Cornell Lab Review - Zeiss Did Very Well Here (1 Viewer)

[email protected] said:

That is the best binocular I have EVER purchased for $675.00 from Cameraland as a Demo.

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How many binoculars have you EVER purchased for $675.00 from Cameraland as a Demo?

^ LOL!

Well said.

I think I was the one to initially state that they (the HD 8x32's) were a mistake for Zeiss as they are too good for the $. Of course, I paid $720 for mine from Bob Ward's on a one day sale. I knew they were $675 from cameraland as demos but I didn't have a great experience with them before so I decided to pay a little more.

Dennis, post 40,
Zeiss did not make the Conquest, it was made for Zeiss by Kamakura. Zeiss gave its wishes for the Conquests to Kamakura, it was then completely made in Japan, without the eyecups. Back in Germany, the eyecups were placed into the Conquests and that was enough for European law to write on the Conquests "made in Germany", since putting the eyecups in the binoculars made it functional and European law demands that one can only put "made in Germany"or any other country on an instrument , when that instrument is made functional in that country and by putting the eyecups in the Conquests they were made functional.
This is not something I made up, but it is confirmed by a solid source from Zeiss.
Gijs

Gijs van Ginkel said:

Zeiss gave its wishes for the Conquests to Kamakura, it was then completely made in Japan

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Well, having a product manufactured somewhere is one thing, the other thing is developing and designing the product and defining specications and technologies for manufacturing. I would assume that Zeiss still did a bit more for the development of the Conquests by themselves, than just giving their wishes to Kamakura. But then i have no solid source in Zeiss myself.

Florian,
Of course Zeiss has given Kamakura design and specification wishes, but nobody needs to tell Kamakura how to make good optics, the company does that already for many years for many brands.
Gijs

Gijs van Ginkel said:

Florian,
Of course Zeiss has given Kamakura design and specification wishes, but nobody needs to tell Kamakura how to make good optics, the company does that already for many years for many brands.
Gijs

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Please tell us the evolution of the glass from raw material to placement in the binocular with all the steps in between and where they occur. All ears.

CG

dalat said:

How many binoculars have you EVER purchased for $675.00 from Cameraland as a Demo?

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What I meant is I feel the Zeiss Conquest HD 8x32 which I purchased for $675.00 is the best bargain I have ever found in a binocular. The price/performance ratio is higher than any other binocular I have purchased.

Gijs, surely you know better than to make a statement like that without naming the source. I've heard this claim repeated now a few times, always from people like you with "well placed" yet anonymous sources. Frankly, I don't care much but I sure get tired of things like this posted as fact when, in fact, we have only your say so.

Name your source.

Calling Mike Jensen........

CSG said:

Gijs, surely you know better than to make a statement like that without naming the source. I've heard this claim repeated now a few times, always from people like you with "well placed" yet anonymous sources. Frankly, I don't care much but I sure get tired of things like this posted as fact when, in fact, we have only your say so.

Name your source.

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I am hoping that will be the end of the comments about the Zeiss Conquest
from this source. I am thinking he has not even looked through the
Conquest HD.

He is highly biased toward Swarovski, and likes to downplay Nikon and
Zeiss. Surely not professional for someone who publishes reviews, and
uses a (Dr.) title as something that would impress.

It seems there are several of us here, who have tired of this stuff.

Jerry

This is from a brochure I found on the country of origin laws for goods imported into the U.S. From this, it sounds like it would take a bit more than screwing on eyecups to be able to label the Conquest HD as Made in Germany.


Does altering the article in a second country change the country of origin?
The country of origin of an article may be changed in a secondary country if one of the following occurs:

If the further work or material added to an article in the second country constitutes a substantial transformation. A substantial transformation occurs if a new article with a different name, character, and use is created.

For a good from a NAFTA country: if under the NAFTA Marking Rules (19 CFR Part 102) the second country is determined to be the country of origin of the good; or

For an article considered to be a textile or apparel product (regardless of whether it is a good from a NAFTA country): if the country of origin is determined by the general rules set forth in 19 CFR Part 102.21 to be the second country. For purposes of determining whether a textile or apparel product is from Israel, the general rules in 19 CFR 12.130 apply.

Ah, didn't realize Gijs has an agenda. That explains much.

