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Hawke Frontier ED 8x43! (1 Viewer)

In dresses, I would consider this a distinct advantage;). Isn´t it interesting, though, especially in light of the current collapse of "Western" capitalism, that Chinese manufacturers can produce these bins at the prices on offer? .................................

Sancho,
It would be interesting to find out whether Chinese manufacturers could produce these binoculars at the same prices while paying wages equivalent to those paid by western capitalists to their employees.

I wonder what their profit margins are and where these "Eastern" capitalists invest these profits? In China or in the West?:h?:

Bob
 
Have been following along here (and developing quite an interest in these Hawkes):

The "stray light" issue (which Sancho referenced) is my biggest concern. Usually (it seems) if it is mentioned, then there is a problem. For me, it has been the bane of some models/brands - Minox and Docter come to mind. Of course, it always shows up at the worst possible times in the field (while hardly noticeable at all in the shop).

Frank, could you share more details on what stood out to you? What were the conditions in which you noticed it, etc? How much different is it from some other models?

APS
 
The "stray light" issue (which Sancho referenced) is my biggest concern. Usually (it seems) if it is mentioned, then there is a problem. For me, it has been the bane of some models/brands - Minox and Docter come to mind. Of course, it always shows up at the worst possible times in the field (while hardly noticeable at all in the shop).

Couldn't have said it better myself. This is a point that deserves further description.

--AP
 
Sancho,
It would be interesting to find out whether Chinese manufacturers could produce these binoculars at the same prices while paying wages equivalent to those paid by western capitalists to their employees.

I wonder what their profit margins are and where these "Eastern" capitalists invest these profits? In China or in the West?:h?:

Bob
A valid point, Bob....and yet our home-grown capitalists have reaped huge bonuses while intentionally bankrupting thousands of families by over-lending to them, and with it, sabotaged markets and sunk all our retirement funds, ensuring a dotage in poverty for us all and bringing about a worldwide disaster that´s going to make binoculars pretty irrelevant. In a perfect world order, there would be plenty of affordable premium-bins for all....;). In fairness, costs are cheaper in Asia to workers too....in 1988/´89, I worked in China and lived the life of a king on a salary of 64 dollars a month. Admittedly I spent 1993/´94 there too, and my salary rose to 200 dollars p.m. But a lot of what we buy nowadays in US/Europe is produced in "low-cost" economies where labour is cheap. I reckon China may have the last laugh, as we plunge into recession born of the greed of Bank Executives.....
 
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As I mentioned in my original review of the Frontier ED the stray light appears as a little ring of light just outside the fieldstop. I saw something similar to it in the pair of Bushnell Discoverer roofs that I sold to KP. The conditions I noted it in were full daylight from just about any angle so long as it is sunny out. This morning I tried to duplicate the effect just as the sun was rising. The sky was pink and the top of the nearby mountain was lit with sunlight though, somewhat surprisingly to me, the stray light was nowhere to be found in the view. I am guessing that because of the lower light levels it was not as readily apparent.

One thing to note, I do not see it, even in full daylight, if I go to look for it. My eyes have to be fixed on the image and then I notice it in the periphery of my vision. I wonder if it is somehow a reflection in the eyepiece or possibly the result of insufficient baffling somewhere in the design.

I take it this is what you folks were looking for?
 
What would be a common model of binocular to see this stray light phenomenon?
some explanations here

I tried my porros and a light bulb in the kitchen. When I move away a few inches from the bulb, I can still see where it is. Note to self: avoid light bulbs when birding.
 
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What would be a common model of binocular to see this stray light phenomenon?

In my opinion, the major failing of less-than-the-best roofs is their poor handling of tricky light (strong direct or diffuse backlighting, glare from direct light hitting the objectives or oculars) and their often substandard contrast. Some examples I've much experience with include Nikon 8x25 Sportstar IV, Eagle Optics 8x32 Platinum Ranger, Browning 8x32, B&L 7x42 Discoverer, Bushnell 8x42 e2, but I dare say I've not seen a cheap or mid-priced roof that actually performed to my standards in this area.

--AP
 
I've actually seen a different form of ring from (what I presume is stray light) in a few of the wide angle roofs I have including the Bushnell Discoverer 7x42 that I bought from Frank, perhaps the weakest thing I've seen in that bin. I've also seen it in the Diamondback 8x42 and the Promaster 7x32 (an older one, that demonstrates more forms of stray light problem than any other bin I have!).

