Good information! Nice post, Pete. It is amazing how much combined knowledge there is on Bird Forum. Interesting that you think the margin on the Tracts is higher than expected.
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Death Of The Alpha? (1 Viewer)
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I changed it. Thank you for the grammar correction.
jan van daalen
Well-known member
Pete, post 716,
I don't think you may compare the business model of the IT and/or consumer electronics market with the optical market.
AFAIK (since 1993) no incentives, like you described, ever reached me from any optical firm(?).
Jan
I don't think you may compare the business model of the IT and/or consumer electronics market with the optical market.
AFAIK (since 1993) no incentives, like you described, ever reached me from any optical firm(?).
Jan
Chosun Juan
Given to Fly
Jeez! Is this thread still cr@ppin on?!
These 'miracle' bins are now even the first to market with a growing sweet spot! In the Tract thread Dennis said the sweet spot was 70% .... now it's a whopping ~90~95%! Ahh-maaaazing!
Maybe the 8x's paltry Fov will also start growing?!! :-O Dennis, I think DJT could take lessons from you on rebuttals - the more illogical the better!
There is no way that the strategic drivers of the electronics industry have anything in common whatsoever with the optical industry. Any reductions are a one off step change at best, and as Opticron honcho Pete said in another thread, some of these smaller re-skinners may not have the purchasing power to be getting the lowest ex-factory prices anyway (that's to say nothing of their smaller pulling power in the quality supply stakes as I said in an earlier post). :eek!::eek!:
While a direct (ish) to the consumer business model may offer some savings to the consumer and/or greater profits to the rebrander, one wonders how far a re-skin, donation to the bloodlust mob of your choice, or multiple dead bambis and antler counts adorning a website, will take you in the differentiation or product innovation and improvement stakes ..... ? :cat:
So while there maybe a somewhat cogent argument of better value, there is no way they are challenging the best of the best as leaders in ALL parameters.
Dennis, I think you'd be far better off with a stopped down Zen ED3 - better CA handling, better 3D effect, better focus wheel, better sweet spot, better ergonomics, better, better, better !!! .... and you'll have $100's left in your pocket too to contribute for the inevitable upgrade to the MkII Canon 10x42 IS when it is available ..... :cat:
Chosun :gh:
Your wrong.:gh: All the new binocular companies that have recently started are direct marketed. Maven, Tract and now German Precision Optics. Isn't that telling you something? It is the WAVE of the future. Gone are the days of the big overhead binocular companies with large repair departments, parts departments and big manufacturing facilities. Leica, Swarovski and Zeiss are as dead as the picture tube TV. Mark my words. Alpha's are dead.:-CJeez! Is this thread still cr@ppin on?!
These 'miracle' bins are now even the first to market with a growing sweet spot! In the Tract thread Dennis said the sweet spot was 70% .... now it's a whopping ~90~95%! Ahh-maaaazing!
Maybe the 8x's paltry Fov will also start growing?!! :-O Dennis, I think DJT could take lessons from you on rebuttals - the more illogical the better!
There is no way that the strategic drivers of the electronics industry have anything in common whatsoever with the optical industry. Any reductions are a one off step change at best, and as Opticron honcho Pete said in another thread, some of these smaller re-skinners may not have the purchasing power to be getting the lowest ex-factory prices anyway (that's to say nothing of their smaller pulling power in the quality supply stakes as I said in an earlier post). :eek!::eek!:
While a direct (ish) to the consumer business model may offer some savings to the consumer and/or greater profits to the rebrander, one wonders how far a re-skin, donation to the bloodlust mob of your choice, or multiple dead bambis and antler counts adorning a website, will take you in the differentiation or product innovation and improvement stakes ..... ? :cat:
So while there maybe a somewhat cogent argument of better value, there is no way they are challenging the best of the best as leaders in ALL parameters.
