What would worlds best binoculars be? (2 Viewers)

The best binoculars must be these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zeiss-Vic...phy_Binoculars_Monoculars&hash=item5d3eec7cbc

A mere one million British pounds.

dalat said:

Isn't it a common complaint here that there is not much left to innovate in conventional binoculars, that we only see incremental improvements. Field flattener, open bridge, a new glass that pushes transmissions another few %, nothing of the recent innovation was groundbreaking and most of it wasn't really new either.

I have not much clue about IS technology, but I assume to really bring that to a new level in binoculars, bigger investments in development needs to be done than is done today for achieving these tiny improvements we see in new products.

Just speculating of course...

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Is there really that much more to achieve? I bet most people would find it hard to see most improvements, and the cost would be astronomical. You are probably right that IS is the main feature to add, if it can be done at a reasonable cost.

I suppose we could have a 70 degree FOV, but that is not new.

We could also see diffractive optics, which would shorten the tubes, and reduce weight, but contrast suffers, and the cost soars.

Leif said:

The best binoculars must be these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zeiss-Vic...phy_Binoculars_Monoculars&hash=item5d3eec7cbc

A mere one million British pounds.



Is there really that much more to achieve? I bet most people would find it hard to see most improvements, and the cost would be astronomical. You are probably right that IS is the main feature to add, if it can be done at a reasonable cost.

I suppose we could have a 70 degree FOV, but that is not new.

We could also see diffractive optics, which would shorten the tubes, and reduce weight, but contrast suffers, and the cost soars.

Click to expand...

I don't even think that cost is the issue here - for 2500 Euro, it would certainly be possible to have a decent IS-mechanism installed into a high end binocular. But alpha-consumers are wanting a compact and rugged product - and here the problem lies. Stabilized binoculars are not easily made robust. Right, there exist military-grade IS binoculars, but those weight 2 kg with 40mm objectives.

It would be far easier to go for the 70 degree FOV. It is nothing new, but 70 degree, combined with high end optics, that it not so abundant.

Cheers,
Holger

Holger Merlitz said:

I don't even think that cost is the issue here - for 2500 Euro, it would certainly be possible to have a decent IS-mechanism installed into a high end binocular. But alpha-consumers are wanting a compact and rugged product - and here the problem lies. Stabilized binoculars are not easily made robust. Right, there exist military-grade IS binoculars, but those weight 2 kg with 40mm objectives.

It would be far easier to go for the 70 degree FOV. It is nothing new, but 70 degree, combined with high end optics, that it not so abundant.

Cheers,
Holger

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Unfortunately the unit price does not determine the economic success of the glass. The key is whether the market will take 10,00 or 100,000 or 1,000,000.
My guess is Zeiss could make anything that has been proposed here if required and almost everything for under 2500 Euro a copy, provided only at least 100,000 sell. At 10,000 units/yr, the room to innovate shrinks.

Within probable economic constraints, compact, robust and easy to look through are probably the market drivers. Field of view would be a good differentiator, provided the above constraints are also met.

Holger Merlitz said:

I don't even think that cost is the issue here - for 2500 Euro, it would certainly be possible to have a decent IS-mechanism installed into a high end binocular. But alpha-consumers are wanting a compact and rugged product - and here the problem lies. Stabilized binoculars are not easily made robust. Right, there exist military-grade IS binoculars, but those weight 2 kg with 40mm objectives.

It would be far easier to go for the 70 degree FOV. It is nothing new, but 70 degree, combined with high end optics, that it not so abundant.

Cheers,
Holger

Click to expand...

I guess I should have been clearer, I was assuming a binocular comparable to non IS binoculars in terms of weight and bulk, and that is the killer. The Canon 10x42 IS is for me too heavy, and it might not be robust enough for many birders. Since you can't stabilise eyeballs, you have to divert the lightpath using mirrors or lenses, which requires complex engineering, plus the weight of the batteries, although you could have a separate battery pack, and a power cable integrated into, or attached to, the strap. IS has been present in many camera lenses for decades now, and appears to be relatively robust and durable, though clearly nowhere near the level of premium binoculars, and does not add much weight, although the makers tend to replace an existing lens group with a movable one. The challenge is probably more severe in binoculars, since they tend to have far fewer lenses and lens groups, and the prisms/mirrors require difficult and expensive collimation.

