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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

A New Binocular Brand is Launched (1 Viewer)

Dennis AND others, understand this, so far I have had three complaints 1 by mail and two PMs , 1 more and Im going to fly over to the US and start kicking some butts :storm: every time a thread starts the usual suspect/suspects start getting over excited and start insulting each other, its worse than a play school.

So play nicely please or no more Mr nice guy.

thankyou

Steve

Denver looks like my first stop, will I need my speedos B :)
 
Glad you know what does and doesn't work for you. I've tried many bins in my life and I've found that specs and reviews are a good guide to how I'll react to a bin once I have in my hands, so here goes...


--AP

That works great, until the specs are wrong, such as with the FOV of the new Noctovid.
 
That works great, until the specs are wrong, such as with the FOV of the new Noctovid.

If ER of a bin is listed at 14mm in the specs I'm not going to order it hoping the spec for ER is a typo. I'll look for something else with more ER b/c I wear glasses. If it was possible to try the same bin out in person at a local store that's different (and convenient), but for a lot of us who need to order online the specs are super helpful in picking out a suitable bin to try out.
I'm sure in your camp you get to try a lot of bins that come through there which must be nice.
 
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Understood Gilmore Girl. I'm not saying a guy/lady should disregard specs, but they can be misleading and often are. FWIW I'm not the least bit interested in this new GPO stuff either, but I bet we haven't seen the last of this business model in optics.
 
Understood Gilmore Girl. I'm not saying a guy/lady should disregard specs, but they can be misleading and often are. FWIW I'm not the least bit interested in this new GPO stuff either, but I bet we haven't seen the last of this business model in optics.

JG:

You are the big promoter of Tract on the site. These new GPO
optics seem to be a bit higher priced, and I suspect they must be
made at a higher quality level.

I wonder how we can determine that ?

Jerry
 
Not real sure Jerry. I have seen the wonderful Maven lineup though, and they are quite a bit higher that Tract too, but I saw little difference in build quality. I have no clue what the internals of any of them consist of. That's not a slam against Maven though.
 
Not real sure Jerry. I have seen the wonderful Maven lineup though, and they are quite a bit higher that Tract too, but I saw little difference in build quality. I have no clue what the internals of any of them consist of. That's not a slam against Maven though.
I agree with you about the Tract and Maven's build quality. They look pretty close to me both being very high quality. These new binoculars I would bet would be similar to a Tract or Maven at the price point they are at. The fact that they are using AK and SP prisms and have some different magnifications kind of sounds like Maven.
 
Anybody ever notice all these new outfits seem to have been undertaken by people with previous work experience in the optics world?

That's an interesting observation, Steve. With Maven, it's understandable. Brunton decided to get out of the binocular business, so they fired everybody. And a couple of them started Maven. But what's going on with Nikon and Zeiss, that they're shedding high level management? Or did these folks quit?

Often when people leave large companies, the most useful bits of information they leave with are their former companies' weaknesses. To me it's interesting that all of these newcomers have decided to focus on the mid-price and up category. Maybe they all feel like the established companies aren't focused enough on this category?
 
It seems to me that Leica and Swarovski never focused on mid-priced binoculars, at least from the 1990s. Zeiss has had their 2nd line Conquests for quite a while and has moved down into a third line; and Nikon has had a full price range of binoculars during that time with numerous changes occurring in it except in its top of the range.

Bob
 
Not going to speculate about the quality of an unreleased bin, but I do wonder ... 99.7% transmission at each surface, 91% total. Is that either typical or reasonable? If those numbers are correct that means a total of 31 surfaces. Assuming a completely air-spaced triplet objective and an eyepiece as complex as an XW or Ethos (neither of which are likely) accounts for 18 of those surfaces. The Schmidt-Pechan roof prism has 4 air-glass interfaces plus one internal reflection at less than the critical angle. The roof part of the prism will also need phase coating (2 surfaces). What am I missing here?

BTW, 93% total transmission from 99.6% surface transmission is 18 surfaces, which does not seem unreasonable.

Hi,

as I tried to point out, you cannot just divide the total light loss by the light loss per surface to find out the number of surfaces in a Schmidt-Pechan design due to the following reasons:

- you loose a lot of light on the mirrored surface. Even with a dielectric mirror it's the equivalent of multiple surfaces over the visual range - much more for silver or aluminum. Unfortunately the gpo-usa.com page doesn't state what kind of mirroring is used - same for phase coating btw.

- the prism surfaces adjacent to the air space must not be multicoated for best results as they are used for reflection and transmission - the least evil here is to single-coat those, which gives 1% light loss for each of these.

Joachim
 
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Anybody ever notice all these new outfits seem to have been undertaken by people with previous work experience in the optics world?

Yes, that's interesting. In this case it appears to be former management and sales people of Zeiss. I'd certainly expect them to have a realistic idea of the market they are targeting.

However, I find it a little curious that a guy who yesterday still was CEO of Zeiss sport optics today associates himself with a small company, who's website is full of obvious stabs at Zeiss' business model. Emphasising the Germany connection and their Zeiss past, thus attempting to take advantage of the Zeiss quality image just adds to that.
 
Competition is a good thing, especially for the consumer. These new entities must feel there is market share to be gained or they wouldn't be attempting such a thing. It will be interesting how it all plays out.

I have never decided the merits of a binocular based purely on specs, literature, etc. It's a poor way to choose IMO. I was in love with the Swaro SV 8x32 based on specs and opinions from lots of people and places. I've never been so disappointed in my life when I actually bought one and used it. I've also been very pleasantly surprised a few times, as with the Mojave 8x32, Toric, Meostar HD, Gold Ring HD, and an 8x30 Maven. As I posted before, and it's worth repeating.....opinions are a poor substitute for actual experience. As Steve said, everyone should take a breath and relax, have some patience to see how it plays out. This isn't life threatening stuff here, it's only optics.

Dead right JG.
Specs don't tell half of the story even if they are a guide. Take light weight. I'm all for that too but at some point light weight can mean reduced durability and you can't see this from just looking at the bins. And take ER folks on here have found 15mm more than adequate and some had problems with 18mm, its due to eyecup design and face and spectacles and you can't factor that into specifications. And all the opinions from trusted friends and BF posters in the world can't really tell you how you are going to feel when you wrap your hands around a pair of bins and lift them to your eyes.

Lee
 
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Yes, that's interesting. In this case it appears to be former management and sales people of Zeiss. I'd certainly expect them to have a realistic idea of the market they are targeting.

However, I find it a little curious that a guy who yesterday still was CEO of Zeiss sport optics today associates himself with a small company, who's website is full of obvious stabs at Zeiss' business model. Emphasising the Germany connection and their Zeiss past, thus attempting to take advantage of the Zeiss quality image just adds to that.

Dalat

Jensen left Zeiss more than a year ago and Schmidt left about a year before that.

Lee
 
Ah, ok. I had a look at his linkedin profile and he still figures as Zeiss employee there, that's why I assumed his departure was recently only.
 
Ah, ok. I had a look at his linkedin profile and he still figures as Zeiss employee there, that's why I assumed his departure was recently only.

No problem Dalat and it is legitimate to be interested in the back-story of folks starting businesses like this.

I haven't met Herr Schmidt but have met Mike and, as Jerry rightly pointed out, he was well known on Bird Forum for straight talking and giving fair answers to fair questions.

Lee
 
Dead right JG.
Specs don't tell half of the story even if they are a guide. Take light weight. I'm all for that too but at some point light weight can mean reduced durability and you can't see this from just looking at the bins. And take ER folks on here have found 15mm more than adequate and some had problems with 18mm, its due to eyecup design and face and spectacles and you can't factor that into specifications. And all the opinions from trusted friends and BF posters in the world can't really tell you how you are going to feel when you wrap your hands around a pair of bins and lift them to your eyes.

Lee

So what is your advice to people who can't get to a store and try optics out for themselves? Order a binocular which is listed to have insufficient ER and crossing fingers hoping it works? I actually did silly stuff like that and got burned over and over and recently even . I learned my lesson finally to ignore bins with listed ER which is too short for me (based on experience). Like I said earlier it's annoying as heck returning the items and it can be costly too. Who has the time, money and energy to order and return ad nauseam ... Most people don't quite have the endurance Dennis has to constantly do this.

I agree specs don't tell the whole story and trying something out is ultimately the best way to go, but you have to narrow it down using the specs if you must order bins online. For those of us who need to do this we need to take the specs at face value even if there is the small risk that the specs are inaccurate. Most people rely on them as a guide because it's a smart way to shop online to avoid hassle and frustration.

You can certainly figure out if lightweight means cheap by the price tag.
 
I agree specs don't tell the whole story and trying something out is ultimately the best way to go, but you have to narrow it down using the specs if you must order bins online.

Hi GiGi

Yes you are right GiGi. If you can't get to the store you have to use specifications to guide your choice.

Lee
 
Understood Gilmore Girl. I'm not saying a guy/lady should disregard specs, but they can be misleading and often are. FWIW I'm not the least bit interested in this new GPO stuff either, but I bet we haven't seen the last of this business model in optics.

I guess you're right since this new business model seems to be catching on and it seems smart. However, no service/repair center is a negative for me.
I don't embrace disposable bins especially when some disposables are now several hundred dollars, but that's the way of the world now. I still like the idea of having binos repaired and continuing to use them for a long time. Optics tech repair specialists may be going the way of the dodo just like tv repairmen ... I can only hope not. It's a fine profession and would be sad to see these jobs go away.
 
Hi GiGi

Yes you are right GiGi. If you can't get to the store you have to use specifications to guide your choice.

Lee

Lee,
I'm gonna need a little more argument from you next time...not enough to get Steve involved, but just enough to take the thread far off course and lob a few personal insults at each other. It will bring us closer :-O
HAHA, as Dennis would say.
 
So what is your advice to people who can't get to a store and try optics out for themselves? Order a binocular which is listed to have insufficient ER and crossing fingers hoping it works? I actually did silly stuff like that and got burned over and over and recently even . I learned my lesson finally to ignore bins with listed ER which is too short for me (based on experience). Like I said earlier it's annoying as heck returning the items and it can be costly too. Who has the time, money and energy to order and return ad nauseam ... Most people don't quite have the endurance Dennis has to constantly do this.

I agree specs don't tell the whole story and trying something out is ultimately the best way to go, but you have to narrow it down using the specs if you must order bins online. For those of us who need to do this we need to take the specs at face value even if there is the small risk that the specs are inaccurate. Most people rely on them as a guide because it's a smart way to shop online to avoid hassle and frustration.

You can certainly figure out if lightweight means cheap by the price tag.
"Most people don't quite have the endurance Dennis has to constantly do this."

So just let me do the footwork and go by my recommendations.;) No, just kidding. You have to try binoculars yourself to find what you like but Bird Forum is VERY helpful with the reviews and opinions of other members. I found the Tract Toric and the Maven by trying them after they were recommended on Bird Forum and they work good for me. I really trust Steve and jgraiders opinions now since they are accurate most of the time. I really like jgraiders reviews because they are based on actual field use and he tells it like it is.
 
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