Binoculars at Photokina (1 Viewer)

I am new to the forum and, despite my advanced years, somewhat new to birding.

I visited Photokina yesterday as it offered the unusual opportunity to compare binoculars from various manufacturers. Apart from the stands in the exhibition halls, a stage had been set up near the Rhine promenade where one could view birds of prey from the Hellenthal Wildlife Park through different binoculars and 'scopes. There was a flight show every couple of hours with falcons, bussards, owls and eagles.

To date I have mainly used an old Zeiss 7x50W Jenoptem (GDR) largely for woodland birding. It is very bright (in low light it is almost as if it illuminates the subject) and has good contrast and resolution, but is bulky, heavy(1050g), not water resistant, only focuses to 6m and does not warrant the description "W" - only 128m fov at 1000m, not much for 7x magnification. It has , however, prejudiced me in favour of low magnification for good depth of field and large exit pupils.

So here goes with some rather subjective comments:-
I had difficulties with blackouts on the majority of binoculars tested. Although I wear glasses I prefer to view without them and extend the eye-pieces. There are personal issues here, which are difficult to quantify. For instance, I was quite happy with the Swarovski Habicht 8x30 (porro) apart from its rather stiff focussing (it is sealed and waterproof) but the 10x40 Habicht was a no-go due to blackouts - and I thought they had the same oculars!

Leica, Nikon, Swarowski and Zeiss all showed 32 mm versions of their top of the line models, Ultravid, HG (now HGL with magnesium body), EL and Victory FL but the price differences to the 42mm full-sized models are so small that they appear to be poor value. I personally preferred the handling of the full-sized models.

The Swarowsk ELs now have an excellent focussing mechanism and the people on the stand seemed surprised that the change had filtered down to the public via Bird Forum! I quizzed them on differences in coating between SLC and EL and it seems there are now none but they emphasised the advantages in weight, ergonomics and close focussing of the EL. I, nevertheless, surprised myself by really liking the 10x42 SLC. It was not difficult to follow the birds in flight although a simultaneous change in focus was too much. It is, however, a superb binocular for those requiring 10x magnification and priced competitively.

I wonder if the race to reduce the weight of the premium models involves additional disadvantages as well as price and, whether titanium, for example, with its inherently high friction is the ideal material for pivot shafts.

Another example of subjective differences, which are not supported by the published figures were the apparent fields of view of the Swarovski SLC 8x50 and 7x42 at 56° and 55° respectively. The former had tunnel vision, whereas the latter had an apparently wide and very easy fov and was my absolute favourite, closely followed by the 7x42 Victory FL. The Zeiss had an exceptioally wide fov and good edge sharpness but at the cost of high pincussion distortion.

Perhaps too much emphasis is placed by some on minor differences in resolution and colour fidelity. Physical and optical comfort with the binoculars is a must and can only be assessed personally.

Regards,

John

John,

Thanks for your post! Very informative. Welcome to the BirdForum!

Regarding this part of your posting:

Gyso said:

Leica, Nikon, Swarowski and Zeiss all showed 32 mm versions of their top of the line models, Ultravid, HG (now HGL with magnesium body), EL and Victory FL but the price differences to the 42mm full-sized models are so small that they appear to be poor value. I personally preferred the handling of the full-sized models.

Click to expand...

You are saying that the price difference between 32mm and 42mm is so small that it would appear the 32mm binoculars are a "poor value". This is completely based on your definition of value, to me it is actually more valuable to be able to carry and use the binoculars comfortably for long periods of time (because of the smaller size and lower weight of 32mm binoculars) - this is more important to me than the marginal increase in low light performance. The performance of 32mm and 42mm binoculars under normal daylight conditions is identical, both types will deliver more light than the eye can use. The smaller objective binoculars also have the advantage of exhibiting lower levels of chromatic aberration. These factors have been proven over and over again by independent testing as posted on numerous internet sites and on this message board.

For me, the weight and size differences actually make 32mm binoculars MORE valuable to me and a better value all around, I would gladly pay more for a 32mm than a 42mm because of the ease of long-term use and related ergonomic factors.

Again - a subjective difference of "value", take it for what it's worth.

Best wishes,
Bawko

John,

Thanks for the report - many helpful observations. I must attempt to attend Photokina one of these years.

As broached by Bawko, the matter of x32 pricing versus x42 may be related to the cost of production and QA. While the x20 class (even from Swaro) appears to be built to a lower price-point, the x32 class gets all the manufacturing attention of its larger bretheren. As such, the difference in cost for raw materials must be insignificant.

Bawco, Rico,
Perhaps I expressed myself wrongly. Anything for which one is prepared to pay the price and which completely fulfills ones expectations is good value. However, I think that the manufacturers are asking what the market will support and that the prices of ELs, Ultravids and Victory FLs bear no relationship to the production costs.

If you look at the prices of large astronomical refracting telescopes and fast telephoto camera lenses you will find them to be disproportionately high. I believe this is because the lens blanks have to be cooled very slowly to avoid cracking or distortion. Time is money, so large lens elements are expensive.

Despite this, the list price of a Swaro 8x32 EL is higher than an 8x56 SLC, an 8x32 Ultravid costs the same as an 8x50 Trinovid and an 8x32 Victory FL costs more than an 8x56 Dialyt Classic!

The large Zeiss roofs including the 42mm FLs use Abbe-Koenig prisms but the 32mm FLs use Pechan prisms, probably to keep the dimensions small. These are basically inferior. Swarowski is claiming 99% reflectivity for "Swarobright" but silver has only 97% so with two silver mirrored surfaces in Pechan prisms one is down to 93% transmission before beginning to count all the air/ glass surfaces.

I believe light transmission and exit pupil size to be important.
I cannot accept the argument that if one's pupils only dilate to 5mm one only needs binoculars with an exit pupil of 5mm. This would assume that one could correctly adjust the interpupillary distance of the bins to a small fraction of a mm and then precisely achieve and hold alignment at eye level. Under poor lighting conditions 6 or 7mm exit pupils at least offer some margin of error.

Regards,

John