Call for contributions: Collecting Evidence for Lack of Progress in Sporting Optics (1 Viewer)

bh46118 · Oct 31, 2014

It depends on the maker and the plastic. The plastic, polymer, or whatever it is that is used to make bucket elevator buckets is tough and durable beyond belief. They will handle millions of bushels of grain over a period of years with a minimal number of failures. And not to violate any forum rules by mentioning a gun, but look at the frame on a Glock handgun. I suppose the issue would be that most plastics would have too much pliability to maintain good alignment.

perterra said:
Would you pay $2,000 for a bin made of plastic?

Kammerdiner · Oct 31, 2014

Digital would be a "paradigm shift" for sports optics, or close anyway. I’ve been looking into getting a “bridge” or “superzoom” digital camera and wow there’s some potential there.

Imagine something like a single lens, 6-30x zoom, IS, AF with binocular hi-res electronic eyepieces, light amplification, 25 ounce weight, and a built-in 20mp camera. I can’t think of any theoretical reason it couldn’t happen. And when you consider what $500 will get you by way of a superzoom camera today, well yikes there’s some potential. How long would it take for the view to equal a conventional "alpha"? I have no idea.

james holdsworth · Oct 31, 2014

This thread [topic] will be all about what we [as individuals] are able to see as differences / improvements over time.

I see it, the next guy doesn't and so on......

But, some are missing the point of the OP's mission, comparing bins from the mid 90's to bins of today. To me, the difference in whiteness of the image or lack of lateral colour is a big deal and makes a huge difference in view, while others won't see this or won't care. Even very high quality bins from the 90's look pretty dead to me [compared to todays best stuff], due to lower contrast and more ''mush'' [mostly stray light and CA] in the view.

Those differences are real - it's how or if we see them or if they are important to us - that matters.

perterra · Oct 31, 2014

bh46118 said:
It depends on the maker and the plastic. The plastic, polymer, or whatever it is that is used to make bucket elevator buckets is tough and durable beyond belief. They will handle millions of bushels of grain over a period of years with a minimal number of failures. And not to violate any forum rules by mentioning a gun, but look at the frame on a Glock handgun. I suppose the issue would be that most plastics would have too much pliability to maintain good alignment.

Would have to be thermally stable for sure, but I think maybe Zeiss caught a lot of grief for trying a polymer IIRC. People said they were cheaping out.

perterra · Oct 31, 2014

bh46118 said:
Also, without the big three doing what they do at the top, there would be no Zen Prime, Endeavor EDII, etc. You can't copy what hasn't been made. Question is, will the Chinese ever innovate? I'm sure they could, but will they ? Economics would dictate not I would say.

Thats very true, but as Chinas cost increase they will be forced to innovate to justify their higher cost of production than say a Pakistan or Liberia. It's already becoming an issue as people juggle production over to Vietnam and any other number of small countries.

Growing up I heard the same about Japan, the old timers said, all they can do is copy, no original ideas. Then Nikon, Seiko and the whole of the Japanese car industry started evolving and next thing you know the old timers are saying them damn Honda cars are some fine automobiles. So I think with wealth comes innovation. When you are struggling to get above water, it's hard to think about spending time and energy on innovation that could be used on paying production. At some point the communist rulers will shift gears, when that happens you will start seeing a better mousetrap come out of China. Thats all just conjecture.

DadraFromFrance · Oct 31, 2014

Holger Merlitz said:
Interesting thread. I have the same impression: The high end binoculars of the top manufacturers are amazingly similar (almost exchangeable) in formats and features. This has been quite different 50 years ago, when Zeiss and Leica did still experiment with new ideas (like mirror/prism combinations) and formats (super wide 6x24 or 10x50, Porros as well as roofs).

Today, engineering has turned very conservative and cautious, with tiny, incremental improvements. The transmission has hit the ceiling - whether 93% or 95% - not much to gain any longer, edge sharpness is improving to a level that makes one wonder what to do next, and the weight reduction cannot be pushed any further without compromising stability and durability. The run for the nearest close-focusing point and for a faster and faster transmission has actually led to a diminishing accuracy of the focusing devices in the latest generation binoculars.