I wonder how much weight and bulk could be shaved off the Canon 10x42 IS with a separate battery pack? Mmm, having just checked, it uses 2 x AA batteries, so not much weight to be saved there. ||

Leif said:

I suppose we could have a 70 degree FOV, but that is not new.

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It's not new, sure. But it's almost unheard of since the major makers decided that *every* binocular should be light, compact and suitable for spectacle wearers ... Or are there *any* binoculars with very good to excellent optics with a 70 degree AFOV, apart from the venerable Nikon EII?

Hermann

Leif said:

The best binoculars must be these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zeiss-Vic...phy_Binoculars_Monoculars&hash=item5d3eec7cbc

A mere one million British pounds.



Is there really that much more to achieve? I bet most people would find it hard to see most improvements, and the cost would be astronomical. You are probably right that IS is the main feature to add, if it can be done at a reasonable cost.

I suppose we could have a 70 degree FOV, but that is not new.

We could also see diffractive optics, which would shorten the tubes, and reduce weight, but contrast suffers, and the cost soars.

Click to expand...

Nice to hear from you again Leif!

Lee

. My earlier comment on the seventh generation Digital binocular was of course partly in jest but what the future might hold.

I recently bought a 30 times zoom 24 mm two 720 mm very small bridge camera weighing just over 300 g. There is a further and effective 4 times digital zoom. Bringing it up to about 2800 mm equivalent focal length in full frame 35mm camera terms.

I took 13 test photos. At 720 mm and 2800 mm. The camera does not have a viewfinder which I consider almost essential but because of the low price and low weight I bought the camera anyway.

2 of the photographs were failures, three were usable and eight were good with the last frame being amazing.

The photos were taken in dim light with exposures of about one quarter of a second handheld. And no viewfinder which gives the image stabiliser hard job.

The image stabilisation is sometimes so good that it seems to lock on to fine detail and not move.

The resolution is as good as a good quality spotting scope at 30 times tripod mounted. Maybe even better than that.

If that can be achieved in a consumer level tiny camera why can't it be done with binoculars?

I see modern top-quality 8 times binoculars with fields of about 6.5°.
This is ridiculously small it should be nearer 9°. And with edge to edge fine performance.

The binocular makers just do not cater to what an astronomer wants, and maybe birdwatchers put up with 8 times binoculars with 6.5° fields.

As to my earlier comments regarding binoculars that cannot be collimated and are fixed from new.
I'm aware that this has been tried before and failed.
However, if collimation is achieved by deliberately misaligning the optics in one or both barrels then you will not achieve very fine performance.

However, with consumer level compact cameras I'm pretty sure that lens designers try very hard to design their zoom lenses with great tolerance to misalignment.
In other words these lenses do not have to be very accurately aligned and if some elements are slightly out good performance still prevails.
I would think this is the key element in the success of compact lens design with of course low price aspherical and ED elements.

It may be that also with binocular lens design that modern designers ensure they work well if some of the elements are not perfectly aligned.
So maybe this criticism of the way binoculars collimated in practice might not matter.

I agree that the unit cost depends very much on the quantity of the binocular sold.

And cost is a very important factor.

But I do think that low weight, reliable image stabilisation can now be achieved with binoculars as modern very long zoom ratio compact cameras are quite amazing regarding handholding. And these low weight image stabilisers must now cost very little.

Binastro said:

. 1

I agree that the unit cost depends very much on the quantity of the binocular sold.

And cost is a very important factor.

But I do think that low weight, reliable image stabilisation can now be achieved with binoculars as modern very long zoom ratio compact cameras are quite amazing regarding handholding. And these low weight image stabilisers must now cost very little.

Click to expand...

Afaik, the image stabilizers in cameras rely on feedback from the camera sensor to keep the image positioned.
This is difficult to achieve in binoculars, where the sensor is the Mk 1 eyeball.
So the bino makers cannot just transplant camera systems.
Still, the gap in optical performance seems huge, even excluding the stabilization issue. At a minimum, the camera market evolution should be a benchmark as well as a reality check for binocular market strategists.

etudiant said:

Afaik, the image stabilizers in cameras rely on feedback from the camera sensor to keep the image positioned.