Frank sees his ring outside the fieldstop. I see the ring in the field as a circular rings elevated brightness (which is probably also a reduction in contrast) at a width that varies from bin to bin. But say it's usually inside half the diameter of the field. This is different from "veiling glare" that usually gives a segment of a circle of reduced contrast (brightness) on the opposite side of the field from the off axis light source.

In the cases I've seen this effect it's been overcast with bright sky of half a hemisphere or so (i.e. a lot of off axis light, perhaps the toughest case for a bin next to being tens of degrees away from the sun).

It's very difficult to reproduce reliably. I saw it once with the Discoverers. I was also looking down at a reservoir at the time checking the bins for contrast and color against a few newly out of eclipse Mallard males with a mix of overcast with the sun peaking through (though I was in shadow from direct sun).

The one thing it seems to correlate with (though I've not done anything major about checking this) is the bins happen to be roofs with quite wide FOVs. That may just be selection bias (for the wide FOV) but I've not seen it happen in any of my porros except one (a Japanese OEMed 10x50 astro porro) when looking over an expanse of brightly lit concrete at a large darker target (shadowed trees).

It makes me wonder if its stray light coming up the tube and then perhaps illuminating edges of lens (not edge blackened) in the eyepiece. It's got to be something that gives this very circular symmetry.

I've seen a lesser version of this with other bins which makes it feel like the field is "lumpy" in some circularly symmetric way. Often clearer when you view a bright, uniform target (blue sky or cloudy sky).

There's one thing I have to be careful about. I use bins with eyeglasses and one has to be careful that the "stray light" is actually coming through the bin and not in the side of the eyeglasses and then bouncing off the edge of the final ocular lens or the metal support ring for the ocular. But I don't think this is the case for Frank.

I think eyeglass wearers may be more susceptible to several forms of stray light. Especially those where the light scatters outside the exit pupil. For a "normal" user the entrance pupil of the eye stops out this stray light. But with a piece of plastic (sometimes with a line that scatters a lot of light for bifocals wearers) I think we sometimes get a "second chance" at seeing stray light outside that exit pupil (from a reflection off the eyeball then back from the eyeglasses).

Eye placement to get the position of the exit pupil correct placed is also more difficult with eyeglasses again tending to let some of the "outside the exit pupil" stray light hit the edge of the entrance pupil of the eye. This contribute to what I called "fiddlyness" getting the position of the bins just right but with a 5 or 6mm exit pupil in afternoon light this really shouldn't be an issue.

So I'm not sure if I'm seeing the same thing as Frank is seeing.

Anyone else?
 
The one thing it seems to correlate with (though I've not done anything major about checking this) is the bins happen to be roofs with quite wide FOVs.
I figured it would come around to that, somehow. I have never been bothered by it in 10x roofs with about 315ft fov.

But it may be seen in porros too, I should think.
 
Frank, Thanks for the info. (I should have re-read your review before making my inquiry.)

Kevin has I think touched on what I have seen before and am concerned about here - it is mostly "veiling flare". From general recollection, it seems to often accompany the "substandard contrast" (to which Alexis refers), at least in non-ideal light situations. If memory serves me well, the Conquests are guilty of both, as well as the symmetrical circle phenom you and Kevin seem to be describing. It does seem that bins which have a glare/flare/stray-light problem often have more than one of the manifestations. I've typically attributed it to coatings; however commentary here suggests that there are other major contributors.

Tero: Did you ever see any of these phenom in the Conquests? If not, I doubt any of this makes any sense.

So, concerning the Hawkes, Franks testimony is not so incriminating after all. But, I'm still wondering about the potentially related contrast. As Alexis points out in post #32, the hallmark of top shelf roofs is that "they all control stray light very well and maintain excellent contrast in tricky lighting conditions" (Leica is well known for this). I suspect that if the Hawke can pass this test, the bin market may get very interesting soon.