There are still things left for improvements:

1) Field of view: Has already been wider in earlier times, and then somewhat narrowed down to reduce weight, improve eye-glass compatibility and image quality. There is room left for improvements, and the Zeiss SF seems to make the first step toward this direction.

2) New features like image stabilization: Zeiss added it to the 20x60, but nobody since then tried to shrink that technology for application to smaller devices.

3) Modularity: Exchangeable objectives or eyepieces

Of course, the digital binocular is on the horizon, it will change the way we observe nature.

Cheers,
Holger

And the Canon IS technology ? :smoke:

perterra · Oct 31, 2014

Kammerdiner said:
Digital would be a "paradigm shift" for sports optics, or close anyway. I’ve been looking into getting a “bridge” or “superzoom” digital camera and wow there’s some potential there.

Imagine something like a single lens, 6-30x zoom, IS, AF with binocular hi-res electronic eyepieces, light amplification, 25 ounce weight, and a built-in 20mp camera. I can’t think of any theoretical reason it couldn’t happen. And when you consider what $500 will get you by way of a superzoom camera today, well yikes there’s some potential. How long would it take for the view to equal a conventional "alpha"? I have no idea.

Very true, but in the strickest sense you are looking at a digital image instead of the real thing. I think it's coming, but all the bridge cameras I have looked at had some real advantages in some areas but they also lacked the view of a pentaprism to me. But for some specialized uses they would be smoking good. It's kind of like the difference in a digital wristwatch or an analog wristwatch, or even quartz vs mechanical.

bh46118 · Oct 31, 2014

Yes again.:t: I won't mention My reference model though, as I will surely be FLAMED !3

:king::-O

james holdsworth said:
Those differences are real - it's how or if we see them or if they are important to us - that matters.

Hermann · Oct 31, 2014

bh46118 said:
It depends on the maker and the plastic. The plastic, polymer, or whatever it is that is used to make bucket elevator buckets is tough and durable beyond belief. They will handle millions of bushels of grain over a period of years with a minimal number of failures.

Zeiss tried - and many people didn't like it. The bodies of original Victory and the Victory FL were made from polymers, and Zeiss shifted back to using metal because people complained about the "plastic". Even though I never ever heard of a failure of the body of any of those binoculars.

In fact, I saw some bins that had survived "accidents" that would have destroyed metal-bodied binoculars.

Hermann

bh46118 · Oct 31, 2014

I would think the possibility for editing , or enhancing the image, and maybe even 3d might be possible with digital. The problem would more than likely always be the fact that it's a digital image.

Hermann · Oct 31, 2014

DadraFromFrance said:
And the Canon IS technology ? :smoke:

The Canon IS binoculars work for some and don't work for others because of the funny artifacts of the IS. Please also note Canon never put any real effort into developing their IS any further. They basically left things as they were when the IS bins were introduced.

Hermann

bh46118 · Oct 31, 2014

There is I believe a difference also in resolution and sharpness with a pure optical system and a digital one. I not smart enough to comprehend it, but in digital sensors sharpness and resolution are not the same thing. When looking through a traditional set of binoculars, is sharpness and resolution the same ? Can someone with a technical mind explain the term acutance .

perterra said:
Very true, but in the strickest sense you are looking at a digital image instead of the real thing. I think it's coming, but all the bridge cameras I have looked at had some real advantages in some areas but they also lacked the view of a pentaprism to me. But for some specialized uses they would be smoking good. It's kind of like the difference in a digital wristwatch or an analog wristwatch, or even quartz vs mechanical.

dalat · Oct 31, 2014

Steve C said:
The Swiss were masters of watchmaking and tended to scoff at the first Texas Instruments digital watches. Look at what happened to Swiss watchmaking and digital watches.

