Komz 8X30 and Komz 10X50 ? (1 Viewer)

Hello Alex,
before some time I tried to order Kruger Caldera from UA shop binokli.com.ua
http://binokli.com.ua/component/pag...er_id,0/option,com_virtuemart/lang,ukrainian/
but it seems that this shop do not answered at all. It is only shop in Europe where Kruger optical can be found..
Do you know this shop?
Price seems interesting, I think taht with duties it will be below 300€...

Best regards Kestrel

alexbino said:

Come to Ukraine and you see everything, I'll arrange a tour of a few optical enterprises.

Ukrainian market of binoculars has a lot of vendors, from cheap Chinese fake to Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Swarovski, Leica, Carl Zeiss, etc.

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Hi Alex,

With figures from 2011 Index Mundi lists Ukraine 54th in the world (out of 139) for binocular imports, $1.8 million gross imports of binoculars, scopes, monoculars, and mountings, and rising sharply.

I read that the figures were derived from the UN stats. It must be an interesting market, and I wonder how big the domestic production is ?

. Hi Alex,
I have several Canon image stabilised binoculars and have used them extensively for almost 15 years. Including perhaps 10 years of extensive use of the 18×50 IS.

I do not use these or any other binoculars in combat, nor do I intend to.

I can assure you that my 30×50 Yukon splits closer double stars than the Canon 18×50 merely by resting the front of the 30 x 50 Yukon against the double glazing. Even with the image stabiliser on using the 18×50 it does not split closer double stars than the Yukon.. I rarely use tripods with binoculars.
I doubt whether many birdwatchers either are interested in using them for combat although they are more suited for astronomy than birdwatching.

The 30×50 Yukon, at least the one I have, is not junk. There are big gains from using mirrors rather than prisms.
The real problem is the low transmission and yes the low contrast for daytime use. They are not designed for combat use as far as I know. I have not used the later Yukon 20×50.

I use binoculars for normal purposes, astronomy and general terrestrial viewing. I have no use for an unnecessarily heavy binocular that meets military standards, when a much lighter usable binocular suffices.

Yes, the Hong Kong and Macau binoculars were very poor but they never stooped to the awfully low standards of some of the Chinese binoculars. I think though that the poorest quality Hong Kong binoculars were probably made in the 1960s and 1970s rather than later. And even these were better than the worst Chinese products.
However, what was truly awful was a Halina cheap film camera made in Hong Kong. This truly was awfully made.

What I value is a binocular that works mainly for astronomy that is lightweight and shows very good star images and splits close double stars. The Yukon 30×50 has very nice star images both in focus and out of focus and these star images are much better than with many binoculars that use prisms. The Yukon 30×50 is actually rather heavy but still okay for me. There are very few 30 times binoculars that use prisms that actually work.

As to the overall total number of Chinese binoculars that have been made I would think that 50% should never have left the factories and should have been binned.

I once collected almost all USSR military bins including the hard-to-find All Weather 7 & 10. They are no way optically superior than Habicht which I also owned (both 8x30 & 7x42).

They are supposed to be collector items. For actual daily use, a Nikon action optically could blow them out of water.

winwinbino said:

I once collected almost all USSR military bins including the hard-to-find All Weather 7 & 10. They are no way optically superior than Habicht which I also owned (both 8x30 & 7x42).

They are supposed to be collector items. For actual daily use, a Nikon action optically could blow them out of water.

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Did you had Komz 8x30 and Zoomz 10X40 first version?
I tested today against cz 7x50 and they were both sharper than the cz in mint condition!

.. A good condition Swarovski 8×30 and 7×42 binocular would indeed probably be better than any commercial Russian binocular.
However, these Swarovski binoculars and also the 10×40 are often found second-hand in very well used condition. And they may have been re-collimated by nonprofessionals.
In a case like this the performance both mechanically and optically can be very poor indeed.
This also applies to classic Zeiss binoculars and also classic Leitz binoculars.
In fact I'm amazed, firstly by how terribly people treat their binoculars, and secondly how awful the performance can become.

So if a good Soviet binocular is compared to a bad second-hand Swarovski it can indeed be much better.

As to the Nikon action binoculars blowing away all Soviet/Russian binoculars this is simply not the case.
I have a very good selection of Nikon action binoculars and also very good selection of Soviet/Russian binoculars.
There are many Soviet/Russian binoculars that are as good as the Nikon action.

I do not fool myself that Soviet/Russian binoculars are anywhere near the best made. They are usually good value, mainly basic design binoculars. But there are also very interesting commercially available odd designs. Some of the Soviet binoculars have extraordinary accuracy of their optical surfaces.
Commonly available prisms from some early Soviet binoculars exported to the UK were measured as being one 20th wave accurate. I don't think many other binoculars equal this although some of the Zeiss and their predecessor handmade binoculars may be this accurate.

As to countries which can produce absolutely the finest optics. These include the Soviet Union, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, the USA, Japan and probably others.

The 6 inch Ross-Williamson survey lens, which is absolutely enormous, cost £83,000 to make about 1960. That is £1 million plus nowadays. The register plate even in those days alone cost thousands of pounds.
48 inch French lenses cost £250,000 in the 1980s.
Some American lenses were millions of dollars.
Some Soviet mirror lenses for tanks apparently had one 20th wave optics.
A 6 inch possibly British aircraft mirror lens could lock on the door handle of a car at 90 miles.
the 75 cm F6 .3 Zeiss Telikon survey lens for the 1930s survey cameras have staggering accuracy on their surfaces. It also has an internal Venetian blind shutter. And the rear element is much larger than the front. It was used on 30 cm times 30 cm film. There was also the 50 cm Tessar and the 20 cm Topogon, with the last one mentioned also being exceptionally well-made.
I think that some of the 1918 to 1920 120 cm/7 Zeiss triplets were also hand aspherical, as were several later British lenses.

Many countries can produce absolutely staggeringly good optics. And when one comes across these optical gems it is an absolute pleasure to test them.