Thanks, APS
 
Kevin has I think touched on what I have seen before and am concerned about here - it is mostly "veiling flare". From general recollection, it seems to often accompany the "substandard contrast" (to which Alexis refers), at least in non-ideal light situations. If memory serves me well, the Conquests are guilty of both, as well as the symmetrical circle phenom you and Kevin seem to be describing. It does seem that bins which have a glare/flare/stray-light problem often have more than one of the manifestations. I've typically attributed it to coatings; however commentary here suggests that there are other major contributors.

Two things:

1. I now have FrankD's 8x30 Conquests (and I really like them). I saw no examples of this "ring" when testing in the same environment that I saw the ring with the Discovery.

2. This ring effect is different from veiling glare. I tried to make this clear in the post above. This "ring" effect is precisely that a ring in the FOV centered on the center of the FOV. Inside and outside the (relatively thin) ring the view is unaffected (as far as I can see). This is different from veiling glare where the section of the view affected a "circular chord" across the FOV i.e. a circle intersecting the FOV circle but not concentric with it though in the workst case it might consume the whole fo the FOV. That is it is not a ring around the center of the FOV but a portion of the FOV.

We really need a standard definition of these effects (I have ranted about this before ;) )

For me glare, flare are three different effects.

0. stray light: the generic name for all problems associated with light going where it shouldn't. Like stray color (e.g. not all stray or false color is chromatic aberration in the lense some of it, especially in roof prism bins, is dispersion in the prism).

1. Glare aka veiling glare. The loss of contrast across part or whole of the FOV due to stray light usually off-axis light. This is also used for on-axis light scattered in the lenses. I'm happy to agree to any usage for glare that involves loss of contrast from non-discrete images ;)

2. Flare aka ghosts: discrete false images of bright sources generating on-axis rays. You know the stuff they put into computer animation to make it more like a real camer (those circles the other side of the image to the sun.

And there is even a third effect that I call "glints" i.e. a discrete reflections off a metallic part either at the objective or the ocular. Really the Promaster suffers from these too. Not seen them in other bins. Who would put a non-matte-black part on a bin in those locations? It looks a bit like a flare with a starburst or diffraction effects (out of focus).

Once you get to this point (with the nomenclature) you can see that these effects have two different origins: one is on-axis (i.e. lens and coating related) and the other is off-axis (and more related to good baffling and keeping off-axis light off the objectives.

The former (ghost image/flare) problem is essentially solved with good current multilayer AR coatings. I noticed yesterday that the Diamondback can show ghosts (I'd not seen them before) but my other (better) bins don't show ghost images.

The latter problem (off axis light reducing the contrast) is a baffling problem and I think comes down to careful design and testing.

Stray light is one of the last issues to get fixed in a bin because it doesn't appear on the spec sheet. So without hands on experience (or feedback from a good reviewer like Frank) you don't know about the problem until you are in a marsh on a fall day at 5:30pm looking into the sun and seeing a whiteout not shorebirds. When the designers of bins like the Promaster ED or the Hawke ED take this seriously (and from comments here I think they're already doing that though they may compromise on the wrong side of the stray light/FOV line for some of us) then the alpha bin guys will have to get worried because all they'll have is their brand.
 
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I wonder whether the two are related(contrast/stray light), and how so, if they are.
Don't know if this will add anything to the discussion or not, but it's something that I've been curious about from a cause/effect standpoint.

I have three very similar binoculars. The Browning 8x32, which my dad actually has now, the Pentax DCF SP 8x32, and the Pentax DCF ED 8x32. Specs are almost identical for all three, and aside from some cosmetics, the only real difference between them is their coatings and the claimed use of some ED glass element in the SP, more in the ED.

Viewing in darkness with a streetlight just outside the FOV, and ~200yds. distant(the only consistent stray light inducing condition in which I have or can easily check all my binoculars):

The Browning suffers from stray light in much the same way it does glare in low angle sunlight, often dimly curtaining the width of the image.

The SP shows it as a circular reflection in the opposite side of the FOV from the light source. It has noticeably better contrast than the Browning.

The ED shows the light scattered across the FOV, radiating out and away from the light source. A starburst is the only way I can describe it. It has noticeably better contrast than the SP.
The ED presumably has the best coatings, and glass.
It handles stray light differently than the SP, but because it interferes with the image more, I don't consider the way it handles it "better".
The differences I see seem to be strictly related to the different coatings.