What happend, is that the Swiss watch making is stronger than ever, and leading the world market both on the expensive and the cheap end. Though I'm not sure what that analogy would mean for binoculars?

bh46118 · Oct 31, 2014

I think Mercedes and Porsche also probably still make a fairly decent car.

dalat said:
What happend, is that the Swiss watch making is stronger than ever, and leading the world market both on the expensive and the cheap end. Though I'm not sure what that analogy would mean for binoculars?

Pinewood · Oct 31, 2014

Hello all,

1. In the sense of resolution, field of view and contrast, and eye relief for eyeglass wearers, I think binocular technology peaked, in the Porro designs, at least 30 years, ago, with the advent of multi-coating.

2. Even with improvements in ergonomics, roof prism binoculars, did not compare with Porro binoculars, optically, until the introduction of both phase and dielectric coatings. That was about 25 and ten years, ago, respectively. Internal focussing, almost exclusive to roof binoculars, allows closer focussing. However, this seems to have been accomplished at the expense of field of view and perhaps some additional chromatic aberration.

3. Focussing, closer than 2 metres, except for the Papillio, which is not made for bird watching, seems to me of very marginal value, but it is considered an improvement and a nice marketing point.

4. That Austrian brand has convinced enough folks that their flat field view is worth an astonishing amount of money. The price of those binoculars is probably beyond the pocketbooks of many.

5. Any digital binocular must rely on an optical train. If one wants stereopsis, get a Porro. I suppose that one could do things like filtering out certain colours, making targets more visible, with a digital binocular. Of course, adding a recording device would be easy with a digital binocular. However, one of my pet peeves about electronic, and especially digital devices, is that they are not long lived. I expect my ten year old binocular, with its reinforced polymer construction, to last another decade, more if the manufacturer maintains its current services policies. Digital devices are lucky to have a five year life span.

I suspect that unless there is some unique engineering breakthrough, improvements will be both marginal and expensive.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood :hi:

bh46118 · Oct 31, 2014

So if you have one you like, just use and enjoy it and don't worry about tiny advancements. :t: But then we won't have anything to talk about.:eek!::-O

Pinewood said:
Hello all,

1. In the sense of resolution, field of view and contrast, and eye relief for eyeglass wearers, I think binocular technology peaked, in the Porro designs, at least 30 years, ago, with the advent of multi-coating.

2. Even with improvements in ergonomics, roof prism binoculars, did not compare with Porro binoculars, optically, until the introduction of both phase and dielectric coatings. That was about 25 and ten years, ago, respectively. Internal focussing, almost exclusive to roof binoculars, allows closer focussing. However, this seems to have been accomplished at the expense of field of view and perhaps some additional chromatic aberration.

3. Focussing, closer than 2 metres, except for the Papillio, which is not made for bird watching, seems to me of very marginal value, but it is considered an improvement and a nice marketing point.

4. That Austrian brand has convinced enough folks that their flat field view is worth an astonishing amount of money. The price of those binoculars is probably beyond the pocketbooks of many.

5. Any digital binocular must rely on an optical train. If one wants stereopsis, get a Porro. I suppose that one could do things like filtering out certain colours, making targets more visible, with a digital binocular. Of course, adding a recording device would be easy with a digital binocular. However, one of my pet peeves about electronic, and especially digital devices, is that they are not long lived. I expect my ten year old binocular, with its reinforced polymer construction, to last another decade, more if the manufacturer maintains its current services policies. Digital devices are lucky to have a five year life span.

I suspect that unless there is some unique engineering breakthrough, improvements will be both marginal and expensive.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood :hi:

Omid · Oct 31, 2014

Thank you very much again for all the contributions! I really appreciate it.

A couple of comments:

a) If, like James, you don't agree with the "lack of meaningful progress" theme of the topic, feel free to make your argument here. But please provide objective evidence. It won't be very helpful to say that "To me, the difference in whiteness of the image or lack of lateral colour is a big deal and makes a huge difference in view". Please submit an objective magazine review, optics lab study, a focus group consumer research report or any other reasonably objective test that supports your argument.

b) It is natural to think of digital binoculars as the next step but this is not what I am looking for here in this topic. Let's keep our focus on "optical binoculars". It's OK to discuss image stabilization and similar "improvements" though.

c) This topic has been discussed many times before in various threads. I request that the old members who remember those discussions please look up their posts and quote them here for the record.