Dennis, I think you'd be far better off with a stopped down Zen ED3 - better CA handling, better 3D effect, better focus wheel, better sweet spot, better ergonomics, better, better, better !!! .... and you'll have $100's left in your pocket too to contribute for the inevitable upgrade to the MkII Canon 10x42 IS when it is available ..... :cat:
Chosun :gh:
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BruceH
Avatar: Harris Hawk
.............
These 'miracle' bins are now even the first to market with a growing sweet spot! In the Tract thread Dennis said the sweet spot was 70% .... now it's a whopping ~90~95%! Ahh-maaaazing!
Maybe the 8x's paltry Fov will also start growing?!! :-O
.........
Chosun :gh:
That is because they use a special organic glass (OGlass).
I figure if I buy a 10X42 this spring, I will have the equivalent of a flat field Swaro 10X50 SV EL by the time of Birdfair. :t: GPO-USA will be using multiple sales channels here is the U.S. Direct sales will just be one of the channels.
Chosun Juan
Given to Fly
.........
These 'miracle' bins are now even the first to market with a growing sweet spot! In the Tract thread Dennis said the sweet spot was 70% .... now it's a whopping ~90~95%! Ahh-maaaazing!
Maybe the 8x's paltry Fov will also start growing?!! :-O
That is because they use a special organic glass (OGlass).
Bruce :t::t::t: Hahaha! :-O:-O
Chosun :gh:
Chosun Juan
Given to Fly
Dennis - how can I put this in terms that you'll understand ..... ?
"YOU'RE" Wrong! ..... so nerr! 8-P
Chosun :gh:
Chosun Juan
Given to Fly
Dennis, I have again today looked through and tested my Zen-Ray ED3 8x43 stopped down from its original luxurious 426ft Fov to a more Tract like 377ft.
Holy Carp! WOW! :king:
This now leaves Alphas in the dust! I could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge from up in the Mountains. The view is sharp to the edge, whereas you said the sweet spot in the Tract was only 70% of the field. That's an extra 30%, over 111ft extra sharp. There is an awesome 3-Dness to the view, I don't think even the new NoctiVids could beat this. It's got the perfect open frame ergonomics. It's lighter than the much hyped Zeiss SF. Eye relief is good enough for me to see the entire Fov with my glasses on. The CA handling is top shelf - it's as good as any Alpha I have seen. The focus direction is absolutely perfect. The large knurled aluminium focusing wheel allows room for two fingers in a push-pull arrangement. There is absolutely no slop or movement between my fingers and the focus wheel - it just grips instantaneously - not deforming like a lesser rubber wheel. The smoothness is the equal of any Zeiss Alpha I have ever used. The hinges and diopter have perfect tension and no freeplay - the whole thing just feels solid, but light - total quality. Brightness is at least on par with Swaro's SV, but the 5.3mm exit pupil puts it in front at dusk. The colour rendition is very neutral thanks to the dielectric prism coatings and ED glass - the equal of the SV and better than the SLC imho. I would rate Micro Contrast as better than the Zeiss HT. The glare performance is improved by restricting the Fov too - but it is so sharp to the edge that you don't notice it is only 377ft. The resolution is every bit the equal of the porro prism Swift Audubon 8.5x44 ED that I had. I could easily see the four moons of Jupiter with it. The quality of the armour is top notch - no loose bits that move, or bubbling - this is clearly better than early Zeiss SF's, and there was even mention of looseness on the Tract thread. This is Alpha leading performance for ~$400, you might even be able to get a better deal with the arrival of the new ED4 model on the scene. You would have to be crazy to spend $650 or more. :cat:
I know you've only had the ED2, but the ED3 is so much better. You really should try the these for yourself. You will thank me. :t: The Tract is dead as Chuck said. o
Chosun :gh:
CJ
Would you please explain what you mean by stopping down, and how you measure it in FOV or AFOV terms. Are you meaning that you blank off the aperture of the objective or that somehow you fiddle with the eyepiece? How do you effect this?
Wanda,
Peeps think my post was a complete and utter gee-up! .... when in fact it was only partially so (having most of the post in one unbroken paragraph - one of dennis's all time favourites!