Click to expand...

From information online, it appears that they use small motion sensors in the lens.

. I looked at my notes for the test photos and the exposures used were one second, 0.8 seconds, 0.6 seconds, 0.4 seconds, 0.3 seconds, 0.25 seconds and one of 0.2 seconds. All handheld and there is no viewfinder so they are at a distance from my face.

At 0.6 seconds at 720 mm the image is sharp.
At 0.25 seconds the images are fair, very good and superb or excellent all at 2800 mm.

The reason why image stabilisation is not standard in binoculars may well be because if it was standard it would show up the rather poor images in current binoculars particularly the edge performance.
To design a good image stabilisation binocular one would have to start from the ground up as was done with the Canon image stabilised binoculars.

I have been using these for almost 15 years starting with the Mark one 12 x 36 which was a superb performer. it also had filter threads at the front.
The image quality is better than the current 12×36 mark II as regards build quality, image quality and field of view.
However, the first version is much heavier than the current version and one quickly gets tired using it.
The current version is a very good lightweight image stabilised binocular.

While I'm writing it amuses me to see how birding optics are advertised.
It talks about monoculars.
These are Chinese and I know of at least eight different brand names for the same product and there are probably well over 10.
I've tested many of these in 10 times, 12 times, 15 times and 20×50.

What I find amusing and rather upsetting is the description.
Very high quality monoculars, high-grade prisms, multicoated lenses and full waterproofing.

Most of these monoculars show out of alignment optics sometimes bad when star testing.
In addition the focusing on nearly all of them has a lot of backlash.

In addition, and all these monoculars were supposedly brand-new, one of the monoculars had quite a lot of internal fungus. And it is advertised as waterproof.

These are fair value very useful monoculars, but to call them very high quality monoculars is to debase the English language.

etudiant said:

Afaik, the image stabilizers in cameras rely on feedback from the camera sensor to keep the image positioned.
This is difficult to achieve in binoculars, where the sensor is the Mk 1 eyeball.
So the bino makers cannot just transplant camera systems.
Still, the gap in optical performance seems huge, even excluding the stabilization issue. At a minimum, the camera market evolution should be a benchmark as well as a reality check for binocular market strategists.

Click to expand...

The Zeiss stabilizer, being a mechanical stabilizer, doesn't rely on any feedback from sensors.

Hermann

Mike

I am going to look at your question in a different way.

Lets you and me agree that the HT is the best bin out there and Gerry Dobler has been given a budget that will only allow three attributes to be improved in HT MK II.

So which are the priorities for improving HT?

Increase the size of the area of critical sharpness (it's fine for me as it is, but more is better, right? And we need to compete with the Goshawk)

Add 20 metres to the FOV at 1,000 metres.

Apply nano anti-reflection coatings to all appropriate surfaces to squeeze more light through.

Should you find you haven't spent all of your budget, do what you can to get HT back to it's originally published weight. The 8x42 is more like 836 grams in real life.

Best wishes

TroubaLee

Start with the basics...eye relief 20mm at least...

Anders

Binoseeker said:

Start with the basics...eye relief 20mm at least...

Click to expand...

Well, I'd happily do with 15mm if the AFOV is at least 70 degrees. I don't use glasses, and to me a decent field of view is *far* more important than eye relief.

Hermann

Hermann said:

Well, I'd happily do with 15mm if the AFOV is at least 70 degrees. I don't use glasses, and to me a decent field of view is *far* more important than eye relief.

Hermann

Click to expand...

I wonder who benefits if such a glass is designed to last for 20 yrs., on average, when the average user's eyesight can also be expected to deteriorate over the same period.

Ed :scribe:

Hermann said:

The Zeiss stabilizer, being a mechanical stabilizer, doesn't rely on any feedback from sensors.

Hermann

Click to expand...

It also is dear, as the wallet feedback loop was eliminated as well.

Binastro said:

. I looked at my notes for the test photos and the exposures used were one second, 0.8 seconds, 0.6 seconds, 0.4 seconds, 0.3 seconds, 0.25 seconds and one of 0.2 seconds. All handheld and there is no viewfinder so they are at a distance from my face.

At 0.6 seconds at 720 mm the image is sharp.
At 0.25 seconds the images are fair, very good and superb or excellent all at 2800 mm.

