• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Zen Ray ED2 8x42 and 10x42 evaluations and review (1 Viewer)

Kevin Purcell

Well-known member
I can see were going to have comments coming in from different folks on the ED2 bins as the first have started arriving.

So perhaps a single thread to gather all these comments together might be a good idea rather than having them scattered through "preview" threads and the like. This makes the discussions and comments a bit easier to follow (especially in the future!).

And please only post-purchase evaluation, reviews and discussion on this thread (there are already speculation threads for random comments!).
 
Last edited:
Kevin,

Was it an oversight or by design that the ED2 7x36 isn't included here?

By design. I think the 7x36 is a rather different beast so should have it's own thread.

And as no one will have one until the end of the week I was holding off on posting that thread. It's already made in another window so I shall post it now ...
 
Zen-Ray ED2 8x43 are here

This will be a first post. Due to all the positive reviews here on BF of the original Zen ED I decided to pre-order the ZR ED2. I can report that my ZR ED2 8x43 have arrived. Fast shipping from ZR they shipped them Sat. and I got them yesterday (Mon.).

I kind of hesitate to post on them since I have only had them a short time and therefore limited experience with them, nonetheless I will give a few comments on my initial impression of them. I am not an optics aficionado but I do appreciate a quality view. So far I have used them only for observing birds around the yard and on the feeder, and looking around the neighborhood at license plates signs etc.
The only binoculars I have on hand currently that I can compare with are my Vortex Fury 8x42 which I consider to be pretty good. In comparison I do think I prefer the fit/finish of the Vortex. Optically however the ZR excel the Vortex in just about every regard. The ZR have a very bright sharp image, sharper than the Vortex. The field of view seems pretty flat, I don't notice much edge distortion. The ZR exceeds the Vortex in FOV, Depth of focus, CA control (haven't noticed any CA in the ZR yet).

I never saw the original ZR ed to be able to comment on the increased focus speed these are supposed to have, all I can say is they seem to focus pretty quickly and easily. The focus wheel did seem a bit stiff initially but seems to be working a bit more smoothly now. Still the focus wheel on the Vortex is a bit easier to operate and has kind of a more solid feel. On the ZR it is a bit difficult to operate the focus with one hand it takes a bit of a two hand push/pull to turn easily. Don't know if it was this way on the original version but on this version it is only the outer rim of the focus wheel that turns the Zen ED emblem on top is stationary. This outer rim that turns does have a little bit of wiggle towards the bottom of it which causes a little give when you put pressure against it to turn it. It seems to work better if you work the wheel from the top where it doesn't have any wiggle.

My dad will be here for a visit in a few weeks at which time I will be able to compare the Zens with his Zeiss Victory T* FL 8x42
 
Curtis,

Thank you for sharing your experiences with the Zen ED 2 so far. If further thoughts, comments develops then please do post them.
 
A Short Note

This is my first note in this forum - from reading the comments here I got interested in the zen-rays, and ordered one of my own.

I just received my 10x42 ED2 yesterday, and have been playing around with it - I thought I would write a short note about them. I must preface this by saying that my previous experience has mainly been with Nikon Monarchs (both the 10x42 and 12x42), so I can't compare the ED2 against any of the alphas.

In most viewing conditions, the binoculars seem crystal clear. They are certainly clearer and brighter than my previous pairs. I have not noticed any chromatic aberration (even in quite bright sunshine), and the focus seems quite sharp. Further, the view is flat from edge to edge - the focus point is indistinguishable (to my eye) when looking through the sides of the field of view.

The field of view is larger than the Monarchs. Further, the eye relief is excellent -- again better than the Monarchs -- I can see the edges of the field of view even with my glasses on.

I have noticed one problem with the binoculars - on a bright (particularly on a bright, overcast) day, there is quite a bit of stray light that enters the binoculars. One can see a gray crescent along the bottom edge of the field of view. I don't see this problem looking at the same scene with my old Nikon Monarchs (though there is diffuse scattering of light through the entire scene in my Monarchs).

