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

Mid-price binoculars with good build quality? (1 Viewer)

R

RedPanda84

Member
Hello everybody,

I am currently looking for a new set of binos, trying to move from my low-budget ones into the very attractive mid-price range.

The two most important (remaining) factors for me are build quality and sweet spot size. I've narrowed my search down to six, having filtered them for multiple attributes. I'm curious which ones you think excel the most in the bold mentioned attributes. They are:

Bushnell Legend M-Series 10x42
Celestron Granite ED 10x42
Kruger Caldera 10x42
Leupold BX-2 Tioga HD 10x42
Vanguard Endeavor ED II 10x42
Vortex Talon HD 10x42

I know that I can't expect alpha-quality in any of these, buildwise...yet, it still would be nice to know which ones "feel" better than the others. Regarding the materials used and how well they are assembled and put together and how long their parts stay where they are supposed to;)

I am not that susceptible to CA, so this is not as important to me as nice sharpness and a big sweet spot - even if the latter one decreases a bit faster in quality, towards the outermost edges.

Best regards and thanks in advance,
RedPanda
 
The Vortex Talon HD 10x42 probably has the best build quality on your list IMO. You should also consider a Zeiss Terra HD 10x42 with the recent sales and if you want to come up on your budget a little the Tract Toric 10x42 really has close to alpha build quality and excellent optics and a big sweet spot.
 
[email protected] said:
The Vortex Talon HD 10x42 probably has the best build quality on your list IMO. You should also consider a Zeiss Terra HD 10x42 with the recent sales and if you want to come up on your budget a little the Tract Toric 10x42 really has close to alpha build quality and excellent optics and a big sweet spot.
Click to expand...

I will back Denco up on this: Vortex or Terra, but if you could squeeze some more juice out of your credit card then, even better, Zeiss Conquest 10x42. And if you want to know more about Conquest build quality take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qri4RuT7Bk

Prosit
Lee
 
[email protected] said:
The Vortex Talon HD 10x42 probably has the best build quality on your list IMO. You should also consider a Zeiss Terra HD 10x42 with the recent sales and if you want to come up on your budget a little the Tract Toric 10x42 really has close to alpha build quality and excellent optics and a big sweet spot.
Click to expand...

Thanks for throwing Tract into the mix!! Unfornately, it is not available in Germany...and a little bit above the margin of what I consider binoculars to be worth to me, in general.
 
Troubador said:
I will back Denco up on this: Vortex or Terra, but if you could squeeze some more juice out of your credit card then, even better, Zeiss Conquest 10x42. And if you want to know more about Conquest build quality take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qri4RuT7Bk

Prosit
Lee
Click to expand...

Hi Lee, the Zeiss Terra I personally don't like that much, being one of the few mid-price models that I actually held once. The Conquest is still mid-priced? I'm sure these are fine ones, though above my personal "card limit"|>|
I've had a hard time finding much of anything about the Caldera. The specs and few reviews sound promising...
 
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well if you don't like the terra ....the Vanguard would be a good choice....and I would throw in the Minox BL HD series.....
 
gunut said:
well if you don't like the terra ....the Vanguard would be a good choice....and I would throw in the Minox BL HD series.....
Click to expand...

The BL 10x44 looks nice indeed |8)|

A general question: How important is dielectric coating for "sweet spot quality"? Because some of the models I filtered do have this feature and some don't...
 
I have yet to see my unit of the GPO Passion ED, but from what I can glean from the spec sheet and conversations with GPO, at $350 US it should be on the radar too.

I have Kruger Caldera 8x42. It has quite large diameter eye cups and if you have small, or narrow set eyes, it might not be ideal. However aside from the premium Zeiss SF, nothing has a wider fov. My 8x42 is listed at 438', but measures over 450'.
 
A general question: How important is dielectric coating for "sweet spot quality"? Because some of the models I filtered do have this feature and some don't...[/QUOTE]

dialectric coating and argon purging are more advertising hype than anything else.....make for good talking points though....and in a few years everybody will be doing it....or no one will.....
 
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gunut, post 9,
Dielectric coating is of importance for generating a higher light output of the binocular and a better color reproduction.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
Here is a little information on Dielectric coatings. Mainly they improve light transmission not sweet spot size.

"Dielectric mirror coatings

Main article: Dielectric mirror
Dielectric coatings are used in Schmidt–Pechan roof prisms to cause the prism surfaces to act as a dielectric mirror. The non-metallic dielectric reflective coating is formed from several multilayers of alternating high and low refractive index materials deposited on the roof prism's reflective surfaces. Each single multilayer reflects a narrow band of light frequencies so several multilayers, each tuned to a different color, are required to reflect white light. This multi-multilayer coating increases reflectivity from the prism surfaces by acting as a distributed Bragg reflector. A well-designed dielectric coating can provide a reflectivity of more than 99% across the visible light spectrum. This reflectivity is much improved compared to either an aluminium mirror coating (87% to 93%) or silver mirror coating (95% to 98%).
Porro prism binoculars and roof prism binoculars using the Abbe–Koenig roof prism do not use dielectric coatings because these prisms reflect with very high reflectivity using total internal reflection in the prism rather than requiring a mirror coating."
 
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Hmm, maybe I have to narrow it down even more. As I expected, lots of good alternatives brought forward here:t:

As I am often in the mountains, it would be nice if the bino in question would be able to provide a decent quality image of objects quite far away - thinking about distances of 50-100 km, roughly. I have been playing the thought of buying a 12x-bino instead, but I'm not sure that I can hold one steady enough in my bare hands (which I prefer, instead of mechanical help - traveling with small backpacks if possible)...

Definitely will throw out the Leupold, which seems kind of "cheap", and the Celestron, which doesn't really knock one out of the park in the reviews...Minox and Nikon instead, on the list...

@Steve C:
How did you stumble upon GPO? Never heard of them before.
 
RedPanda84 said:
@Steve C:
How did you stumble upon GPO? Never heard of them before.
Click to expand...

I will try to help Steve out on this one since I suspect he is doing planting right now and may not be viewing the forum regularly.

GPO is German Precision Optics based in Germany but with a GPO-USA associated company. The companies were formed by a couple of former Zeiss top management folks.

There is a separate sub forum for it on BirdForum.

http://www.birdforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=744

They have two binocular lines, Passion ED and the higher Passion HD. The HD line hit the market in the U.S. a few weeks ago. Looks like the ED should be soon. I have not heard if sales have started yet in Europe. The ED 8X42 catches my attention for the wide FOV at the price point of around $350.

USA: http://gpo-usa.com/
Europe: http://gp-optics.com/
 
RedPanda84 said:
Thanks. I've put my budget to a max of 500$ (give or take a few, for shipping etc.)
Click to expand...

Hi,

have you thought about buying used? That's what I paid for my SE 10x42 and the view will beat anything in the $500 range (actually anything under 2k alphas).

Ok, getting an SE will take some time and luck and you might have to stretch the budget a bit...

But around $500 nice bins can be had used - there's currently a pair of Nikon HG 10x42 (the old HG when it was an alpha, not the Monarch HG) in the classifieds which will run circles around all the models you mentioned...

Joachim
 
If you are concerned about build quality I would steer towards something like a Nikon Monarch 7 or Vortex. So many new producers have high sample quality variation and no track record for support. There are many options for high quality optical performance at all price points these days, and I think build quality and along with it warranty and producer longevity get too little weight in many considerations.
 
Joachim -re post #17.

Those original 42mm Nikon HG and HGLs were accused by some of being troubled with "rolling ball" caused by their flat fields. The 32mm versions were not.

Bob
 
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