)To reduce the Fov, some sort of stop is required, either objective side (not ideal due to the photon loss), internally (baffling, or more usually field stop), or eyepiece surface. Obviously, the field stop is the most desireable, but least practical unless you can open the bin up in clean room conditions, collimate, and then repurge with the inert gas. So what I did was jury rig an eyepiece circumferential mask (no easy task) - fiddling around with it by measuring field width (in m) over the distance of one of our football fields (100m) .... until it showed ~12.5m (= 125m@1000m, or 375ft@1000yd, or 7.125° .... this would be great if it was a 10x, but at 8x is a paltry 57° AFov).
Dennis will tell you that this AFov is awesome, but he's puffin' muffins :hippy: :bounce: -- it's not. What you end up with in this case, is a fantastic sharp to the edge (better than the Tract), excellently controlled for CA (better than the Tract), awesomely 3-D like (better than the Tract), but ultimately somewhat restricted view (but still better than the Tract with it's mere 70% sweet spot). It is really surprising how good it is - I'd say 99"% of an SV. I much prefer the ED3 to the Conquest HD, but like JG, and Dennis have said they do, I too, don't get along with the eyecups, eye placement, and alignment, despite my glasses.
Chuck says that the Vanguard Endeavour II trumps the Tract. The Zen ED3 is brighter than the VEII because it has dielectric prism coatings - there's virtually no difference to the central view of the ED3 and Swaro's SV ..... it raised quite a few eyebrows among the Swaro head honcho's when they saw it. If you could get a proper bin spanner man to 'hot rod' the Zen internal field stop it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread - cheaper all in, and a much better value proposition than the Tract.
I was a bit cheeky when I said that there was no slop between finger and focus wheel - this is because the Zen has one of the best actual focus wheels in the business - the large knurled aluminium wheel is an absolute gem that will easily accommodate 2 fingers in my favourite push-pull arrangement. Importantly, it also goes in the right direction! CW! There are however minor degrees of backlash in the mechanism itself (perhaps a candidate for hot rodding?
.... the bin's Achilles heel, and why you should (must) try an actual unit before you buy. My unit seems to have worse than average backlash, but oddly I'm pretty much oblivious to it after years of ownership and subconscious accommodation and adjustment - hence my complete guffaws at those that say that long term ownership is the ONLY valid and respectable basis for opinion around here! :cat:Chosun :gh:
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pete_gamby
Birds? What Birds?!
Jan - that's why I was careful to say UK in my post. You are a true specialist and there are some of those here but a majority of the outlets for optics are the remaining photo dealers and IT/CE web retailers who are used to getting incentives to try to shift photo gear that Amazon makes $0.02 on
Maybe Chris should have sharpened his pencil a bit more and cut a few deals for you
Cheers, Pete
It may not be quite what you mean, but recently in the UK Kowa have had a distributor supported reduction of c £400 on some of their Genesis models (see my posts in Troubador's Kowa Genesis 8x33 thread). Someone is taking a big hit there in bringing the price down by nearly 50%, not that I'm complaining.
The-Wanderer
Well-known member
Chosun,
Troubadoris's husband has already diminished my name. If your version gains usage, I will be swimming in this cess pool for ever and will need an especially designed angled bin to bring them to my eyes... but how will I be expected to hold them?
Troubadoris's husband has already diminished my name. If your version gains usage, I will be swimming in this cess pool for ever and will need an especially designed angled bin to bring them to my eyes... but how will I be expected to hold them?
If a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his butt on the ground every time he hopped.
ZR started off great, then has done nothing but go backwards. CS in virtually non existent according to the folks here who have tried lately. Build quality of the ZR (haven't seen the ED4) was sloppy, not the smoothest operating, and you could tell within 2 minutes it was cheap and Chinese.
It is easy to get a $2000 view nowadays by spending $500 or so, very easy. It's the rest of the equation that determines if it is a good value or not. I, like SteveC, feel that the "alpha" stuff is way overpriced. I'll buy Swaro's 2nd hand now, if at all.