I am not sure if this is merely a characteristic of the coatings in this binoculars - but it would be nice if anybody else could chime in to see if they are see the same effect, or not?
 
I have noticed one problem with the binoculars - on a bright (particularly on a bright, overcast) day, there is quite a bit of stray light that enters the binoculars. One can see a gray crescent along the bottom edge of the field of view. I don't see this problem looking at the same scene with my old Nikon Monarchs (though there is diffuse scattering of light through the entire scene in my Monarchs).

I am not sure if this is merely a characteristic of the coatings in this binoculars - but it would be nice if anybody else could chime in to see if they are see the same effect, or not?

This sounds like the same artifact the guy in India was having with his gen 1 Zen EDs.
 
(particularly on a bright, overcast) day, there is quite a bit of stray light that enters the binoculars. One can see a gray crescent along the bottom edge of the field of view.
I just got my 10x42 ED2's yesterday and have the same issue. I use a big microwave tower on a hill maybe 8 miles away as my target for new glasses and that halo effect showed up for me as well. Here in San Jose, the air has been hazy due to smoke from forest fires down south.
As an interesting aside, the eyepiece/lens on the right side is covered in small scratches. I don't know if there was a piece of grit in the rainguard that may have scratched it up in transit or what. At any rate, they're heading back for replacement, so we'll see how their customer service does
And no, I haven't touched the lenses with anything.
 
Hello,

EdZ has examined in the 8x42 Zen ED2 and has posted his informative findings on Cloudy nights, here.

Happy observing,
Arthur Pinewood
 
Ouch. Looks like some quality control issues there. I did not quantify the resolution of the gen 1 8x43s I had, but they were better than that.

Oh well, very early days. Much more info will be coming.
 
Here is the response i got from Zen




I am about to address this issue. What you see is very common among wide angle binoculars. Try one of the most expensive European binoculars with >400ft FOV for 8x. You will see the same effect.

Below is a write-up that I am trying to help our customers to understand it is native characteristics of wide angle binoculars, not a manufacturing defect. Of course it is not desirable. But I truly belive ZEN ED/ED2 actually is one of the better performer among its class in this regard.

" I'd like to comment on the gray crescent you saw on the binoculars. First of all, it is not stray light or internal light reflection. As one of the posters correctly pointed out, those will severely downgrade the overall contrast of the binoculars.

When ZEN ED or ED2 was designed, we focused on optimizing the native optical performance without artificially restricting its FOV. With its 65degree APOV, its performance has been proven among many users. However, there is still residual field curvature at the very edge of the FOV. It may show up as a very narrow gray band at extreme edge under certain lighting condition if you pay attention to it. It appears a cresent at the bottom because of the placement of eyes relative to the exit pupil circle.

If you have a chance to look through other more expensive Wide angle binoculars under certain condition, you will see the same effect as well."

Thanks. I hope this little background information is helpful.

Charles
 
Here is the response i got from Zen


I am about to address this issue. What you see is very common among wide angle binoculars. Try one of the most expensive European binoculars with >400ft FOV for 8x. You will see the same effect...


Charles

Hello mgv410,

I own a Zeiss Fl *x32 which has an 8º FOV. As I recall I do not recall seeing this optical artefact. However, as tomorrow is supposed to be overcast, I may try to reproduce it.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood
 
Here is the response i got from Zen

However, there is still residual field curvature at the very edge of the FOV. It may show up as a very narrow gray band at extreme edge under certain lighting condition if you pay attention to it. It appears a cresent at the bottom because of the placement of eyes relative to the exit pupil circle.

Sorry, I don't agree with this statement. All binoculars have field curvature, some far more than others. I have never seen any correlation between field curvature and ghosting in the image. In fact, I believe the two are totally unrelated. The ghosting present in the Zen ED2 produces a fairly bright arc reflection in the image. It does indeed interfere with the contraast in the image. The dark band, an area unaffected by the brighter arc gosht, is the separation between the arc of the ghost image and the field stop.

