Zeiss SF - Allbinos review (1 Viewer)

Julian61 · Aug 1, 2016

Bwana1 said:
I love my SF's, and appreciate Lee's advice and helpful PM's...he's one of the good guys

Troubador said:
James
Thank you for your kind support.

Lee

I support the above. I'm sure the finer details pointed out by optical experts on this forum are correct and meaningful to some. I have had some experience of SVs, HTs and HD+s in comparison with SFs all at 8 or 8.5x. Each had stunning optical quality. Some have mentioned a yellowish cast on the SFs, something I haven't detected though I positively enjoyed what seemed to me to be a brighter image compared with the HT which makes no sense at all, I know. As important to me as the optical quality, which I take as a given, has been the brilliant ergonomics of the SF. While not quite in my dotage, a comfortable hold is important to me and this is one area where the SF beats the others by a distance - not a very scientific measurement but for an ordinary birder, very significant. And FOV -wise way ahead of its competitors. For a butterfly watcher this, along with its great minimum focal distance, adds more value to a great bin. For those unimpressed by the SF these other attributes are far more significant than maybe they think - strange that they tend to be ignored in the negative coverage. For all that, I've really enjoyed the cut and thrust of this thread and thanks for the cricket joke Lee. I'll be at Edgbaston later this week and wondering about empty seats!

Troubador · Aug 1, 2016

Bwana1 said:
I love my SF's, and appreciate Lee's advice and helpful PM's...he's one of the good guys

Thanks Eric

Lee

Troubador · Aug 1, 2016

Julian61 said:
I support the above. I'm sure the finer details pointed out by optical experts on this forum are correct and meaningful to some. I have had some experience of SVs, HTs and HD+s in comparison with SFs all at 8 or 8.5x. Each had stunning optical quality. Some have mentioned a yellowish cast on the SFs, something I haven't detected though I positively enjoyed what seemed to me to be a brighter image compared with the HT which makes no sense at all, I know. As important to me as the optical quality, which I take as a given, has been the brilliant ergonomics of the SF. While not quite in my dotage, a comfortable hold is important to me and this is one area where the SF beats the others by a distance - not a very scientific measurement but for an ordinary birder, very significant. And FOV -wise way ahead of its competitors. For a butterfly watcher this, along with its great minimum focal distance, adds more value to a great bin. For those unimpressed by the SF these other attributes are far more significant than maybe they think - strange that they tend to be ignored in the negative coverage. For all that, I've really enjoyed the cut and thrust of this thread and thanks for the cricket joke Lee. I'll be at Edgbaston later this week and wondering about empty seats!

Hi Julian
Thank you for your kind support.

The unique balance and 'comfortable hold' (as you accurately put it) of SF is an attractive feature for me as I like to observe Otters' behaviour (and seals and birds) for as long as possible with the bins up to my eyes without lowering them. On the Western Isles recently we witnessed behaviour between mother and well-grown youngster that we have never seen before and it went on for about 45 minutes. Yes I have watched for as long as this and longer with other models but not without approaching discomfort.

If all you use your bins for is a quick look before you get your scope on the subject then this attribute would not be as significant, but for behaviour observation its great.

Glad you liked the cricket joke. What a 2nd test and although Joe Root was a deserving man of the match, to me it was a close call with Chris Woakes whose 58 runs as nightwatchman and 7 wickets as bowler were just fantastic.

Lee

Torview · Aug 1, 2016

Julian and Lee,

Well made points, comfort in both handling and viewing for extended periods and in varying light is a crucial part of the package.

One of the reasons I like the 7x42 UVHD+, so relaxing to look through.

Surely its time hyperbole like "killing" was left out of these interesting discussions, anyone with half a brain knows its utter rubbish.

Maybe the secret sauce chefs at Swarovski could find a way to eradicate glare in the SV, an area where it trails miserably at the back of the Alpha pack in my experience, certainly compared to the HT.

ceasar · Aug 1, 2016

[email protected] said:
:-O
" I would dearly, dearly love to know exactly what sort of secret sauce special glass concoction Swarovski is using there ??!!!"