NDhunter said:

I am hoping that will be the end of the comments about the Zeiss Conquest
from this source. I am thinking he has not even looked through the
Conquest HD.

He is highly biased toward Swarovski, and likes to downplay Nikon and
Zeiss. Surely not professional for someone who publishes reviews, and
uses a (Dr.) title as something that would impress.

It seems there are several of us here, who have tired of this stuff.

Jerry

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What I don't understand - why would naming the place of manufacturing of the Conquest HD possibly downplay that binocular? We already know that the Japanese can make excellent binoculars, so what's the point. The previous Conquest was made in Hungary, Leicas were made in Portugal, nothing bad with that as long as they are good.

But here is another point: Dennis received a demo glass, the Cornell lab requested demo glasses from Zeiss for their test - these were selected items, certainly checked very carefully for possible flaws. Whether or not the focus-drift problem of the Conquest HD is solved by now? We cannot judge upon these reports. We need more of the conventional users who purchase them without the pre-selection that occurred in the above examples.

Cheers,
Holger

Holger Merlitz said:

What I don't understand - why would naming the place of manufacturing of the Conquest HD possibly downplay that binocular? We already know that the Japanese can make excellent binoculars, so what's the point. The previous Conquest was made in Hungary, Leicas were made in Portugal, nothing bad with that as long as they are good.

But here is another point: Dennis received a demo glass, the Cornell lab requested demo glasses from Zeiss for their test - these were selected items, certainly checked very carefully for possible flaws. Whether or not the focus-drift problem of the Conquest HD is solved by now? We cannot judge upon these reports. We need more of the conventional users who purchase them without the pre-selection that occurred in the above examples.

Cheers,
Holger

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Holger:

You seem to be challenging my post, and so why is that?

I do acknowledge the quality of Japanese made optics, I consider them to
be among the very best. I enjoy several examples of Japans finest glass.

The Zeiss Conquest HD is stamped made in Germany. For anyone
to come on here, and tell us all about where they are made, unless
it is someone I trust and from Zeiss, I will question that.

Tell us more about how anyone named Dennis, or any focus issue
you are referring to, would enter into this. I did not know there was
any focus problem, with the Conquest HD, as it has not been mentioned on this forum.

Cheers,
Jerry

Gijs et al., excusing my ignorance, could you pl. explain or direct to a link with some relevant info. on this wonderful place/s (no sarcasm intended there at all) you refer to as "Kamakura". Googling for "kamakura binocular", adding "birdforum" to that, etc. doesn't readily yield too much. Most who refer to it seem to assume the reader knows. Is this the Kamakura Koki co., and/or other cos. in the city of Kamakura? How much are they involved in the design of the bins they produce? Does Gijs just saying that Zeiss gave them their "wishes" mean the answer in this case is a lot? Have their scientists and engineers mostly migrated from cos. making fine branded bins? Etc. Thanks.

Gijs may know more than I do but I believe Kamakura Koki and Light Optical Works are the only major Japanese OEM sports optics companies left. They certainly do design and manufacture complete binoculars etc. and I suspect many of the popular models here are entirely due to them. Obviously they do build stuff to their partners designs and specifications as well. Exactly who makes what for which company I've not been able to find out. Kite has often been linked with Kamakura in particular but it's been suggested that many if not most of the well known makes use them.

There are countless companies in China and elsewhere making components and assembling optics but I've read that Kamakura's Chinese operation is the biggest optics factory in the world.

David

NDhunter said:

Holger:

You seem to be challenging my post, and so why is that?

I do acknowledge the quality of Japanese made optics, I consider them to
be among the very best. I enjoy several examples of Japans finest glass.

The Zeiss Conquest HD is stamped made in Germany. For anyone
to come on here, and tell us all about where they are made, unless
it is someone I trust and from Zeiss, I will question that.

Tell us more about how anyone named Dennis, or any focus issue
you are referring to, would enter into this. I did not know there was
any focus problem, with the Conquest HD, as it has not been mentioned on this forum.

