope thermal performance, ground source thermal coupling and heat exchanged ventilation - should see all bar the most energy intensive businesses (such as smelting and processing metals etc) not only powering/providing building environment requirements, but all building power, process equipment power, and perhaps even transport power (electric vehicle recharging), and possibly excess energy sold back to the grid. It's all rather easy ...... :smoke:

Any company not going down this road is the owner of a dinosaur - not the required sustainable business of the present and future ..... :cat:

I would have thought the highly efficient, yet rather dour ;) Germans would have been on this like a seagull on a hot chip! :king:

Perhaps they are working on their sense of humour first ..... ! 3:) o:)



Chosun :gh:
 
.....

As for buildings - how wonderful to have such an income producing asset! Far from being a cost, they are revenue generating opportunities. A renewable energy harvesting skin, due design consideration for orientation, solar gain/exclusion and thermal storage, fenestration, and building envelope thermal performance, ground source thermal coupling and heat exchanged ventilation - should see all bar the most energy intensive businesses (such as smelting and processing metals etc) not only powering/providing building environment requirements, but all building power, process equipment power, and perhaps even transport power (electric vehicle recharging), and possibly excess energy sold back to the grid. It's all rather easy ...... :smoke:

Any company not going down this road is the owner of a dinosaur - not the required sustainable business of the present and future ..... :cat:

I would have thought the highly efficient, yet rather dour ;) Germans would have been on this like a seagull on a hot chip! :king:

Perhaps they are working on their sense of humour first ..... ! 3:) o:)

Man, I don't know what you have been smoking, but the scenario you describe is far from easy! Guess the Germans are too realistic for running off after a far away future fantasy ;)

(or quietly working on parts of the solution...)
 
In 150 years time there may not be any humans left to care, or the ones remaining will be slaves to machines (As if we already aren't slaves to machines).

There are cheap labour costs here.
Someone was just jailed for making a fellow countryman work for 20 hours a day locked up and paid nothing.
There are numerous instances of modern day slavery even in the richest countries.
 
Hi Gijs,

This may indeed have been the case ..... in the past.

Every industry, every company is under globally competitive pressure to increase productivity. Better, higher performing products and processes for less cost. Innovate or die.

It is always a balancing act between automation capital expenditure (machinery and processes requiring specification and design, commissioning, 'fine-tuning', and ongoing calibration, adjustment, setting, maintenance and replacement of out of spec parts, etc) and labour costs (organisation, recruiting, training, leadership, equiping and productivity, and wh&s requirements etc) as well as in-house versus outsourced elements, and virtual collaborative networks.

Advanced materials and/or additive manufacturing processes could revolutionize the transformative process.

Likewise, a leaner marketing and distribution (and some sales - sorry Jan) channel will also significantly reduce costs. I don't need to see pictures of sports car driving stubble chinned macho men and even tougher leather clad women along with a plethora of dead animals to generate interest in a product. Waste of money. Money that would be better off in the consumer's pocket.

The advertising to the HunTing fraternity is not even logical - It Is redundant - surely if you can count the eyelashes on a sparrow at dusk at 400 yds with the latest and greatest bins - you should be able to see a deer sized animal prior to blowing it to smithereens! :eek!: ;)

As for buildings - how wonderful to have such an income producing asset! Far from being a cost, they are revenue generating opportunities. A renewable energy harvesting skin, due design consideration for orientation, solar gain/exclusion and thermal storage, fenestration, and building envelope thermal performance, ground source thermal coupling and heat exchanged ventilation - should see all bar the most energy intensive businesses (such as smelting and processing metals etc) not only powering/providing building environment requirements, but all building power, process equipment power, and perhaps even transport power (electric vehicle recharging), and possibly excess energy sold back to the grid. It's all rather easy ...... :smoke:

Any company not going down this road is the owner of a dinosaur - not the required sustainable business of the present and future ..... :cat:

I would have thought the highly efficient, yet rather dour ;) Germans would have been on this like a seagull on a hot chip! :king:

Perhaps they are working on their sense of humour first ..... ! 3:) o:)



Chosun :gh:

Hi Chosun,

Your poëtry is as beautifull as your picture.

Keep up the good work.

Jan

PS

I do believe in time there will only be direct sales from manufacturers to the end consumers, by way of consumer trades, internet sales and brand pilotstores.
 
A lot of interesting stuff here.

Recently bought a new Victory FL 7x42 from a reputable dealer. Zeiss serviced them to alpha quality and they came back 2 months later for me to cherish this. Remarkable bins in all aspects, love to handle them, and everything that I expect from a Zeiss product. I think they were introduced in 2004 and to this day make most other bins look dark and a bit dull. IF they were manufactured properly which they were probably not in sufficient quantities because otherwise less people would have needed Swarovisions. The quality specs of the Victory FLs are the highest/tightest of all Zeiss bins, so a service guy told me on the phone. Quite a slap into the face of all HT and SF owners, I thought.

IMO, Zeiss sports optics made rather big steps backwards since 2004. The SF, weird but not wonderful with a whole bunch of serious flaws due to wrong design decisions. At least, no match for the Swarovision. The HT, the great FLs suddenly turned much bigger and were manufactured with less precision.

The stuff I got from the Zeiss demo pool for testing purposes a couple of years ago was all faulty, with totally broke focuser (HT) or almost stuck focuser (SF). When I complained to the person in charge the reply was - "oh, but these are only for trade shows." How on earth can you sell bins with such an attitude.

What a mess, and somehow since decades - who remembers the "Design selection" - huge ugly bins in mint green or blueberry blue.

As a first redemption, Zeiss should offer a special edition of the Victory FLs, build them to highest, really consistently controlled specs, give them a neutral (not green biased) transmission, and sell a limited edition, only from their online shop and for a fixed price. No marketing waffle and no stupid marketing campaigns, just great bins.

They need people in charge with really sound visions and real passion.
 
They need people in charge with really sound visions and real passion.

Spot on, but those attributes are very hard to exercise if your Zeiss management responsibility is for the small volume optics business perched uneasily between the much larger consumer (eyeglasses) segment and the bigger and technically much more challenging industrial operations. Nikon too is gradually retreating from this space, their spectacular WX notwithstanding, so Zeiss is not alone in feeling the pressure.
 
Man, I don't know what you have been smoking, but the scenario you describe is far from easy! Guess the Germans are too realistic for running off after a far away future fantasy ;)

(or quietly working on parts of the solution...)
:hippy: To be complete, Germany doesn't have the greatest solar resource in the world (circa half of somewhere like Australia's etc) though they are having a fair crack at it. At ~50°N latitude harnessing that by the building envelope calls for some pretty out of the box thinking too, though eminently doable on a greenfield site, and even a retrofit is commercially viable. There are many other ways to increase energy efficiency applicable to such an environment, and really if it's not a key part of the Group's broader sustainability and revenue generation outlook then they've missed something.

No doubt they are doing what they can where they are with what they have https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/int/responsibility/environment.html#energy



Chosun :gh:
 
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