None of that is related to curvature. I'd be looking elsewhere for some answer to the issue.

edz
 
Last edited:
Here is the response i got from Zen

What you see is very common among wide angle binoculars. Try one of the most expensive European binoculars with >400ft FOV for 8x. You will see the same effect....

'I'd like to comment on the gray crescent you saw on the binoculars. First of all, it is not stray light or internal light reflection. As one of the posters correctly pointed out, those will severely downgrade the overall contrast of the binoculars....

If you have a chance to look through other more expensive Wide angle binoculars under certain condition, you will see the same effect as well.'

Thanks. I hope this little background information is helpful.

Charles


I have used my 8x32 EL, which has a FOV of 8.0 degrees, heavily for two years. It has never exhibited anything even remotely similar to the phenomenon that has now been described by several Zen ED2 owners, and which Charles is attributing to bins such as the 8x32 EL and FL.

THANK YOU Ed for your excellent and thorough review on Cloudy Nights. I have been waiting for months to see a really serious, objective analysis of one of these bins. I don't doubt that they represent excellent value for the price, but I have had a hard time believing that their performance matches that of alpha bins, and that as of today their success will lead to the closing of the Minox sub-forum.
 
Hello mgv410,

I own a Zeiss Fl *x32 which has an 8º FOV. As I recall I do not recall seeing this optical artefact. However, as tomorrow is supposed to be overcast, I may try to reproduce it.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood

I've seen this effect before on many bins including the ZR. In fact previous readers of my reviews will catch me whining about stray light in all sorts of bins.

I just took my ZR ED1 8x43, Zeiss Victory 8x40, Zeiss FL 8x32 and Zeiss FL 7x42 out to check in the low evening sun (it was overcast earlier) at 5:30pm in Seattle.

Sun is about 40ish degrees above the horizon and looking 40 degrees up at a Douglas Fir (darkish background) at 30 degrees to the sun I can see the stray crescents in all four bins opposite to the sun.

The ZR ED1 has the biggest effect. Then the Zeiss Victory 8x40. Then the Zeiss FL 8x32 and then Zeiss FL 7x42 though the latter two are close. I'm impressed the 8x32 is that good with a small exit pupil. They do have an interesting beveled "objective lens hood" that may help).

The magnitude of this effect seems to have a lot to do with how you align the exit pupil of the bin and the entrance pupil of the eye with bins tipped upwards. THe usual problem is that you tilt you head up somewhat and then you rotate your eyes upwards so they are no longer centered.

I suspect if you have perfect style (i.e. the bins are always 90 degrees to your face and pointing directly at the target so you don't rotate your eyes) and the exit pupils are centered and the IPD is set right you may not see this effect.

The only bins I have that I thought were really immune to this effect are my Nikon SE. But I just went out and tried them in the same test. The 8x32 SE with a 7.5° FOV shows the effect rather too well --- actually worse than the FLs and I think worse than the Victory even after fiddling with the IPD to make it "too big". But the 10x42 SE if you get the IPD right shows the least effect. There's still some there but it's the smallest in this test set.

So as I always point out: all bins are compromises.

Just keep in mind what parameters your trading off for what: stray light is usually the last thing to get down to a minimum.

And one thing I can be sure of is the ZR ED2 won't be a panacea. I hope they'll be good but I suspect the level of expectation amongst some folks is just way too high.
 
Does anyone has the AFOV for all three ED2 models?

The 8x43 ED2 has a specified fov of 426ft at 1000yds. That's 8.1°. That would make for a specified Afov of 65°.

However the actual true field of view measures 7.7°.

The difference between specified and actual is the angular magnification distortion, always present and always creating a difference (usually less) in actual from specified. The actual tfov is controlled by the diameter of the field stop in the eyepiece.

edz
 
Last edited:
I'm also unable to follow Charles thinking about this phenomenon, provided we're all talking about the same thing.

