absolut_beethoven
Well-known member
I took Eagle Optics up on their offer to buy a demo pair of the Kowa Genesis 8x33 binos. As is par for this company, they arrived promptly and close examination under my 4X loupe showed them to be in mint condition with all optical surfaces100% flawless. Neither could I see any dust, specks or finger prints on any of the innards. The Cabelas Euro HD 8x32 I’ve owned for quite a while and I’ll link to my earlier review of it at the end. I had read many excellent reports on this forum about the Kowas so I jumped at this opportunity to get them at such an excellent price in order to compare them with the Euro HD’s, my current favorite, with the intention of keeping the one that I felt better suited my needs.
With the above in mind, here is my short review of both the similarities and differences between these two excellent binos. Feel free to ask any questions if there are any areas that I haven’t covered that you are interested in.
CA The Kowas have virtually none in the center and only marginally more in the last 20% towards the edges. I didn’t have the Zeiss Victory Fl 8x32 on hand as I had returned these a couple a months ago, but I feel confident in saying that the CA control of the Kowas is outstanding, and probably on a par with the aforementioned Zeiss. No small feat IMHO. As a side note, I could only induce CA in these two excellent binos under our harsh and bright Texas sun and even then it was so minimal that most people won’t even notice it, let alone be bothered by it. By comparison this is the Euro HD’s weakest area compared to the Kowa. Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying because the Euro HD’s do have excellent CA control, but not quite as good as the Kowas. The Euro HD’s have slightly more CA in the center than the Kowas, but quite a bit more in the last 20% where the differences between the two are bigger.
Sharpness & Clarity Once again the Kowas seemed a little easier and quicker in order to get them tack sharp. This was even more apparent in the star test where stars appeared as virtually perfect pin pricks. While appearing very sharp with the Euro HD’s, I couldn’t get them to be quite as pin point sharp as with the former. It’s important to note that I’m talking about very small, but easily seen differences. To put things in perspective note that although the Kowas appeared sharper to me, I still couldn’t read any font smaller than what I could read with the Euros, but I sure did appreciate those pin point stars! Sadly the sharpness on both only extended to about 80% of the viewing area. Sharpness on the Euros gradually declined and was marginally worse at the very edge compared to the 80% mark. Sharpness was worse on the Kowas at the 80% mark and then improved and got sharper the last 5%t to 10%. This anomaly has been noted by quite a few other people and I won’t speculate on its cause. To be honest it didn’t bother me because as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews as long as 80% of the FOV is sharp, that’s good enough for me.
Color This test surprised me as the Euro HD was marginally whiter than the Kowas. And I really do mean marginally. Because of the outcome and marginal differences between the two I did this test under 3 different conditions, but the outcome was identical regardless of the circumstances. Test 1 was looking through the objectives at an extremely white matte plastic card lit by a 5000k LED. Test 2 was the same but looking at my white frosted lounge lamp lit by the same 5000k LED. These tests were direct versus reflected light. So I thought that maybe the LED might be influencing the outcome, so I went outside at midday on a cloudy afternoon and used my extremely white enameled painted car as the background. Not surprisingly I personally couldn’t see any differences in color in actual use.
Contrast Under most circumstances I couldn’t see any differences in contrast between these two. They both do an outstanding job in this area. After a long time and numerous comparisons under many various lighting conditions I did notice one small area where the Kowas seemed to have better contrast. When looking at brightly lit leaves under harsh midday lighting, the detailing of the leaves in the shade was easier to see with the latter than with the Euros. The latter made the leaves in the shaded areas appear slightly darker and therefore didn’t highlight the details as clearly as the Kowas. This surprised me because I couldn’t see any differences between them when looking at leaves, birds etc or anything that was in direct bright sunlight.
Glare & Flare The glare and flare control on both is absolutely outstanding and I couldn’t see any differences between them in this area. I even pushed it by pointing the binos so close to the sun that my eyes started to water from the brightness. Even then, neither produced any noticeable glare as long as the eyecups were well up against my face. Pulling them slightly away so that my eyes weren’t shaded as well produced some glare with both binos. Neither produced any obvious flare either except as they neared almost direct viewing into the sun. As mentioned above, even getting this close was painfully too bright for me.
Twilight Ditto for low light and twilight viewing. I couldn’t see any differences between them when viewing different things as twilight turned to night. Both did an outstanding job of letting as much color be seen until it was almost nightfall.
Sadly, as much as I wanted to like the Kowas, especially given their outstanding strengths – small size, light weight, smooth focusing knob etc, there was one important area where they fell woefully short for me. Their weird distortion when panning – i.e. the dreaded rolling ball – was marginally north of borderline acceptable for me. True, it’s only a tiny bit worse than Swarovski’s 8x32SV. But while I could easily see this weakness in the latter, it wasn’t bad enough to bother me and I could easily live with them considering their other outstanding attributes. As much as I tried, I could only live with the Kowas if I only looked at stationary objects. Something that’s obviously a non-starter for most birders and wild life enthusiasts.