I have asked Swarovski this question and your answer is correct. Their "secret sauce" is very special coatings coupled with very special, very high quality glass. You are correct Chosun in that the Swarovski transmission is phenomenal in that it is so flat and so high especially in the blue spectrum where our rods are coming into play in low light. What is really remarkable is the Zeiss HT has an AK prism and the Swarovski has a SP prism yet the Swarovski is still killing the Zeiss HT in low light.

Troubador has responded to the comment above in post #80 but I would like more clarification because I am a bit confused by the conclusion reached in the last sentence.

Transmission graphs of their various highs and lows in the light spectrum notwithstanding; if you want to determine how binoculars perform in low light don't you have to test them in low light?

Bob

james holdsworth · Aug 1, 2016

Dennis is just using hyperbole to bait people, as he has done for years. Kids stuff, but the mods think it's just fine so we all have to put up with it.

Troubador · Aug 1, 2016

james holdsworth said:
Dennis is just using hyperbole to bait people, as he has done for years. Kids stuff, but the mods think it's just fine so we all have to put up with it.

Yes but he is mixing it in with getting gooey over CJ as well. He's in lurve :eek!:

Gijs's graphs speak for themselves.

Lee

Troubador · Aug 1, 2016

ceasar said:
Troubador has responded to the comment above in post #80 but I would like more clarification because I am a bit confused by the conclusion reached in the last sentence.

Transmission graphs of their various highs and lows in the light spectrum notwithstanding; if you want to determine how binoculars perform in low light don't you have to test them in low light?

Bob

Interesting point Bob and then there are the phases of spectra that dusks pass through: very pink, then suddenly steely blue-grey then grey then gone.

Lee

denco@comcast.n · Aug 1, 2016

Troubador said:
The EL has a very nice flat transmission curve but I am not sure 'killing' is quite the right word here. See Gijs's graphs below. Note however that the EL tested was from 2015 and Swaro's coatings may have changed since then.

Lee

I am talking about a 10x42 HT and a 10x42 SV based on the Allbinos transmission graph's. If you compare the graph's between the HT and the SV the SV is really outperforming the HT in the blue end of the spectrum. The blue end of the spectrum is the type of light that we see with our rods under low light so based on those transmission graphs the SV will outperform the HT under low light. This is remarkable giving the Zeiss has an AK prism and the Swarovski has an SP prism. You can say Allbino's graphs are inaccurate but I will bet they are fairly close so the reasoning still is valid.

Gijs van Ginkel · Aug 1, 2016

Dennis, post 89,
The peak sensitivity maximum of the rods is at about 505 nm and not around 420 nm where their sensitivity is already very low and if you look carefuly to the spectra the transmission of the HT is higher at the maximum sensitivity wavelenght of 5050 nm then that of the SV. So your speculation may be wrong. Did you already compare both binoculars or is it just speculation on the basis of the spectra you showed? We do not see as yet an incline to an increase in the transmission spectra of the SV 10x50 in the wavelenght regions of 450 nm. So you have to do a little more work before you can reach the conclusions formulated in your post.
Gijs van Ginkel

Gijs van Ginkel · Aug 1, 2016

In my post 90 I made a typing error, 5050 nm must of course be 505 nm.
Gijs

Troubador · Aug 1, 2016

[email protected] said:
I am talking about a 10x42 HT and a 10x42 SV based on the Allbinos transmission graph's.

Yes indeed but Allbinos come out with some wonky looking results whereas Gijs' results and methodology have been verified by third parties so I prefer his graphs. And Gijs has already replied to you about your conclusions.

Lee

Gijs van Ginkel · Aug 1, 2016

Dennnis, my remarks in post 90 are valid for the 10x42's also from Swarovski (SV) and Zeiss (HT).
I have very good reasons to conclude, that the spectra of Albinos you showed for the 10x42 SV are not correct.
Gijs van Ginkel

elkcub · Aug 2, 2016

Even though I much prefer Gijs' transmission graphs to Allbinos', there is room for improvement with both. First, the Human Luminosity Function is based on a standard visible spread from 380 to 780 nm. Gijs' graphs display transmission between 400 and 700 nm, and Allbinos typically includes transmissions between 300 and 900 nm. Simply put, Gijs' graphs address most of the visible spectrum, whereas Allbinos' include invisible ultraviolet and infrared, which are irrelevant from a vision perspective.* Second, as the Wiki article mentions, 555 nm is the standard peak of the photopic function and 507 nm is the standard peak of the scotopic function, hence, they should be used as the common reference points. However, the so-called "day" and "night" values are not these reference points on the transmission curve either. They are defined as the dot products (i.e., integrals) of the transmission curve with the two sensitivity functions, respectively. I believe Gijs' measurements are done that way, but I'm not sure about Allbinos.

