The 10x32 arrived today.
These are my initial impressions:
Color neutral to cold/ish,
Lots of "walk-in" view/transparency/PFOV and great AFOV. (well-known fact)
Very bright
Enough eye relief to use with glasses. According to the specifications, it is 16 mm but the ocular lenses are barely recessed at all.
(even the Monarch X 10,5x45 has 16 mm but the ocular lenses are more recessed. Not really great with spectacles.
The Hawke Frontier ED 10x36 was absolutely useless for me with spectacles, although the eye relief spec is 16,6 mm but the ocular lenses are deeply recessed)
Easy view - I have no feeling that it is finicky to use whatsoever, and the Minox HG 8x33 was not as easy to find the eye placement with, despite its greater exit pupils.
Slightly too small for my hands but not to the extent that it's a problem.
Solid but not as solid as the Minox HG was.
Negligible CA but the sweet spot is not huge, rather adequate for birding.
Only downside so far is the straylight handling. The Vortex Fury 6,5x32 beats it hands down in that part of the contest. However that binocular has not as great AFOV as the Victory, which may explain why it excels.
Seems I finally found a decent mate to the Fury - considering its RRP the Fury is the real "Victor" and I can't honestly say the Victory FL is worth 8 or 10 times more.
My estimation is that I will use the Fury about 70-75% of the eye time but the Victory will not disappoint me because it does really deliver.
I would say it performs well above the bunch of 10x42s, but packed into a sub-compact shell.
Amazing, considering that 10x32 is a tricky configuration, Zeiss made a good job with this one.
I would have wanted to see a 6,5x or 7x32 Victory FL (just for the sake of it :smoke
//L