The bottom line for me is that the only binos I have seen that I would gladly trade in my Euro HD’s for are the Zeiss Victory FL 8x32 and its larger sibling, the Victory HT 8x42. And even then, only if I can get them at a very decent price. As for the Kowas, I believe that I have listed their numerous strengths and minor weakness above quite accurately. Check them out yourself. They just might make a perfect match for your eyes and meet all of your needs.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=270987
With the above in mind, here is my short review of both the similarities and differences between these two excellent binos. Feel free to ask any questions if there are any areas that I haven’t covered that you are interested in.
CA The Kowas have virtually none in the center and only marginally more in the last 20% towards the edges. I didn’t have the Zeiss Victory Fl 8x32 on hand as I had returned these a couple a months ago, but I feel confident in saying that the CA control of the Kowas is outstanding, and probably on a par with the aforementioned Zeiss. No small feat IMHO. As a side note, I could only induce CA in these two excellent binos under our harsh and bright Texas sun and even then it was so minimal that most people won’t even notice it, let alone be bothered by it. By comparison this is the Euro HD’s weakest area compared to the Kowa. Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying because the Euro HD’s do have excellent CA control, but not quite as good as the Kowas. The Euro HD’s have slightly more CA in the center than the Kowas, but quite a bit more in the last 20% where the differences between the two are bigger.
Sharpness & Clarity Once again the Kowas seemed a little easier and quicker in order to get them tack sharp. This was even more apparent in the star test where stars appeared as virtually perfect pin pricks. While appearing very sharp with the Euro HD’s, I couldn’t get them to be quite as pin point sharp as with the former. It’s important to note that I’m talking about very small, but easily seen differences. To put things in perspective note that although the Kowas appeared sharper to me, I still couldn’t read any font smaller than what I could read with the Euros, but I sure did appreciate those pin point stars! Sadly the sharpness on both only extended to about 80% of the viewing area. Sharpness on the Euros gradually declined and was marginally worse at the very edge compared to the 80% mark. Sharpness was worse on the Kowas at the 80% mark and then improved and got sharper the last 5%t to 10%. This anomaly has been noted by quite a few other people and I won’t speculate on its cause. To be honest it didn’t bother me because as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews as long as 80% of the FOV is sharp, that’s good enough for me.
Color This test surprised me as the Euro HD was marginally whiter than the Kowas. And I really do mean marginally. Because of the outcome and marginal differences between the two I did this test under 3 different conditions, but the outcome was identical regardless of the circumstances. Test 1 was looking through the objectives at an extremely white matte plastic card lit by a 5000k LED. Test 2 was the same but looking at my white frosted lounge lamp lit by the same 5000k LED. These tests were direct versus reflected light. So I thought that maybe the LED might be influencing the outcome, so I went outside at midday on a cloudy afternoon and used my extremely white enameled painted car as the background. Not surprisingly I personally couldn’t see any differences in color in actual use.
Contrast Under most circumstances I couldn’t see any differences in contrast between these two. They both do an outstanding job in this area. After a long time and numerous comparisons under many various lighting conditions I did notice one small area where the Kowas seemed to have better contrast. When looking at brightly lit leaves under harsh midday lighting, the detailing of the leaves in the shade was easier to see with the latter than with the Euros. The latter made the leaves in the shaded areas appear slightly darker and therefore didn’t highlight the details as clearly as the Kowas. This surprised me because I couldn’t see any differences between them when looking at leaves, birds etc or anything that was in direct bright sunlight.
Glare & Flare The glare and flare control on both is absolutely outstanding and I couldn’t see any differences between them in this area. I even pushed it by pointing the binos so close to the sun that my eyes started to water from the brightness. Even then, neither produced any noticeable glare as long as the eyecups were well up against my face. Pulling them slightly away so that my eyes weren’t shaded as well produced some glare with both binos. Neither produced any obvious flare either except as they neared almost direct viewing into the sun. As mentioned above, even getting this close was painfully too bright for me.
Twilight Ditto for low light and twilight viewing. I couldn’t see any differences between them when viewing different things as twilight turned to night. Both did an outstanding job of letting as much color be seen until it was almost nightfall.
Sadly, as much as I wanted to like the Kowas, especially given their outstanding strengths – small size, light weight, smooth focusing knob etc, there was one important area where they fell woefully short for me. Their weird distortion when panning – i.e. the dreaded rolling ball – was marginally north of borderline acceptable for me. True, it’s only a tiny bit worse than Swarovski’s 8x32SV. But while I could easily see this weakness in the latter, it wasn’t bad enough to bother me and I could easily live with them considering their other outstanding attributes. As much as I tried, I could only live with the Kowas if I only looked at stationary objects. Something that’s obviously a non-starter for most birders and wild life enthusiasts.
The bottom line for me is that the only binos I have seen that I would gladly trade in my Euro HD’s for are the Zeiss Victory FL 8x32 and its larger sibling, the Victory HT 8x42. And even then, only if I can get them at a very decent price. As for the Kowas, I believe that I have listed their numerous strengths and minor weakness above quite accurately. Check them out yourself. They just might make a perfect match for your eyes and meet all of your needs.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=270987
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