Time will tell on the Tract, Maven, and GPO. The way they are going about it though makes perfect sense to me.
Wandy
We can't address you by your full pseudonym 'The Wanderer' because a) The definite article makes it incorrect, there are more wanderers than just you in the world, in fact there are at least 11 in Bolton's famous football team. And b) because it would be just too clumsy and silly.
We don't want to address you as simply 'Wanderer' as that is like calling you by your surname as if we are all in the armed forces or something.
So the only way we have to express our friendly and welcoming nature towards wanderers like yourself is to express it as a diminutive which is not at all the same as diminishing it.
Troubadoris's Husband
Chosun Juan
Given to Fly
JG,
the ED3 is actually quite well built, the Prime even more so, though those huge eye cups may not be to everyone's taste - especially the two eyed among us. I've been quite open that my ED3's exhibit some backlash, but then a lot of bins have at least some small degree of it. Unit to unit variability is higher than desireable, so you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince :frog: :king:
The focus is smooth, great fast pace for me, and in the right clockwise direction. The focus wheel is awesome. Much better than the rubber covered stuff found on most Alphas, and 2nd tiers. The rest of the bin is fine - hinge tension is great, diopter tension spot on firm but precise, and the eye cups perform well (though mine stay screwed all the way in). Some of the Alpha eye cups I have tried (screwed out just a smidge) from the SV and HT almost seem difficult to extend. :cat:
Let's face it, unless you are one of the big dawgs with its own in-house design team able to innovate and design proprietary IP, then every single other company is just a specifier, re-skinner/re-brander/badge engineerer. Even then, the big dawgs are probably sourcing components, sub-assemblies, through to near finished product requiring maybe just a "Made in -----" label to finish it. The rest would be lucky to get an incoming QC inspection before sitting in a warehouse rack. :eek!:
All of this Made here, Made there stuff is largely nonsense - even Kamakura has Chinese facilities - so the Made in Germany stuff, quickly really becomes made in China like most of the rest. Going to great pains to specify "Designed in Germany" is similarly meaningless for this re-skinned OEM stuff.
:smoke:Apart from the Maven re badged product getting close (the innovative A-K lines), the other ~$500 - $1000 stuff is NOT matching the $2000 Alpha views ..... some of it gets close sure, but none of it is putting it ALL together. Mostly it lacks the Fov, field control, or last p**fteenth of brightness and microcontrast. And that is to say nothing of the mechanical package which is frequently overweight in the sub alpha categories. Heck, it's often overweight in the Alpha class too. :eat:
So the question becomes not - why spend $2K when you could spend 1/2, but - why spend $1K even when you can spend 1/2 or less ..... As I have said, I would not swap my $400 ED3's for ~$1K Conquest HD's ..... :t:
So it's not just the Alphas that are overpriced, but the badge engineered 2nd tier too - especially the direct marketed stuff. :cat:
I don't know what is going on with the Zen ED4 - but it should've been the one to build on the ED3 and make the 2nd tier pretty much obsolete for less than half the price, and be hot on the heels of all but the latest and greatest Alphas.
The Alphas are far from dead, but should get themselves on serious diets and health kicks anyway!
Chosun :gh:
:t: :t:
:gh:
As quoted by Kramer588 from Zenray Thread:
D4 and Horrible customer service
"I received my ED4s almost 2 weeks ago and have been trying to contact customer service for over a week about a problem with them. They wont focus on anything past 75 yards and also focus way too far in close. I have sent multiple emails, Facebook messages and also left multiple voice mails. I have never dealt with a company with such poor customer service and i would really just like to get my issue resolved. Is there a better way to contact Zen Ray that i don't know about?"
