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New Swarovski 8 to 12x zoom binoculars? (1 Viewer)

I got an e-mail on the 15th, I think, (It might have come to me on the 14th.) requesting me to fill out a survey questionnaire inside a link attached to the e-mail. I opened the link, filled out the questionnaire, it had about 6 parts to it, and I forwarded it. Now I can't find anything on it in my incoming, outgoing or trash files.

Bob
 
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7x -12x, and 42mm or 50mm, with true alpha performance and I'm interested. Heck, I'd possibly consider the Duovids if they had the latest coatings, but they're pre HD.
 
etudiant said:
Ideally your decision will be mirrored by enough other birders that the scope suppliers wake up and offer stabilized optics. If Nikon can produce an inexpensive camera that allows 40x hand held photography, then surely the alpha makers can build a scope with similar capabilities.
Click to expand...

I need two eye-pieces too, to get a bino-like ease of view.
 
james holdsworth said:
I need two eye-pieces too, to get a bino-like ease of view.
Click to expand...

Two eyepieces are indeed an essential, so the design has to be built around a binoviewer. That way the body of the scope also is easier to hold steady, which also helps make the IS more effective.
 
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The difficulty will be to achieve a reasonably wide field of view, particularly at at low magnifications, when the true field of view increases and the angles of the light pencil become steeper. The zoom would be a useful feature only if the binocular serves both purposes: Excellent details at high power, and excellent overview at low power. If the apparent angle of view drops toward low powers, then the overview-feature is lost. This happens to the Leica Duovid, which I thus regard quite useless in real life applications.

A true zoom is probably not wanted - switchable 8x, 10x and 12x would be easier to synchronize in the field.

Quite generally, I guess an image stabilization would be preferable to a zoom.

Cheers,
Holger
 
Holger Merlitz said:
The difficulty will be to achieve a reasonably wide field of view, particularly at at low magnifications, when the true field of view increases and the angles of the light pencil become steeper. The zoom would be a useful feature only if the binocular serves both purposes: Excellent details at high power, and excellent overview at low power. If the apparent angle of view drops toward low powers, then the overview-feature is lost. This happens to the Leica Duovid, which I thus regard quite useless in real life applications.

A true zoom is probably not wanted - switchable 8x, 10x and 12x would be easier to synchronize in the field.

Quite generally, I guess an image stabilization would be preferable to a zoom.

Cheers,
Holger
Click to expand...

Not an expert, but is this problem not equally applicable in camera optics?
Canon offers 24-720mm equivalent zoom in pocket format, wide angle to about 15x, Nikon even more, 24-2000mm equivalent in a rather larger package. The wide to long angular equivalents go from 70* down to about 1* for the Nikon. So there seem to be good technical solutions available, even if the manufacturers have not focused on the scope market.
Possibly the camera lenses are stuffed with so many pieces of glass to achieve their zoom performance that light transmission is poor, something which an electronic sensor can adjust for, whereas the human eye cannot.
 
Bob and Dennis, post 48 and 49,
I would not be suprised if somebody with evil intentions would have inserted a virus in your questionaire......
Gijs van Ginkel
 
etudiant said:
Not an expert, but is this problem not equally applicable in camera optics?
Canon offers 24-720mm equivalent zoom in pocket format, wide angle to about 15x, Nikon even more, 24-2000mm equivalent in a rather larger package. The wide to long angular equivalents go from 70* down to about 1* for the Nikon. So there seem to be good technical solutions available, even if the manufacturers have not focused on the scope market.
Possibly the camera lenses are stuffed with so many pieces of glass to achieve their zoom performance that light transmission is poor, something which an electronic sensor can adjust for, whereas the human eye cannot.
Click to expand...

Those cameras usually have rather tiny sensor-areas, so - in some sense - a small apparent field of view ...

Cheers,
Holger
 
I wanted to go back and read the thing again to get the exact wording, but probably correctly it points out that I have already completed it and bounces me.
 
Gijs van Ginkel said:
Bob and Dennis, post 48 and 49,
I would not be suprised if somebody with evil intentions would have inserted a virus in your questionaire......
Gijs van Ginkel
Click to expand...

Gijs,

It looked legitimate.

The questions were specific and the binoculars to be compared were described properly. Based on my memory, FWIW most of them were 10 x 42 binoculars with differing weights given which were to be compared with Zoom binoculars of 8x-12x by 42 of differing weights. (Note: I am sure I have oversimplified the questions somewhat. I think FOV was also mentioned but I could be wrong.) You were asked to pick the one you would choose. In my case I always went with the lowest weight 10x42 over the others.

The last question asked you to give your thoughts on why you made your choices.

Bob
 
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Bob, I think you are right and I gave similar answers. My problem is that my usual 10x is the Nikon 10x35 EII which is about half the weight of their various options from memory. I can't remember anything about field of view, but it was early in the morning!
 
I bought one about 55 years ago....think it was a big brand name also...."Mattel"....I think It lasted a week or so....warranty sucked...

Almost bought one back in the 90s...a Pentax...but settled on the fixed power Pentax 16x24 reverse porro....almost as useless but still works .. ..
 
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