I found a few articles about related issues, but am not able to digest all the included information, since all of this is new to me.
Page 1 of this pdf offers some causes and descriptions of stray light:
http://boojum.as.arizona.edu/~jill/MAESTRO_2007/References/stray_light_paper.pdf

HTML version:
http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache...f+stray+light+optics&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us
 
Tero: Did you ever see any of these phenom in the Conquests? If not, I doubt any of this makes any sense.
Yes, there was some, but because of the open eye cups, I think part of the experience was from light at that end, not from the objective. Hard to remember.
 
Thanks for the Stray Light clarification, gentlemen. I suppose I´ll never know until I see a pair of Frontiers. May I be so bold as to ask another question....has anyone compared the 8x43 Frontier ED to a pair of EL 8x32´s? I´m just wondering if the former are significantly brighter, give the 11mm of extra objective lens.
 
Kevin,
Thanks for the reply. I agree that "we really need a standard definition of these effects". I can't recall ever having seen the (thin)"ring" effect that you describe in #2. If I have, it didn't register as a real problem. Perhaps that's a very good sign for the Hawkes. BTW I like the term "glints". It sounds exactly like what it is. I wish all the manifestations/combinations of stray light were that easy to describe and/or understand.

Sancho,
I think FrankD decided against both the 8x32 and the 8.5x42 ELs after examining the Promaster EDs. (I believe it was on one of the Promaster threads.) That says alot in my mind.

APS
 
That's a very good paper. I missed out a couple of mechanisms including the most obvious (and the one I hope the get rid of first: "straight shots".

I suspect most of the issues we're talking about are multiple scatter problems and the correct sizing and plcement of baffles.

The test you describe using darkness and a bright light source is the most sensitive test for stray light but you need to calibrate that test with an excellent bin (an alpha bin) to see how well they do.

It is useful for sorting bins into order on how well they deal with stray light. It was a after a test like this that I sent a Vortex Hurricane back as it clearly had stray light problems (you could see them in normal use but the "moon at night" test showed how bad they were compared to some other bins).

I have three very similar binoculars. The Browning 8x32, which my dad actually has now, the Pentax DCF SP 8x32, and the Pentax DCF ED 8x32. Specs are almost identical for all three, and aside from some cosmetics, the only real difference between them is their coatings and the claimed use of some ED glass element in the SP, more in the ED.

That's an unsupported assumption.

They similar in the sense that they have two barrels and are about the same size with the same sized objectives ;)

They almost certainly have different designs of multilayer coatings and phase-compensating coatings but those coatings are similar in more ways than they differ. The real test for AR coating (to differentiate them is to look for direct ghosts (specular reflections between the lens elements) and even that depends a bit on optical design.

They do differ in optical design. Even though you can't see it from the outside.

AFAIK the Browning (Bushnell Legend clone) doesn't have an aspherical elements in the eyepiece but the two Pentax designs do (the SP introduced them, IIRC). So the eyepiece designs are probably different. They may also differ in their overall optical design in some ways: number of groups, number of elements, focuser design, number of elements in objective, eyepiece and focuser. It seems in this case though they have the same number of elements (5) int he same number of groups (3) in the eyepieces.

And they certainly differ in the fine optical design (you can get the similar specs in many different ways). When you put ED glass in a bin you don't just add ED (though I think Swift did in the 820/820ED) but you optimize the whole design to minimize stay color (not just longitudinal CA (objective) and transverse CA (eyepeice) but dispersion in the prism too. That might mean going to a more complex eyepiece design. Pentax design style is rather different from Bushnell design style (in their other bins) especially over field of view and field curvature (a narrow FOV and flat field is what makes a Pentax a Pentax, IMHO). I suspect under the skin you'd see some of that in these superficially similar bins.

And then there's the interior tube design (coating and shaping), eyepiece lens edge blackening, baffling and positioning of field stops which differ in each design and contribute most to controlling off-axis stray light in test you describe.

It's a problem for us "optical hobbyists" that this stuff is not better revealed to use. Bins are unfortunately mostly "black boxes" for us.
 
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But even in your sleep you did post a link to a very good paper ;)

I all interested in stray light should read it.

Perhaps we can come up with a series of simple (standardized) tests for stray light? It might help us compare results.
 
found where

Ok Frank...so where did you find the Hawke Frontier ED at $425. Google and I can't find any at that price?

Thanks for the report on these.
 
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