Lars
As an owner of both the 6.5X Fury and 7X42 EDG, can you give your thoughts on how the image of the Fury compares. Are the differences in the usual optical properties glaringly obvious in favor of the Nikon, or more subtle ? Also, have you been able to do a first hand comparison between the EDG and the current Swarovski EL ?
Thanks Bruce
Bruce, the EDG 7x42 is for me a lot more like an 8x42 with 6 mm exit pupil if you understand what I mean. Before mentioning the optical diffrences I must point out the handling differences and the perceived suitability for different tasks.
As you know, the Fury is lightning-fast for chasing warblers. Everything with it contributes to this speed - the big FOV, the huge depth of field and the fast and light focus knob.
This type of birding does not necessarily require freedom from CA or super high boosted resolution. The magnification can be a little bit too weak at times. Now you know why it didn't make it all the way to become my only birding binocular.
My objective with purchasing the EDG 7x42 was to get the best possible allround binocular. I prioritize depth of field and have found that more modest magnifications nearly always deliver all the detail needed for ID purposes and that the advantages of depth of field and a big FOV makes a good 7x42 the best allround binocular. Another point is the comfortable view it delivers, with plenty room for the eyes to roam around.
The configuration is slightly more "balanced" than the 6.5x32. The 0.5x magnification difference is visible. The comfort of the even bigger exit pupil is noticeable, as is the performance when using them at night.
The 6.5x32 can be at least as bright as the naked eye in darkness, but the 7x42 gives the impression of turning on a light.
The perceived depth of field is narrower than the 6.5x32, partly because of the greater magnification but also the big exit pupil and the extremely flat field.
This creates the impression of a very bright 8x42 rather than a 7x.
The focus knob is considerably stiffer than the Fury's, which delays the warbler chasing quite a bit.
The image of the 6.5x32 is very good but the sweet spot is not huge, maybe 65%. It does not have a CA problem but CA can be detected in adverse condition. The backlight properties are surprisingly good and the colour rendition is almost perfectly neutral.
The EDG, in contrast, has a sweet spot that approaches 100% and much of the blur near the edge can be refocused, if not everything.
If looking for CA, CA will be found but that goes for the SV EL, SLC and the FL as well, just to mention a few binos I tortured with this test.
In everyday birding I've found no serious CA.
The EDG is extremely sharp and the great contrast contributes to this.
Overall, the image is slightly more brilliant than the Fury's but by a small margin.
To sum it up, I feel the EDG 7x42 delivers what I expected. It is suitable for 24/7 birding, short and long distance, does not favour any particular group of colours. Brown hues are well defined, blue is sparkling and white is white.
All colours seem to glow with vibrancy. It is very relaxing to look through and the housing as well as the view yields a luxurious, confidence-inspiring impression of quality. Thus, it is a "holistic" experience. If the binocular is important, the EDG delivers a "glaringly obviously" better experience.
If you're blown away with what you watch in the nature, you won't think about what binocular you're using right then.
We both know how spectacularly good the Fury 6.5x32 is, but the tiny beauty spots that it has aren't there in the EDG, albeit at the expense of some speed.
If only the best is good enough, the EDG is good value.
But with maybe 85% of the EDG's field performance, the Fury was a tremendeous value.
Re the SV EL, let me say I'm not so fond of it and I prefer the Nikon view.
On the other hand, I was mighty impressed with the newest SLC 8x42.
//L
PS. The Fury 8x42 arrived today. It will be a good spare binocular to store at my workplace. It has a decidedly different colour bias than the 6.5x32 and it is far from as bright, too.
The colour bias goes towards a contrast-enhancing peachy hue and the light transmission is visibly lower than the 6.5x32, the E II and even the Meostar 8x32.
In fact, the colour reminds me of the original HG/Venturer I owned a while ago. The lateral CA is visible but not annoying and less than the Nikon HG or Monarch X.
