Shared OEM design: Vortex (Stokes) and Hawke 8x25 (1 Viewer)

Vortex seems to be available in the US and the UK (do they sell Stoke branded gear in the UK?).

Hawke seems to be a UK only company.

I recently stumbled across this at The Sportman's Guide, a sort of low end US hunting outfitters.

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/cb.aspx?a=373203

Hawke® Endurance® Close Focus
8x25 mm Binocular

* F.O.V.: 357 ft. @ 1,000 yards
* Near focus: 4.9 ft.
* Eye relief: 0.6" (15.24mm)
* Weighs approx. 10 ozs.

And realized that the picture looked exactly the same as the Vortex Stokes Meadowlark. And the specs seem to back this up.

http://www.vortexoptics.com/binoculars/view/stokes_meadowlark_8x25
http://www.eagleoptics.com/index.asp?pid=4602 (on sale for $60)

Field of View 357 ft./1000 yds.
Eye Relief 16 mm
Close Focus 5 ft.
Weight 10.2 oz.
Dimensions (HXW) 4.0 x 4.6 in.
Weatherproofing Waterproof/Fogproof

EDIT: It also seems that the Vortex Spitfire 8x25 is the same bin too (same specs, slightly different armoring).

In some ways not a bad spec for a compact: lightweight, single hinge, OKish FOV, maybe OK for eyeglasses eye relief. But no phase-correction and it's limited in physical size by the separation of the eyes so it's not tiny. And being a single hinge it can't get much smaller.

So this seems to be one concrete example of Vortex selling a "pre-designed" OEMs product rather than designing from scratch (no shame there, just an interesting point).

And I think, like Hawke, they have other products that are not duplicates of each other so either they're from different OEMs or they're doing their own designs (in part or in whole). In fact as both Vortex and Hawke seem to have products that aren't the same as anyone products I'm pretty sure they're doing at the very least exclusive designs with OEMs.

This would also be of interest to those interested in the Hawke Frontier ED (OK, both of us ) and if they might be available in the US perhaps under a different name (my guess, probably not).

I was never impressed with the low end small size Vortex. Stick to the Fury line and up. Wonder why no 8x25 Fury?
http://www.eagleoptics.com/index.asp?pid=4653

I would be willing to be that we would find more and more of these similarities if we just dug deep enough. I was just reminded of this when looking at the internal focus porro from Minox. The specs, and the timing, of its introduction were so close to the Leupold Cascade internal porro that it made drawing any other conclusion somewhat silly.

MacGee pointed out that the Opticron HR-WP 8x42 and the Leupold Cascades are the same bin.

http://birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=1291484&postcount=6

I'm not sure if the Minox are the same though they look similar. There are other denials from a Minox on the forum previously too over the Pentax SP and a Minox 8x32. They look very similar but Minox say they share no design with other OEMs.

One does have to careful with this as external enclosures can be shared but the optics inside can be different. For example, the (older) Vixen Foresta 8x42 and 10x42 were also OEMed as Eagle Optics Raptor 8x42 and 10x42 as identical bins (same specs). But at the same time Swift released their 820 (and later 820ED) which seems to be use the same enclosure. But it's not the same optics inside. In fact with the slightly larger aperture in the Swift (44 vs 42) they might either be a slightly modified (machined) enclosure or a derived diecast version.

So just by looking at appearances one can't be certain. The specs help.

This may not be worth much, but I called the technical people at both Leupold and Vortex. They both pretty much said the same thing. They both try to design as much of a particular binocular as they can. They are limited in what they can do to the extent that they are not going to go through the expense of procucing a unique mold for each model. Some of those existing mold styles can be modified slightly and some can't. Obviously the type and shape of rubber armouring can and will be modified along with whatever modifications they can get to the basic frame. Every manufacturer wants their own look as much as they can get it. Both looking at it and looking through it.

They also have obvious constraints in that they do not have much if any ability to produce their own specific lens and prism designs. So, they at least hit the drawing board (or computer program) and produce a design. They can and do work with whichever manufacturer to either produce a unique coating, or to work with an existing coating or glass quality to get the result they want. Both were pretty adamant that they work proprietary agreements with whatever design they and the OEM work out. Leupold was pretty stalwart in their stance that their Cascades and the Opticron HR-WP are different. Vortex and Leupold are equally adamant in that their final formulas are at least in some portion of the specifications proprietary. Again they may be technically different, but the practical difference may be nil.

Whatever differences there are may not be of practical value to the viewer, but to avoid legal hassles with other sellers, everyone tries to keep something different. There are of course lots of sellers of optics that do simply take an off the shelf model from an OEM and just put their label on it. Both Leupold and Vortex say they do not do that. There is always some specific design parameter that is proprietary.

So the question for clone searchers is how much similarity constitutes a "clone". If one can discuss how the term "design" is defined, we have to define what the definition of clone is as well. Looks to me like the "binocular DNA" is going to range from 50% match upwards from any similar body style.

Both said that their degree of input into the proprietary nature of a particular release of a binocular model is in direct proportion to its standing in their pricing and quality structure. In other words, there is much more Vortex design specifications put into a Razor than a Meadowlark. Same thing for the Leupold Yosemite and the Gold Ring. The optical differences between the Hawke and Vortex or Leupold and Opticron apparent genetic relationship may be small, but it seems they are there.

That's what they said, FWIW. It makes a certain amount of sense. On the other hand, what else would they say I guess. Makes me wonder how much effort clone ID is worth.

Nice post, Steve.

I agree with all that (including how much is it worth to ID clones ... I usually only worry when it's a a "UK only model" and I'm trying to figure out if its availble in the US for half the price ).

BTW, what you outline is pretty standard practice in other fields. Laptop making us very similar. The amount of input varies from company to company (and in some cases model to model). Some like Apple take a very big interest in design (though most of the production design is done by the OEM) others less so and quite a of the smaller companies or individual stores just rebadge white box (OEMed) goods. And even companies like Apple use standard components (more today than every) in their design.

It would be nice to know (sort of an interesting birding magazine article) what sort of effort each brand makes. I can imagine some being completely in control (the Euro 3), some doing a lot of design with the odd low end OEM bin thrown in the product mix (Leupold, Vortex and Bushnell, etc) and others that are just rebadgers with very little design input except on the branding and shape of the armoring (Tasco, Barska, Carson and so on).

The Alpen seems to be selling the same/similar bin too - same look (different armor) same specs

http://www.alpenoutdoor.com/html/alpen_products_50.html