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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Meopta amazing test results! German magazine (1 Viewer)

3

308CAL

Well-known member
http://www.meoptasportsoptics.com/sqlcache/unsere-jagd-6-2013-fernglastest-8x42.pdf

Would the 7x42 have even higher transmission?


So much for silver mirrors!!???
89 day 86 night!
Beats the Ultravid HD!
An extremely compact glass with extremely stable aluminium housing. The test glass heaviest with 910 gram was moss green rubber-reinforced. Thumb holes and Nop* pen, contribute to a secure grip. The rubber-reinforced combination roller is perfectly accessible. A wheel for the diopter sits on the top of the rollers. Both will be adjusted solely inside. The glass with non-removable rotating eyes is well balanced in the hand shells without intermediates. The resolution is very high and good edge sharpness. The huge field of 137 m / 1000 m can use glasses with low field of vision loss. The glass has a high light transmission with 89 percent (day) and 86 percent (night), although the night value drops greatly. The contrast is very good (HD*Glas). Offered is a very sharp, hel* les image with very good recognition of detail. The Meopta Meostar is suitable as all-round glass for day, dusk and night in good Moon light.

The Zeiss ht was 95/94 - wow
 
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I am confused. They are talking about the 8x42 Meostar and yet they mention HD glass. I am assuming their comment means ED glass but then Meopta doesn't have an 8x42 with ED glass. Or do they? ;)
 
Dear all,
HD stands for High Definition and that term alone does not tell us anything about the quality of the optical glass. Th term could also be used if Meopta had chosen for titanium parts in its binoculars (do not fear I am fairly sure they did not).
Gijs
 
Gijs van Ginkel said:
Dear all,
HD stands for High Definition and that term alone does not tell us anything about the quality of the optical glass. Th term could also be used if Meopta had chosen for titanium parts in its binoculars (do not fear I am fairly sure they did not).
Gijs
Click to expand...


Doesn't HD really, properly, stand for ''high density'', as in glass?
 
Thanks for posting, very interesting test because they also measure resolution.
Meopta transmission exceeds values claimed by Meopta, /maybe they improve coatings/.
Steiner also surprises, I do not think that their model will reach also very good values at its price. Wish they will test next time Conquest HD to see its resolution.

Best regards
 
This test will not fully load for me - and Google says the page is too large to translate. Could anyone add another working link?

The posted link just directs me to the N.A. home page.
 
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Thanks Kestrel.

The linked translated document was readable and understandable, if not exactly an easy read. The test itself is interesting, especially since they provide resolution measurements for all the binoculars. In these, what was notable was the large spread between the best and the worst, ranging from 3.33 to over 9. They did not say how these were arrived at, but from the numbers one can deduct that they had used some stepped resolution chart and a fixed distance to target, as well as boosted magnification. Of the tested binoculars, the Leica 8x42 Ultravid came out with highest resolution, even higher than Swaro 8.5x42. The tested sample of the Zeiss HT had a rather pronounced resolution difference between the two sides.

I'll have to take a closer look with better time.

Kimmo
 
308Cal, thanks for showing this, but the link doesn't work for me, too - may be not outside the USA. Kestrel1, thanks for your link, directly giving a very usable English transln.

Excellent article and test. Could someone please explain:
- What's the magazine?
- Transmission: how is the light level or condition "night" defined?
- Resolution: what are these discrete steps?
(There's a startling - to me - L-R difference in the Zeiss Victory HT!)
- Collimation: what are these figures?

PS Kimmo, as I send this in I see your post, but even after your description of the resolution test I don't quite understand that.
 
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pompadour said:
308Cal, thanks for showing this, but the link doesn't work for me, too - may be not outside the USA. Kestrel1, thanks for your link, directly giving a very usable English transln.
Excellent article and test. Could someone please explain:
- What's the magazine?
- Transmission: how is the light level or condition "night" defined?
- Resolution: what are these discrete steps?
(There's a startling - to me - L-R difference in the Zeiss Victory HT!)
- Collimation: what are these figures?
Click to expand...

1. That's a German hunting magazine: http://www.jagderleben.de/ Difficult to say if they're to be taken seriously, but I reckon they asked someone to do these tests for them. This is not the sort of test they could do themselves.