I wouldn't call this form of glare ghosting. That's a different problem that causes focused or nearly focused duplicate images of a bright object (like a street light) centered in a dark field to appear at other locations in the field.

I like the term "veiling glare" for these gray fuzzy crescents of light that appear on the opposite side of the field from a bright light source located outside the field. I've seen this many times and in every case it was associated with a bright crescent of unbaffled internal reflection coming from one of a few places. Usually it's the metal lens cell of the objective or the focusing element or sometimes the first aperture of the prism shelf. The reflections are easy enough to see if you examine the interior of the binocular with a magnifier when you notice the glare. They look gray and fuzzy in the binocular image because they appear very far out focus to the eye. The photo below shows the bright lower rim of a binocular exit pupil under the kind of lighting condition that often causes this. There is bright light coming from the sky above with the binocular pointing into a dark area of foliage. In this case the bright lower rim of the exit pupil is caused by reflection from the metal objective cell.

The right sized baffles in the right places could completely eliminate this, starting with a knife edged baffle just behind the objective that completely blocks the lens cell, but I've seen very few binoculars that don't have it under the some conditions. It's least bothersome in large exit pupil binoculars because the rim of the exit pupil is usually larger than the pupil of the eye so that the reflection often falls harmlessly on the iris rather than entering the eye.
 

Attachments

  • Slide1.jpg
    Slide1.jpg
    50.9 KB · Views: 461
I'm also unable to follow Charles thinking about this phenomenon, provided we're all talking about the same thing.

I wouldn't call this form of glare ghosting. That's a different problem that causes focused or nearly focused duplicate images of a bright object (like a street light) centered in a dark field to appear at other locations in the field.

I like the term "veiling glare" for these gray fuzzy crescents of light that appear on the opposite side of the field from a bright light source located outside the field. I've seen this many times and in every case it was associated with a bright crescent of unbaffled internal reflection coming from one of a few places. Usually it's the metal lens cell of the objective or the focusing element or sometimes the first aperture of the prism shelf. The reflections are easy enough to see if you examine the interior of the binocular with a magnifier when you notice the glare. They look gray and fuzzy in the binocular image because they appear very far out focus to the eye. The photo below shows the bright lower rim of a binocular exit pupil under the kind of lighting condition that often causes this. There is bright light coming from the sky above with the binocular pointing into a dark area of foliage. In this case the bright lower rim of the exit pupil is caused by reflection from the metal objective cell.

The right sized baffles in the right places could completely eliminate this, starting with a knife edged baffle just behind the objective that completely blocks the lens cell, but I've seen very few binoculars that don't have it under the some conditions. It's least bothersome in large exit pupil binoculars because the rim of the exit pupil is usually larger than the pupil of the eye so that the reflection often falls harmlessly on the iris rather than entering the eye.


Henry/Ed/kevin, thank you for chiming in on this. In my email to our customer, I was actually addressing a different issue that I thought my customer might have been seeing. It is the gray band all around the extreme edge from field stop. It is intrinsic and artifacts for wide angle binoculars that you can see when viewing binoculars in a skewed angle and intentionally looking for it by steering your eye focus towards the edge.

Apparently, the discussion is talking about different issue. I totall agree with Henry and Kevin on some of their inputs. In addition, I would like to add one more point. It seems that a few users saw this issue when looking up to a tree top. I have done some experiement. If the angle from horizon is 70 degree at tree top, we will not tilt our head 70 degree while using binoculars because it is not comfortable. Instead, we may tilt our head 60 degree and use binoculars to compensate the remaining 10 degree. As a result, the exit pupil projection is no longer perpendicular to your eye plane. If we are to project the exit pupil to our eye plane, it will show up as a football shape, instead of perfect circle. Often time your eyes will be looking at lower bottom edge of the exit pupil instead of the center of field. These two effects combined may lead up to what you see.

Thank you.

Charles
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 14 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top