The reason why image stabilisation is not standard in binoculars may well be because if it was standard it would show up the rather poor images in current binoculars particularly the edge performance.
To design a good image stabilisation binocular one would have to start from the ground up as was done with the Canon image stabilised binoculars.

I have been using these for almost 15 years starting with the Mark one 12 x 36 which was a superb performer. it also had filter threads at the front.
The image quality is better than the current 12×36 mark II as regards build quality, image quality and field of view.
However, the first version is much heavier than the current version and one quickly gets tired using it.
The current version is a very good lightweight image stabilised binocular.

While I'm writing it amuses me to see how birding optics are advertised.
It talks about monoculars.
These are Chinese and I know of at least eight different brand names for the same product and there are probably well over 10.
I've tested many of these in 10 times, 12 times, 15 times and 20×50.

What I find amusing and rather upsetting is the description.
Very high quality monoculars, high-grade prisms, multicoated lenses and full waterproofing.

Most of these monoculars show out of alignment optics sometimes bad when star testing.
In addition the focusing on nearly all of them has a lot of backlash.

In addition, and all these monoculars were supposedly brand-new, one of the monoculars had quite a lot of internal fungus. And it is advertised as waterproof.

These are fair value very useful monoculars, but to call them very high quality monoculars is to debase the English language.

Click to expand...

You raise an interesting point.
In an earlier post, 'Surveyor' had noted that even the alpha glasses have substantial quality variance, possibly as much as plus/minus 20%.
Maybe the most dramatic innovation would be to document each units performance compared to the guarantee.
Coma, astigmatism, collimation, transmission at various frequencies, there are lots of possible measures.
Reliable quality is still an unbeatable marketing tool, imho, even better than no questions asked service.

Binoseeker said:

Start with the basics...eye relief 20mm at least...

Anders

Click to expand...

Hej Anders

ER measurements are only half the story. No matter how generous the ER it will not function properly if the eyecup (and its settings) do not deliver the user's eye to the right position.

ERs of 16 - 18 mm are perfectly adequate providing the eyecup is designed and manufactured in the right way.

Hej da Lee

etudiant said:

You raise an interesting point.
In an earlier post, 'Surveyor' had noted that even the alpha glasses have substantial quality variance, possibly as much as plus/minus 20%.
Maybe the most dramatic innovation would be to document each units performance compared to the guarantee.
Coma, astigmatism, collimation, transmission at various frequencies, there are lots of possible measures.
Reliable quality is still an unbeatable marketing tool, imho, even better than no questions asked service.

Click to expand...

Etudiant

This is what I was getting at in post #34, in the second point "resolution." In the best presently offered binoculars, I believe all the axial aberrations other than spherical aberration and chromatic aberration are well enough corrected in the optical design, so a prototype or a perfectly successful production sample can have a practically perfect image. But manufacturing and assembly tolerances result in the actual binoculars you can buy from a store usually being visibly compromised.

So I'm totally with you on the reliable quality issue. Only, at present what "reliable quality" seems to stand for with just about all the major players is that you can rely on the quality fluctuating too much. Instead of improving the QC to the point where the end user really could not see the remaining differences, it seems to be cheaper and easier to have your marketing department claim that tolerances are tight enough.

On the remaining two axial aberrations, chromatic and spherical, my opinion is that in present FL/HD/ED binoculars, at least in the best ones the remaining levels of chromatic aberration is low enough not to matter much. I would welcome further improvement, but would not upgrade my binoculars on that ground alone. Spherical aberration is a bit of a different story. To my eyes, the few binoculars that have exceptionally well-corrected SA (Swaro 8x42 SLC HD and Canon 10x42 IS L are two of the ones that come to mind, as well as any of the 50-56mm objective binoculars, which in bright daylight will effectively have higher f-ratios and therefore lower SA) provide a markedly better image with a better snap and higher contrast.

Kimmo

Leif said:

The best binoculars must be these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zeiss-Vic...phy_Binoculars_Monoculars&hash=item5d3eec7cbc

A mere one million British pounds.

Click to expand...

A million, so good. I just had to message these dealers and ask if they really want a million pounds?

They replied that they are very sorry, but they are out of stock at present