2. Tansmission probably just refers to the dominant wavelengths during the day and at night.

3. The resolution differences: They really are startling. But this test seems to confirm that there are rather large differences between the alphas and the chepaer brands. This differences between the two barrels of the Zeiss can easily be explained by sample variation. That's nothing new and has been commented on several time here by Kimmo and Henry.

Hermann
 
I took a second look, now putting into google the wording offered by Kestrel and getting the original German pdf version.

The resolution figures are given in ", which should mean arc seconds. The steps almost but not exactly corresponds with those in the USAF chart. If a fixed distance is used, then the tester must determine which of the patterns gets resolved, and will give as resolution the figure in seconds of arc that corresponds to that line pair frequency at that distance. Thereby the results will be stepwise like here, so that if 4,29" does not resolve but the next pattern up which is 4.92" does, then the resolution will be specified as 4.92" although it probably lies somewhere in between these two figures. A booster has been used since an unaided eye, no matter how sharp one's vision, will not be able to resolve 3" patterns through an 8x binocular. The best 8x42's I have measured have had an unaided resolution of about 8.2" with my eyes, and about 3.7" with the 3x12 Zeiss booster. The 3x booster is not enough magnification to show the full resolution capacity of 8x42 binoculars, which is why in this test the best figures were better.

For collimation, the figures are given as divergence, convergence and step (up-down misalignment), with "undetectable" said here to be 6', 2' and 2' respectively. This very likely refers to minutes of arc of misalignment between the optical axes of the two sides.

Of the resolution figures, when given in this way I would roughly estimate that anything better than 3.5" will bee seen as extremely sharp even by the most discriminating viewers, and anything above about 4" as slightly off. The ones measuring 6-9" are going to look obviously softer and less contrasty due to the nature of the aberrations that are necessary to compromise resolution that much. The better half of the Zeiss measured nearly diffraction-limited, which is remarkable for a binocular. It is good to know that Zeiss is capable of such level in this model. The two samples I have tested did not come close to such quality.

Kimmo
 
And ho do we understand High Density glass: lead containing optical glass? That was used for ages and is now generally abandoned for environmental reasons.
If a producer does not explain what HD actually stands for it does not mean anything and in the worst case it is used to impress only.
Gijs
 
Kimmo, thanks! Now I see (except will have to learn up, or re-learn, how the unaided eye can be affected by resolution finer than it can directly detect, in an optical system). Collimation: sorry, I had missed their footnote.
 
kabsetz said:
Of the resolution figures, when given in this way I would roughly estimate that anything better than 3.5" will bee seen as extremely sharp even by the most discriminating viewers, and anything above about 4" as slightly off. The ones measuring 6-9" are going to look obviously softer and less contrasty due to the nature of the aberrations that are necessary to compromise resolution that much. The better half of the Zeiss measured nearly diffraction-limited, which is remarkable for a binocular. It is good to know that Zeiss is capable of such level in this model. The two samples I have tested did not come close to such quality.

Kimmo
Click to expand...


Kimmo,

Although I am disappointed that the tested sample was not consistent, I am also a bit gratified to see that [at least one barrel] had such high resolution, as this is what I see in my specimen [on both sides] - it clearly out-resolves even my FL, with enough margin to be visible in the field.

Clearly, there is too much sample variation with this model, maybe part of the teething process, as we hear a mixed bag of opinion - most say super sharp but a few mention less-than-stellar. I'm glad I got a good sample, although I had three to choose from and they all seemed just as good. Judging from this forum, it seems that north American samples are less prone to problems than those in Europe [both HT and HD], maybe as we got later, better sorted batches. Something I have noticed on the HT is that, for the centrefield to reach that zenith of sharpness, I need to have the IPD set exactly correct, otherwise the zone of the ''supersweetspot'' moves slightly above and below perfect centre.

I think I could clearly see the difference in transmission - HT versus the other alphas, as I can clearly see the difference - HT to Conquest - and that is 95% / 90%, even full daylight. I still contend the Ultravid ''vivid colours'' is just the by-product of lower transmission imparting a warm [brown or yellow] overall hue, as my Terra has more vivid, saturated colours than both the HD and HT. Fine, if that's what you like but not entirely realistic.
 
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