John Russell
Well-known member
Despite the wide variety of binocular configurations on the market there are some formats such as 7x30, which are sorely missed by many.
The marketing people are probably not going to listen to us but it would be interesting to hear the wishes of other BF members, technically feasible of course.
I regard my 10x42 Swarovision as the ideal universal compromise and often use it on a Monopod (a Manfrotto 685B, which can be instantly extended or collapsed with one hand) in open country. It is much quicker to deploy and offers a more comfortable view than a scope. However, I think that these virtues could be largely preserved at 14x or 15x magnification for this application.
The current offerings, Swarovski 15x56 SLC, Docter 15x60 Nobilem and Optolyth 15x63 Royal are somewhat dated and all leave something to be desired so my personal product requirements are as follows:-
Roof prism , internal central focussing, central diopter, rubber armoured, twist-up eyecups.
Magnification: 14x or 15x
Objective size 56 mm - 60 mm
Eye relief min. 20 mm
AFOV min. 60°
Weight max. 1300 g
Flat field, edge sharpness and lack of distortion on a par with SV.
Even with 60 mm objectives, Schmidt-Pechan or Abbe-König prisms could be configured with suficient offset to allow for a minimum IPD under 60 mm for almost universal use.
Criticism or alternatives welcome.
John
The marketing people are probably not going to listen to us but it would be interesting to hear the wishes of other BF members, technically feasible of course.
I regard my 10x42 Swarovision as the ideal universal compromise and often use it on a Monopod (a Manfrotto 685B, which can be instantly extended or collapsed with one hand) in open country. It is much quicker to deploy and offers a more comfortable view than a scope. However, I think that these virtues could be largely preserved at 14x or 15x magnification for this application.
The current offerings, Swarovski 15x56 SLC, Docter 15x60 Nobilem and Optolyth 15x63 Royal are somewhat dated and all leave something to be desired so my personal product requirements are as follows:-
Roof prism , internal central focussing, central diopter, rubber armoured, twist-up eyecups.
Magnification: 14x or 15x
Objective size 56 mm - 60 mm
Eye relief min. 20 mm
AFOV min. 60°
Weight max. 1300 g
Flat field, edge sharpness and lack of distortion on a par with SV.
Even with 60 mm objectives, Schmidt-Pechan or Abbe-König prisms could be configured with suficient offset to allow for a minimum IPD under 60 mm for almost universal use.
Criticism or alternatives welcome.
John