ksbird/foxranch
Well-known member
I've been hanging around Cabelas (and 3 other optics stores) recently and the Kansas City store has recently redone their optics counter. This made it easier to browse my way through the optics candy they offer.
I was comparing a variety of binoculars of the same design but with different coatings (Steiner) while I listened to the comments of the other browsers and in discussions with a former guide, who was browsing we began to notice trends.
It seems that there were numerous conflicting opinions about the quality of various brands of roof prism binoculars like Nikon, Steiner, Cabelas Olympic and Bushnell and fewer negative comments about Swaros, Zeiss and Cabelas Euro HD. With porro prism binoculars, the former guide and I both agreed that you got what you paid for, although we both wondered how it was that so many people who tried the Steiner porro prism bins, had such a wide range of opinions about Steiner porro prism bins that were the same design, but had different coatings.
Oddly enough, it seemed possible to simply move a potential customer around the Steiner line up, until one model with their "best matched" coatings was interesting to customers, or move them up to a higher grade roof prism brand to get about the same result except this time the salesman had to allow potential customers to try each of the high end brands they offered to get a "good match". The customers all seemed to be seeing things differently through each pair of bins they tested.
I have also been having a bit of a tear duct problem with my right eye and so I've been sent to a variety of ophthalmologists recently. I asked them about the peak center frequencies of human color sensitivity. While there were average frequency/color-wavelengths for people with 3 or 4 peaks in their color sensitivity, most of the research they came up with, to answer my insistent questions, showed that somewhat like fingerprints no two people had the same center/peak frequencies for their 3 or 4 peak color sensitivities.
One outdoor enthusiast ophthalmologist, was of the opinion in his own testing, that with roof prism bins, a viewer could be "looking" at either one of the colors where the phase coating frequencies did not align with the viewers' center of peak color sensitivity, OR NOT, or somewhere just off-the-peak. Since viewers have 3 or 4 color sensitivity peaks, it is all a matter of odds. The chances that the binocular manufacturer has used at least the exactly same color frequencies to phase correct as the viewer is most sensitive, is millions to one, because no one is "average", even though it is the 3 color peak average frequencies that most phase coatings are designed to fix. With the use of hundreds of these phase correction coatings the chances of finding exactly the correct match to any viewers' peak color sensitivity peaks becomes more likely.
This situation for roof prism binoculars is obvious because the "softness" of the image due to phase distortion is obvious. Not so obvious is the way it affects viewers looking through porro prism binoculars that do not have phase color distortion. Steiner makes 8x30 binoculars with the same lens sets but different AR coatings. These coatings reject certain colors in a very narrow rejection band, while helping the glass to have a more perfect surface to allow greater light transmission throughput. Some manufacturers like Nikon tend to use the same coatings on all lens surfaces in their lower price range porros, while more expensive models get various color AR coatings. But Steiner is one of the few companies that makes the same model of bin with different coatings.
The responses by viewers looking through Steiner's various coated 8x30s was interesting. Most had a real preference for certain coatings, which I could only chalk up to their sensitivity (peak color) to the narrow band color rejection of certain coating colors. But it was very interesting that those browsers who decided not to consider the Steiners for purchase, seemed to choose the same model of higher end roof prism binocular, matching up to the best Steiner 8x30 porro they preferred.
So it should be possible for people to get their color sensitivity peaks mapped, and then find that they would most likely choose certain phase coatings in roof prism binoculars, as well as specific AR coatings. Assuming the quality of lens grinding and polishing is similar, and the structural design and integrity of most binocular models is similar retaining lens alignment, then binocular manufacturers could greatly increase their total sales by offering (at least for porros) a variety of different AR coatings. For roof prisms the various frequencies that were improved by their phase coatings could be identified, and listed, so that if optics buyers knew their eye color peak sensitivity frequencies (3 or 4 numbers somewhat like a blood type), they could reduce the total time searching by, at least, beginning their optics browsing search with the coating array that most matched their eye color sensitivity. This would be even easier if manufacturers did what Steiner does w/AR coatings, and make their roofers with phase correction coatings at different color frequencies.
We all know that people of even similar shapes and sizes can adjust their driver's seats in cars in very different ways depending on what is most comfortable to them. Eyes might be similar. While we cannot adjust our eyes, because our color peak sensitivities come with us from birth, binocular manufacturers would be able to save us allot of searching time, if they listed the 2 kinds of color frequencies that are changed when coatings are used for phase correction and AR. Roof prism phase coatings modify the appearance of some colors more than others. AR coatings modify (through rejection) a certain group of colors as well. Giving buyers this information isn't useful unless buyers know which colors they are most sensitive about, but it gives buyers a stating point to compare models.
Now back to Nikon Action bins. While the rejected green color of their AR coatings might seem to be the same green color all the time, this isn't really likely due to the "imperfect" method of coating applications. So even though there may be 10 surfaces with the "same" green color of AR color coating, which should have the same center frequency of the rejected color, in the real world there is likely to be rejection of 10 different shades of green, all near to the center color frequency of the intended rejection band of the AR coating. So even if manufacturers specified the intended rejection color frequency, they should also specify how many times in the optical system, they use that same coating, in order to allow for buyers to waste less time in making their choices in binoculars.
Right now, even though browsing is great fun for some of us (like me), it is a truly burdensome task for many potential buyers, which wastes so much time, trying to find the binocular that suits them best. The time wasted either finding or NOT finding a suitable binocular for their purposes reduces sales greatly. Although I visit Cabelas often and the huge Kansas City, Bass superstore quite often recently because they are near my ophthalmologists' offices, these are stores are aimed at the hunting/camping market, I also visit the Wild Birding stores and the local store that services the KC Astronomical Society. Almost every kind of binocular made is available in these places or for sale at the KS Astro flea market.