I still wish the parties involved would publish a standard table of transmission values at 5 nm intervals across the visible spectrum. It would be so much easier to make meaningful comparisons, both of the transmission results and the binoculars being evaluated. Why is that so much to ask? Obviously, the data are there.

Ed

* They might have some value for assessing potential retinal damage, if accurate. But that's a different issue.

denco@comcast.n · Aug 2, 2016

Troubador said:
Yes indeed but Allbinos come out with some wonky looking results whereas Gijs' results and methodology have been verified by third parties so I prefer his graphs. And Gijs has already replied to you about your conclusions.

Lee

Troubador what third parties have verified Gijs transmission graph's. I have never heard of them? Could you post some of their results and their methodology. These graphs are very interesting because they can really describe a binoculars performance objectively if done accurately.

denco@comcast.n · Aug 2, 2016

Gijs van Ginkel said:
Dennnis, my remarks in post 90 are valid for the 10x42's also from Swarovski (SV) and Zeiss (HT).
I have very good reasons to conclude, that the spectra of Albinos you showed for the 10x42 SV are not correct.
Gijs van Ginkel

Other than Allbino's results are different than yours what are the very good reasons you feel there testing is inaccurate. They seem to have pretty good methodology and know what they are talking about. Maybe we should contact Allbino's and get some more explanations on their testing methods and not just assume they are faulty. Here is a description of their methodology. Where are they doing wrong?

"TRANSMISSION (15 points) - Currently we use spectophotometer to obtain the transmission graph in the range of wavelenghts from 380 to 900 nm. The method is very precise one and allows us to minimalize uncertainties to around 1%. In older tests we used three less accurate methods:

We mount a high level digital camera to an eyepiece (ocular lens) and we take a picture of diode. Then after standard procedure of data reduction, we carry out aperture photometry by comparing diode brightnesses (measured by eyepiece + camera configuration). Results depend only on lens diameter (which we know) and light transmission (which we can count).
We mount a high class CCTV video camera and record diverse luminosity star clusters (for example ‘Pleiades’) on a very starlit sky. The differences in range results from different transmission.
Another method rests on projecting intensive sunlight onto shaded white screen. A part of this screen is directly sunlit and to shaded part we glue a ruler. The screen is located in a specific distance to line up and cover screen surface brightness with projected image of sunlight surface brightness. Now we take a picture of this projected image of sun by camera. The ruler let us measure the scale of taken picture. A proportion of measured sun image in relation to actual lens area gives us the transmission.
How do we test binoculars? - Description of test methods and categories.
By doing many measurements and using independent methods, we estimate the precision of transmission estimate in range of 3-5%."

http://www.allbinos.com/160.1-article-Colour_rendering_in_binoculars_and_lenses.html

denco@comcast.n · Aug 2, 2016

elkcub said:
Even though I much prefer Gijs' transmission graphs to Allbinos', there is room for improvement with both. First, the Human Luminosity Function is based on a standard visible spread from 380 to 780 nm. Gijs' graphs display transmission between 400 and 700 nm, and Allbinos typically includes transmissions between 300 and 900 nm. Simply put, Gijs' graphs address most of the visible spectrum, whereas Allbinos' include invisible ultraviolet and infrared, which are irrelevant from a vision perspective.* Second, as the Wiki article mentions, 555 nm is the standard peak of the photopic function and 507 nm is the standard peak of the scotopic function, hence, they should be used as the common reference points. However, the so-called "day" and "night" values are not these reference points on the transmission curve either. They are defined as the dot products (i.e., integrals) of the transmission curve with the two sensitivity functions, respectively. I believe Gijs' measurements are done that way, but I'm not sure about Allbinos.