Me and jgraider really see eye to eye on a lot of things. He described exactly how I feel about most Chinese binoculars including Zenrays and Vanguard ED II's. Within two minutes you can tell they are Chinese and CHEAP. I have had a ton of Chinese binoculars over the years including a slug of Zenrays and several Vanguards ED's and many other Chinese binoculars and I have always had some kind of quality issues with them. Either the focus goes wacky, the diopter locks up, the eye cups are way too loose, the armour is loose or some other problem. Chinese binoculars LOOK like you bought them at Big Lot's. The optics are pretty good on them. Some of them are excellent but the build quality is very poor in most cases. In contrast I have had really zero problems with Japanese built binoculars. This is based on ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. China does NOT have as good of quality control as Japan. That is why I avoid buying Chinese binoculars. I would never buy another Zenray. They have no customer service right now which makes you wonder if they are going to be in business a year from now. On the other hand that is what is different about these new Kamakura binoculars like the Tract Toric and the Maven B.2. They have everything! The optics are superb and the build quality is superb. When you place a Maven or Tract next to an alpha you can't really tell the difference in quality. If you put a Zenray or Vanguard ED II in the lineup it is easy for ME to tell it is Chinese. Chosun you need to TRY a Tract or Maven and you will change your mind.JG,
the ED3 is actually quite well built, the Prime even more so, though those huge eye cups may not be to everyone's taste - especially the two eyed among us. I've been quite open that my ED3's exhibit some backlash, but then a lot of bins have at least some small degree of it. Unit to unit variability is higher than desireable, so you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince :frog:
The focus is smooth, great fast pace for me, and in the right clockwise direction. The focus wheel is awesome. Much better than the rubber covered stuff found on most Alphas, and 2nd tiers. The rest of the bin is fine - hinge tension is great, diopter tension spot on firm but precise, and the eye cups perform well (though mine stay screwed all the way in). Some of the Alpha eye cups I have tried (screwed out just a smidge) from the SV and HT almost seem difficult to extend. :cat:
Let's face it, unless you are one of the big dawgs with its own in-house design team able to innovate and design proprietary IP, then every single other company is just a specifier, re-skinner/re-brander/badge engineerer. Even then, the big dawgs are probably sourcing components, sub-assemblies, through to near finished product requiring maybe just a "Made in -----" label to finish it. The rest would be lucky to get an incoming QC inspection before sitting in a warehouse rack. :eek!:
All of this Made here, Made there stuff is largely nonsense - even Kamakura has Chinese facilities - so the Made in Germany stuff, quickly really becomes made in China like most of the rest. Going to great pains to specify "Designed in Germany" is similarly meaningless for this re-skinned OEM stuff.
Apart from the Maven re badged product getting close (the innovative A-K lines), the other ~$500 - $1000 stuff is NOT matching the $2000 Alpha views ..... some of it gets close sure, but none of it is putting it ALL together. Mostly it lacks the Fov, field control, or last p**fteenth of brightness and microcontrast. And that is to say nothing of the mechanical package which is frequently overweight in the sub alpha categories. Heck, it's often overweight in the Alpha class too. :eat:
So the question becomes not - why spend $2K when you could spend 1/2, but - why spend $1K even when you can spend 1/2 or less ..... As I have said, I would not swap my $400 ED3's for ~$1K Conquest HD's ..... :t:
So it's not just the Alphas that are overpriced, but the badge engineered 2nd tier too - especially the direct marketed stuff. :cat:
I don't know what is going on with the Zen ED4 - but it should've been the one to build on the ED3 and make the 2nd tier pretty much obsolete for less than half the price, and be hot on the heels of all but the latest and greatest Alphas.
The Alphas are far from dead, but should get themselves on serious diets and health kicks anyway!
Chosun :gh:
As quoted by Kramer588 from Zenray Thread:
D4 and Horrible customer service
"I received my ED4s almost 2 weeks ago and have been trying to contact customer service for over a week about a problem with them. They wont focus on anything past 75 yards and also focus way too far in close. I have sent multiple emails, Facebook messages and also left multiple voice mails. I have never dealt with a company with such poor customer service and i would really just like to get my issue resolved. Is there a better way to contact Zen Ray that i don't know about?"
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