New compact Zeiss Dialyt scope (1 Viewer)

John Russell · Mar 1, 2010

Zeiss are bringing out a new compact 18-45x65 scope next month.
It is rubber armoured, fully waterproof, has front focussing and will have a recommended price here in Germany of €1195.
Here is a link:- http://www.orniwelt.de/products/Spektive/Zeiss/Spektive-und-Okulare/Zeiss-Dialyt-18-45x65.html
Looks like this could sound the death knell for the draw-tube scopes from Meopta, Optolyth and Swarovski.
Now if only they had used Abbe-König prisms, but judging by the compact dimensions, it probably has S-Ps.

John

Kevin Conville · Mar 1, 2010

Something's fishy here John. Why does the photo look like it came from an Edmund's catalog from say 1960, folded and carried in a wallet?

John Russell · Mar 1, 2010

Kevin Conville said:
Something's fishy here John. Why does the photo look like it came from an Edmund's catalog from say 1960, folded and carried in a wallet?

This is the dealer, who jumped the deadline on the new DiaScopes.
On a German forum another Zeiss dealer confirmed that it is NOT an April fool's joke.

John

dalat · Mar 2, 2010

Now Orniwelt changed the release date to 15.4, seems they want to avoid the impression of April fool's

But they better should change the pic then and give some specs.

Front focussing and the shape of the scope gives the impression that something of the photoscope has been used here.

Btw, the same shop recently announced 12x and 15x56 Victory bins, and removed them shortly afterwards. Seems they are prone to premature release of information...

Kevin Purcell · Mar 2, 2010

premature release of information

Speaking of which

See the other commentary on the Zeiss New Scopes thread (where this came up a few days ago

). Post 45 and beyond has some useful commentary.

http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=1744683&postcount=46

Not sure what AK prisms would buy (aside from making the scope longer) given dielectric mirrors on SP prisms. Going for porro prism would make a bigger difference but would rather wreck the lines of the scope.

BTW, 1195 Euros = 1617 U.S. dollars. So cheaper than a Diascope but will they do an angled version?

henry link · Mar 2, 2010

An AK prism would buy a little extra light transmission, about the same as Porro. It might not add significantly to the length because the prism is a small thing at the back of the scope so not much of the total optical path is involved. The design of the objective will be the main determinant of length.

Swarovski's 75mm draw-tube scopes used AK prisms back in the 80's. There was a "short" version (seen in the diagram below) that had a 5 element objective and an overall length of 400mm. Later Swarovski changed to a simple doublet with a Schmidt-Pechan prism and the length went up to 436mm.

It looks to me like the Zeiss scope is directed at the hunting and "tactical" markets. In the very incomplete description there's no mention of FL glass. Without that it will certainly be optically inferior to the 65mm Diascope.

Edit: I just noticed that there are now proper photos at the linked dealer site. Looks like a draw-tube scope without the draw-tube which would be advantageous for sealing. Overall length looks to be about 370mm. There appear to be four peep sights arranged around the front so that one will always be usable as the objective is rotated for focusing.

John Russell · Mar 2, 2010

henry link said:
In the very incomplete description there's no mention of FL glass.

Very unlikely I think, as with zoom eyepiece it is €550 cheaper than the new 65mm DiaScope without.
Nevertheless, It would be an ideal travel scope for that air trip to an exotic location and would even function with a monopod at the lower magnifications.
As from today, there are better illustrations on the Orniwelt site.

John

Kevin Purcell · Mar 2, 2010

Henry: If you calculate the total transmission of the optics the slight bump from TIR reflectivity in the AK compared the 99%+ dielectric mirror in the SP (and couple of minor losses from either side of the air gap in the SP) pales compared to the other losses in air/glass transitions in the optics. You just can't see the difference any more.

I think Zeiss, like most other makes, knows that making an AR coating a fraction better like from 99.8% to 99.9% transmission per surface when it's used 10 times or more times is the bigger win in overall transmission.

The AK prism was a big win when the AR coatings weren't as good. Today, it's just long and traditional. The latter perhaps being more of a problem for Zeiss if they want to make more compact hardware that the public desire. And I say all of this as an owner of Zeiss AK and SP hardware.

The lack of FL glass makes it a lot less exciting. A sort of "Conquest" spotting scope.

Kevin Purcell · Mar 2, 2010

Drat, hit the wrong button!

New photos attached

John Russell · Mar 2, 2010

Kevin, it is perhaps of no great consequence, but in Schmidt-Pechan prisms there are two surfaces, which have to transmit AND perform total internal reflection, so a compromise has to be found in the AR coating.
The Abbe-König prism is IMHO the more elegant solution.

John

henry link · Mar 2, 2010

Kevin,

Yeah, I know the light transmission difference is small (about 2% according to Zeiss between the AK and SP FL binocular models), but in this scope the AK prism would come with no significant size penalty. Besides, small differences that are invisible separately eventually add up to something you can see. If the the higher transmission prism is used and the coatings are improved by 0.1% per surface then you could see a little difference from both improvements added together that couldn't be seen from either one alone. That's the way we obsessives think :-0

Henry

Kevin Purcell · Mar 2, 2010

I think that's the first post of yours that made me laugh out loud, Henry

Thanks for that!

