No CJ, you are just being perverse. You know very well that Zeiss designed these two models to appeal to different groups and HT is designed to be particularly useful in low light, hence the use of AK prisms and HT glass. It is not arbitrary to maintain that design ethos by keeping HT's key low light advantage ie HT glass to itself. By all means disagree with this but arbitrary it is not and it has nothing to do with Germanic business practice.
I am surprised you champion the idea of HT glass in SF though as with its SP prisms one might have thought the advantage would be minimal and you would be among the first to point this out. If my memory correct (it often isn't) I seem to remember you describing the advantages of HT glass in the HT when it was launched as 'smoke and mirrors' at the time. Nothing wrong with changing your mind in the light of experience though, but that still leaves the question of whether HT glass would boost SF enough to make a difference. Don't forget it not only has SP prisms it also lacks one bigish objective lens and only gains a small field flattener.
Cheers Lee
Lee, I can assure you I am never perverse! neither am I contrarian, nor mischievous (cheeky yes! but unsavory - no).
In fact it is you who seems to be on the perverse side of the ledger. Certainly you continue in your blinkered views.
Just because you perceive the truth to be something other than what it is, does not in any way change that truth - only your ability to recognize it ..... :cat:
Blind Freddy can see exactly what Zeiss has done. That doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it savvy. It doesn't make it visionary or revolutionary. It just makes it what it is. A rather old fashioned business (marketing) model - circa the mid 20th Century. :smoke:
The decision to proceed in this fashion was quite arbitrary - based on what someone(s) thought a market segmentation should look like, and their guesses as to what would supply that market, and whatever rubbery figures they could dig up to support their preconceived conclusions.
Unfortunately this led to the ditching of the rather nicely performing GFRP lightweight FL chassis in favour of a misguided perception by HunTers in the superiority of the heavier magnesium chassis for
the HT .... oh well, at least you can bludgeon a recalcitrant buck roo more effectively with this lump should the need arise :eek!:
For the sake of completeness, let's not pretend that
the HT was anything but an evolution of
the FL.
The SF more of a clean sheet design. The specific design parameters following on from these decisions (such as focuser location etc) - merely logical consequence.
To nobble one product (the brightness, vibrancy, and colour rendition of
the SF) in a misguided effort to protect, or differentiate
the HT is a positively prehistoric strategy. I never said it was specifically Germanic - just outdated ..... now the whole marketing zeitgeist of
the HT what with it's rather brutalist lines, black rubber and leather connotations in concert with the whole Hairy chesTed thing of HunTing really IS quite Germanic (and perverse!
3
Establishment Photographic giants CaNikon have found to their chagrin that such strategic inertia and protectionism can have deleterious consequences as witnessed by the rapid rise of Panasonic, Olympus, and Sony Mirrorless Camera intrusion into the traditional DSLR market share.
Folks can argue until they are blue in the face (see what I did there huh?
that the addition of HT glass to
the SF would have only minimal performance increases, but nevertheless they are there.
Your memory is seemingly as dodgy as your automotive analogies! :-O I never said the HT glass was "smoke and mirrors" ..... in fact I recall calculating at the time that the increases in transmission even for S-P prisms, were of the order of up to (or more than
1.5~2% in concert with the attendant retuning of the coatings.
Further to that, as you yourself attested upon receiving your HT and looking through it, I fully concurred upon viewing that the entirety of
the HT's optical performance was in fact greater than the sum of its incrementally improved parts.
It would cost virtually nothing to add HT glass to
the SF, and in fact could fully be absorbed in the existing profit margin paradigm for this ~$2.5+K binocular.
2% more light transmission - nice - not really noticeable for existing users in and of itself in direct comparison in practice - though still nice (especially for new users) ..... but 25% better stray light control, cleaner, more vibrant colours --- awesome! :t: ..... even you'd notice and like that :king:
It is an absolute nonsense to say that just because BirDers are not HunTers that they couldn't use and appreciate a brighter and cleaner view. There simply is no defense of that.
If I said anything was "smoke and mirrors" it would have been the now disproven claims of the ergonomic superiority of
the HT. I can place my hands so far forward on my current bins that when I grip around the objective tubes the rearward weight bias is astonishing! An astonishingly frightening prospect for my tootsies!! :eek!:
The correct response to this post would be:- Yes Chosun, thank you ..... however history has shown that your wool is dyed deep (blue
.... I hope this has helped your understanding ..... not to mention awakened you to a healthy mistrust of your memory! *grin* (don't worry Lee - I've got an uncle who really is going dead set crackers!
Chosun :gh:
