I'm glad to here that because The new swift ultra-lites are what I have now but I relied on the dealer's opinion quite a bit in picking those. The longer I've had them the more I like them.It's funny how you have to kind of get used to binoculars sometimes.Bill Atwood said:BTW, in last issue they had a summary of the new Swift 8x42 Ultralite roofs. Apparently it arrived too late to get included in the previous article. Several of the reviewers have looked at it and they gave the optics a better rating than the highly rated (for a mid-price) Nikon Monarch. It appears to be pretty similar to the rather ubiquitous $250 - $300 42mm roofs.
Although at 25 oz or more I don't think you can really consider it to be an "ultralite".
Ifyou get the chance to actually use some of the high-end binos, and then compare them to the new Nikon LXL/HGL, you'll be even more curious about their conclusions. :h?:Justin said:Thanks for the responses to my initial question on the Cornell Lab review. I do not have the Winter 2005 issue, but may try to get my hands on it. I am mostly curious about their opinion of the Leica Ultravids and the poor marks they gave the Nikon HGL's, which they so highly praised in 99'.
Justin
Justin said:Thanks for the responses to my initial question on the Cornell Lab review. I do not have the Winter 2005 issue, but may try to get my hands on it. I am mostly curious about their opinion of the Leica Ultravids and the poor marks they gave the Nikon HGL's, which they so highly praised in 99'.
Justin
Justin said:Thanks for the quotes from the article. It is too bad, and a little unfair to Nikon, that a prototype was used. One has to wonder what the outcome would have been with a finished product. Anyway, I phoned the Cornell Lab today and asked for a copy of the Winter 2005 edition.
Justin
Curtis Croulet said:There are deadlines to be met, and it's up to the manufacturer to supply a representative product. I'm just offering the prototype explanation as a hypothetical excuse for the slightly-less-than-first-place optical performance of the Nikon. On the other hand, I have no specific knowledge nor do I see anything in the article that would lead me to believe that the Nikon Venturer LX on test was below standard for that model. It also has to be said, for any of the models tested, that apparently only one sample was available. There's no assurance that any of them were representative of typical production. My brief experience leads me to believe that optical performance of any of the top models is very close, and that even cheaper models can be quite competitive if only the center part of the field is evaluated. Handling or any of a host of other subjective considerations could easily override minor optical differences for a given birder. It's also quite possible that some of us in the older set are simply incapable of seeing differences that are readily visible to younger birders.
Justin,Justin said:It is too bad, and a little unfair to Nikon, that a prototype was used. One has to wonder what the outcome would have been with a finished product.