Thank you and happy Halloween!

Omid

Pileatus · Oct 31, 2014

Omid said:
I wanted to name this thread "The feature Leica Super Ultravid HD Plus Plus" to attract more attention but I decided that a more direct headline might be good enough

I am an engineering scientist, a hunter and a big fan of sporting optics. I have been a member of this forum for nearly 10 years. I have owned and used many fine binoculars and scopes and I still own a few. My first top-level binoculars were a pair of Zeiss 8x56 B/T* Night Owl. After that I have owned many other great glasses including Swarovski 8.5X42 EL, Nikon 8x32 HG, Leica 12X50 BN, Fujinon 7X50 Polaris, Zeiss 15X60 BG/A Classic, Leica 8-12X42 Duovid, etc. Most recently, I have bought a pair of Leica Trinovid 10X50 BA binoculars which I have mentioned on a separate thread.

Over the past few years, I have lost my yearning for NEW binoculars that are being developed and marketed by Zeiss, Leica, Swarovski and Nikon. I attend SHOT Show regularly but I no longer feel excited to go and visit these companies "new products" What I have seen in the past 10 years, is the trend towards cheaper material/packaging (e.g. no more chic leather cases), less customer choice (e.g., no more green and black armor colors, just black) and making a big hype over very superficial improvements (e.g., X coating vs Y coating).

It seems that we have reached the apex of binocular optical quality and there is little room left for any significant improvement in binoculars and spotting scopes optical performance as perceived and used by human eye. (Same is also true about rifle-scopes but that's not a topic to cover in this forum.)

I am opening this thread to collect evidence (test results, catalog publications, magazine articles, links to credible reviews, posts here on BirdForum, etc) that point to lack of significant progress in binocular performance in the past 20 or so years. This means I am setting the time origin for the "age of stagnant progress" to the era of Leica Trinovid BA models or Zeiss Design Selection (aka Night owl) models.

If you feel the same, please post your links, PDF files or original contributions here.

Thank you very much.

Dr. Omid Jahromi

Ten years ago I could not buy what I wanted in a roof prism binocular and now I can. I consider that significant progress.

etudiant · Oct 31, 2014

Pinewood said:
Hello all,

1. In the sense of resolution, field of view and contrast, and eye relief for eyeglass wearers, I think binocular technology peaked, in the Porro designs, at least 30 years, ago, with the advent of multi-coating.

5. Any digital binocular must rely on an optical train. If one wants stereopsis, get a Porro. I suppose that one could do things like filtering out certain colours, making targets more visible, with a digital binocular.

Of course, adding a recording device would be easy with a digital binocular.

However, one of my pet peeves about electronic, and especially digital devices, is that they are not long lived.
Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood :hi:

Agree entirely with the first point, there has been stagnation in terms of optical performance.
Much better field of view and much better eye relief should be areas of development. I'd love to see that combined with good zoom, so one could watch over a space at 2x and zoom in to the area of activity at 10x.
A built in digital recorder would be nice, but garbage aside, all offerings I've seen to date were very costly, notably the Zeiss Photoscope and the Sony DEV series.
I do think digital gear is much hardier than Pinewood believes. I have lots of old electronics that are perfectly serviceable, just obsolete. There is no conflict inherent in the idea of a 25 year old digital binocular.

perterra · Oct 31, 2014

dalat said:
What happend, is that the Swiss watch making is stronger than ever, and leading the world market both on the expensive and the cheap end. Though I'm not sure what that analogy would mean for binoculars?

But many died a miserable death before the fickle nature of the public changed. Even Rolex was building quartz when they realized it was here to stay. I bought a Omega Manahattan quartz on a fishing trip in the Bahamas, there was not a single mechanical in the store. To Omegas credit, they did it as a COSC certed quartz which meant it had to hold something like a second a year accuracy. Whic may be pretty close to the gains we see in optics. You cant really tell the difference in them.

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