Cheers,
Jerry

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Well, what I mean is: There is no need to "downplay" the Conquest through its alleged place of manufacture - since if it doesn't focus accurately, it does downplay itself

The focus drift problem has been mentioned here before, and is a frequent topic on the German Juelich-Bonn forum. It is also described in one of my publications for a German astronomer's journal, in which I tested the Conquest HD against the Swarovski SV. I have been in contact with Zeiss about that problem and was informed (that was more than a year ago) that it had been solved. Yet, single reports about that are still popping up in the user reports, some reporting that the focus was fine initially and turned inaccurate after several months of usage. It is better to keep an eye on that.

@Pompadour: Kamakura Koki makes the Nikon Monarch, among many other medium range binoculars. Their best products are made in Japan, others in Kamakura owned Chinese plants.



Cheers,
Holger

There has to be a little bit more to this than not owning something and, whether you have an agenda or not, conjuring with conjecture.

I have asked my correspondent at ZEISS Produktmanagement if it would be possible for an executive from Zeiss Sports Optics GmbH to comment directly on this issue.

NDhunter said:

I am hoping that will be the end of the comments about the Zeiss Conquest from this source. I am thinking he has not even looked through the Conquest HD.

He is highly biased toward Swarovski, and likes to downplay Nikon and
Zeiss. Surely not professional for someone who publishes reviews, and
uses a (Dr.) title as something that would impress.

It seems there are several of us here, who have tired of this stuff.

Click to expand...

This is going too far. Just because *you* don't like what Gijs says doesn't give you a right to attack his reputation the way you do. And I'm saying this as someone who's been a Zeiss fanboy for well over 30 years.

Let's look at the facts: Gijs is critical of Nikon - but not so much the binoculars (or scopes), rather of the Nikon service in Europs. And he's absolutely right. The Nikon service in Europe *is* bad, far worse than it apparently is in the US. Slow, unreliable, unfriendly and expensive. That sums it up.

Swarovskis - well, they *have* won. It's as simple as that. Last summer I spent some time birding in Sweden, in one of the birding hotspots. There were hundreds of birders about, and more than half of them used Swarovskis. Last weekend I tried to see a rare bird in Germany. There were more than a hundred birders looking for the bird, and once again well over half of them used Swarovskis. Why? Well, Swarovski seemingly didn't rest on their laurels and developed some excellent products, while Zeiss and Leica were fast asleep. Zeiss appears to be waking up, slowly, as evidenced by the HT. But they've got a long, long way to go. There are so many things they could do - like producing binoculars with large fields of view or using their excellent stabilizer in a 10x binocular - but so far they haven't done so. Like I said, they seem to be waking up, but *very* slowly.

So it's not really surprising Gijs likes the Swarovskis. Many birders do, it seems.

And the Conquest? Given German laws it's quite easy to do some relatively minor work on a product and put a "Made in Germany" label on it. Everyone *knows* it's not possible to produce a binocular like the Conquest in Germany at the price they're being offered without outsourcing a major part of the production to other countries. And this, I'm sure, is just what happened. The Conquest even *looks* like it was designed by Kamakura Koki. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because they make excellent binoculars in their Japanese factories. I saw some of their offerings sold under their own name in Sweden in the SOF shop on Öland, and their best binoculars are just below alpha quality. Just like the Conquest, incidently.

However, I prefer home-grown apples to apples produced in, say, New Zealand. And I wish Zeiss were a lot clearer on the origin of the Conquest. That said, I would have got a Conquest myself, no matter where it comes from. It's really very, very good (apart from the stupid eyecups, I've no idea how you can use such a daft design in a binocular). However, the focus shift issue is a real problem. It apparently doesn't affect all Conquests, but it affects some. And there are some credible reports where the issue developed after some heavy use. There are also reports of Conquests that were sent back to Wetzlar and came back with the same problem. That's just not funny.

So, I think Gijs is right. So is Holger. And I only wish Zeiss would listen to them. If they don't get their stuff right very quickly, they'll be out. One HT doesn't make a summer.

Hermann

Well, I am one of those who had repeatedly problems with the Zeiss Conquest HD 8x32 - not just one unit, but different samples.
Always it is the focus and the eyecups. The focus is still not perfect.
In the eyecups´ mechanics, for example, I have no trust anymore and try to move them as little as possible.

Zeiss´ customer service doesn´t always do a great job or is veeery slow - at least for some customers here in Germany! For international Zeiss CS it might be different.

Anyway, I´m not really unhappy with the product as such, but surely the label
"Made in Germany" doesn´t mean much to me anymore!