John Russell said:
Kevin, it is perhaps of no great consequence, but in Schmidt-Pechan prisms there are two surfaces, which have to transmit AND perform total internal reflection, so a compromise has to be found in the AR coating.

Yes, that's where the couple of percent come from that Henry quotes. I've actually written about this on BF before (and even ran the numbers). The Swaro paper I pointed too talks about choosing coatings for those surfaces (single layer or just a couple of layers coatings worked best).

But you still can't see that 2% difference.

Though as Henry points out, you can obsess about it. And we do

Hermann · Jun 30, 2010

henry link said:
It looks to me like the Zeiss scope is directed at the hunting and "tactical" markets. In the very incomplete description there's no mention of FL glass. Without that it will certainly be optically inferior to the 65mm Diascope.

I'm sure you're right. However, I've got a feeling it'll probably still be a pretty good scope. Zeiss can't really afford to produce a scope that's not up to scratch.

Looking forward to hearing some opinions on it when it finally hits the market.

Hermann

Fernando np · Jun 30, 2010

Hermann,
[QUOZeiss can't really afford to produce a scope that's not up to scratch.

TE][/QUOTE]
Really? Who can remember the Zeiss 30X60? It as all kind of attractives features apart from optics. Some photos in http://www.monocular.info/zeiss30X60.htm .
By the way, nothing against Zeiss. Even, changing my 8.5X42ELs
for a pair of 8x56FL is under consideration.

Fernando

Hermann · Jul 1, 2010

Fernando np said:
Really? Who can remember the Zeiss 30X60? It as all kind of attractives features apart from optics.

I know that scope pretty well. A friend of mine used one for many years as his travel scope. When the 30x60 came out, it was just about the only *really* compact scope on the market. Optically it was fairly sharp (once you got used to its numerous peculiarities caused by its unique optical design), but the contrast was quite poor, even by yesterday's standards. But it was certainly usable.

Hermann

kijker73 · Jul 25, 2010

The Zeiss website now gives more detailed information, specifications, and images:
http://www.zeiss.de/c12567a80033d63e/Contents-Frame/a69f27bd6e86a01ec12577290053975a

John Russell · Sep 13, 2010

I was able to get a look at this scope at the Bird Festival in Bochum on Saturday.
Zeiss say it is particularly robust, which would tend to confirm that hunters are the targeted customers but they were not about to admit this at a bird festival.
It is focussed at the objective end (anticlockwise to infinity) and there are four sights spaced at 90° on the focussing ring. These of course would only be of use if the scope is mounted on a tripod.
The eyepiece has a fold-down rubber eyecup and zooming is rather stiff and slow.
Image quality was very clean up to the 45x maximum but the FOV at 18x (40 m @ 1000 m) is uncomfortably narrow. The AFOVs translate to 40° at 18x and 55° at 45x.
No doubt the Dialyt scope will be a strong competitor for the draw-tube scopes from Meopta, Optolyth and Swarovski but IMO it could have been so much more if Zeiss had offered it with a WA eyepiece around 25x, clockwise focussing and a twist-up eyecup.
At its price of €1195 it would then be very strong competition for other 65 mm birding scopes.

Hermann · Sep 16, 2010

John Russell said:
Image quality was very clean up to the 45x maximum but the FOV at 18x (40 m @ 1000 m) is uncomfortably narrow. The AFOVs translate to 40° at 18x and 55° at 45x.

I hope I'll be able to have a close look at this scope in the next few weeks. It may well prove to be quite a nice scope for travelling. Sure, it's bigger and heavier than my current travel scope, the Nikon ED 50, but I don't trust that scope all that much in difficult conditions. I certainly wouldn't trust it on a long trip where I couldn't replace it if something went wrong. And if the Zeiss people say their scope is particularly robust it probably is. They're usually pretty careful with such claims.

The big question is IMO how good the optics are in comparison to one of the good compact scopes on the market, especially at 45x. Zeiss says the objective is just an achromat, so I expect it to have more CA than the Diascopes, but it's fairly long for a 65mm scope, that may help somewhat to control CA. Also Zeiss are often pretty conservative in their claims, so even if they call it an "achromat" they may well have done something to keep CA down.

I'm not all that worried about the narrow field of view, by the way. My first good scope was the venerable Kowa TS-1 with it's orthoscopic eyepieces that were sharp but narrow, and even today, when I can easily use WA eyepieces on my Nikon, I find I use the narrow 20-60x zoom more than any of the wideangles. A wide field of view isn't everything.

Hermann

Kevin Purcell · Jan 28, 2011

Only $1300 in the US.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/4859347/1

ZEISS. I knew ahead of time that the only new thing that I was going to see was their Dialyt 18-45x65 Field Spotter which they claim will be in stock in the next few weeks and will sell for $1299.99. It has a nice robust feel to it, armor coated, easy to focus, high quality ZEISS optics, only 15.5" long and about 2.5 pounds. It has a built on tripod mount with good position for balance. I think it is a winner and it was nice to see it not priced close to $2000.00 as one would expect.

berryns · Jan 28, 2011

That price is amazing. I am very interested to get my greasy hands on one and have a look through it. Has anyone had the opportunity?

New compact Zeiss Dialyt scope (1 Viewer)

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