I still wish the parties involved would publish a standard table of transmission values at 5 nm intervals across the visible spectrum. It would be so much easier to make meaningful comparisons, both of the transmission results and the binoculars being evaluated. Why is that so much to ask? Obviously, the data are there.

Ed

* They might have some value for assessing potential retinal damage, if accurate. But that's a different issue.

"Allbinos' include invisible ultraviolet and infrared, which are irrelevant from a vision perspective."

They may be irrelevant from a vision perspective but I still think they are indicative of a binoculars transmission performance. I would rather see the whole spectrum myself.

elkcub · Aug 2, 2016

[email protected] said:
Troubador what third parties have verified Gijs transmission graph's. I have never heard of them? Could you post some of their results. These graphs are very interesting because they can really describe a binoculars performance objectively if done accurately.

I believe Gijs has made reference on several occasions to comparison with manufacturer's data as a validation source. But, of course, he would have to confirm if I'm remembering right. In any event, he recognizes the need for validation, which is very commendable in my book. :t:

Ed

NDhunter · Aug 2, 2016

elkcub said:
Even though I much prefer Gijs' transmission graphs to Allbinos', there is room for improvement with both. First, the Human Luminosity Function is based on a standard visible spread from 380 to 780 nm. Gijs' graphs display transmission between 400 and 700 nm, and Allbinos typically includes transmissions between 300 and 900 nm. Simply put, Gijs' graphs address most of the visible spectrum, whereas Allbinos' include invisible ultraviolet and infrared, which are irrelevant from a vision perspective.* Second, as the Wiki article mentions, 555 nm is the standard peak of the photopic function and 507 nm is the standard peak of the scotopic function, hence, they should be used as the common reference points. However, the so-called "day" and "night" values are not these reference points on the transmission curve either. They are defined as the dot products (i.e., integrals) of the transmission curve with the two sensitivity functions, respectively. I believe Gijs' measurements are done that way, but I'm not sure about Allbinos.

I still wish the parties involved would publish a standard table of transmission values at 5 nm intervals across the visible spectrum. It would be so much easier to make meaningful comparisons, both of the transmission results and the binoculars being evaluated. Why is that so much to ask? Obviously, the data are there.

Ed

* They might have some value for assessing potential retinal damage, if accurate. But that's a different issue.

Ed:

I agree with your post. I let Arek at Allbinos know about this thread, and I
hope he can respond to the topic at hand.

It is good to see all the new reviews of the Zeiss binoculars recently, he has been busy.

Jerry

denco@comcast.n · Aug 2, 2016

elkcub said:
Even though I much prefer Gijs' transmission graphs to Allbinos', there is room for improvement with both. First, the Human Luminosity Function is based on a standard visible spread from 380 to 780 nm. Gijs' graphs display transmission between 400 and 700 nm, and Allbinos typically includes transmissions between 300 and 900 nm. Simply put, Gijs' graphs address most of the visible spectrum, whereas Allbinos' include invisible ultraviolet and infrared, which are irrelevant from a vision perspective.* Second, as the Wiki article mentions, 555 nm is the standard peak of the photopic function and 507 nm is the standard peak of the scotopic function, hence, they should be used as the common reference points. However, the so-called "day" and "night" values are not these reference points on the transmission curve either. They are defined as the dot products (i.e., integrals) of the transmission curve with the two sensitivity functions, respectively. I believe Gijs' measurements are done that way, but I'm not sure about Allbinos.

I still wish the parties involved would publish a standard table of transmission values at 5 nm intervals across the visible spectrum. It would be so much easier to make meaningful comparisons, both of the transmission results and the binoculars being evaluated. Why is that so much to ask? Obviously, the data are there.

Ed

* They might have some value for assessing potential retinal damage, if accurate. But that's a different issue.

If you interpolate on this night luminosity response graph it looks like the blues fall in at 460nm where the rods are operating best. The Zeiss is not transmitting as high at that point on the Allbino's graph.

http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/color-perception-4/perception-4.htm

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