Most everyone agrees that the Nikon highest end porro bin is the best in general, but not waterproof. The guide and I both liked the Zeiss Marine 7x50 porro and the Swaro Habicht porro 10x40 because they are truly great bins, and they are waterproof. Now with our discussions about coatings over a cup of Cabelas coffee in the KC store's very nice cafeteria, we both wondered if the coatings on our preferred choice in bins might make those 2 bins "better" for us because their coatings might better match our color sensitivity peaks.
The guide did tell me that his regular area of guiding took place in a mountainous area of Wyoming with numerous cliffs. He laughed as he tald stories about numerous hunters who threw their bins or rifle scopes off of cliffs because they had spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on binoculars (mostly roof prisms), and then discovered that in real world settings, they were unable to see from one cliff to the sides of the next nearest hill or mountain, while their guide was frantically trying to get them to see what he could see. It was only when these hunters looked away from their bins or scopes with their eyes that they could usually see the tiny (camouflaged-by-nature) animals they had paid allot of money to find. I find this problem to be the same with birding.
I can usually spot birds in sunlight on my ranch about as well as the next guy with binoculars. But when they hide in shadows or it is dusk or dawn, I often find birds others cannot fully make out. If the binocular you use maximizes your ability to distinguish color and shadows (and thus forms), then they are doing the best job for you. But if bins are designed for the "average eye", and your eyes aren't average (almost no one has perfectly average eyes with respect to the center color frequency of their peak sensitivities), then your eyes could be fighting the binocular view, instead of being enhanced by this view. So maybe by wasting enormous amounts of time trying out binoculars, I've found a few pairs that maximize the abilities my eyes already have. But I was lucky to have the time and the opportunities to find these bins, not everyone is so lucky.
Manufacturers could make things easier for us with some real information about their coatings. Anyone else find this is the case for them? Why should it be random chance, CONSTANTLY, and a huge effort by buyers to find a binocular that suits us best? Even if one set of variables is eliminated by only buying the best porros available, not everyone has stores carrying all the available models. A good set of useful specs about the center frequencies of the colors affected by phase and AR coatings would help, once we have each established our own particular eye/color-peak-frequencies. Then we could buy bins by mail order and be more confident we were getting what we really wanted. At least this way, we could use our own color-peak-sensitivity-type as we browsed to teach ourselves which colors mean the most to our eyes, and then in future we could reduce the amount of time we might waste, searching for a new or vintage binocular.
I was comparing a variety of binoculars of the same design but with different coatings (Steiner) while I listened to the comments of the other browsers and in discussions with a former guide, who was browsing we began to notice trends.
It seems that there were numerous conflicting opinions about the quality of various brands of roof prism binoculars like Nikon, Steiner, Cabelas Olympic and Bushnell and fewer negative comments about Swaros, Zeiss and Cabelas Euro HD. With porro prism binoculars, the former guide and I both agreed that you got what you paid for, although we both wondered how it was that so many people who tried the Steiner porro prism bins, had such a wide range of opinions about Steiner porro prism bins that were the same design, but had different coatings.
Oddly enough, it seemed possible to simply move a potential customer around the Steiner line up, until one model with their "best matched" coatings was interesting to customers, or move them up to a higher grade roof prism brand to get about the same result except this time the salesman had to allow potential customers to try each of the high end brands they offered to get a "good match". The customers all seemed to be seeing things differently through each pair of bins they tested.
I have also been having a bit of a tear duct problem with my right eye and so I've been sent to a variety of ophthalmologists recently. I asked them about the peak center frequencies of human color sensitivity. While there were average frequency/color-wavelengths for people with 3 or 4 peaks in their color sensitivity, most of the research they came up with, to answer my insistent questions, showed that somewhat like fingerprints no two people had the same center/peak frequencies for their 3 or 4 peak color sensitivities.
One outdoor enthusiast ophthalmologist, was of the opinion in his own testing, that with roof prism bins, a viewer could be "looking" at either one of the colors where the phase coating frequencies did not align with the viewers' center of peak color sensitivity, OR NOT, or somewhere just off-the-peak. Since viewers have 3 or 4 color sensitivity peaks, it is all a matter of odds. The chances that the binocular manufacturer has used at least the exactly same color frequencies to phase correct as the viewer is most sensitive, is millions to one, because no one is "average", even though it is the 3 color peak average frequencies that most phase coatings are designed to fix. With the use of hundreds of these phase correction coatings the chances of finding exactly the correct match to any viewers' peak color sensitivity peaks becomes more likely.
This situation for roof prism binoculars is obvious because the "softness" of the image due to phase distortion is obvious. Not so obvious is the way it affects viewers looking through porro prism binoculars that do not have phase color distortion. Steiner makes 8x30 binoculars with the same lens sets but different AR coatings. These coatings reject certain colors in a very narrow rejection band, while helping the glass to have a more perfect surface to allow greater light transmission throughput. Some manufacturers like Nikon tend to use the same coatings on all lens surfaces in their lower price range porros, while more expensive models get various color AR coatings. But Steiner is one of the few companies that makes the same model of bin with different coatings.
The responses by viewers looking through Steiner's various coated 8x30s was interesting. Most had a real preference for certain coatings, which I could only chalk up to their sensitivity (peak color) to the narrow band color rejection of certain coating colors. But it was very interesting that those browsers who decided not to consider the Steiners for purchase, seemed to choose the same model of higher end roof prism binocular, matching up to the best Steiner 8x30 porro they preferred.
So it should be possible for people to get their color sensitivity peaks mapped, and then find that they would most likely choose certain phase coatings in roof prism binoculars, as well as specific AR coatings. Assuming the quality of lens grinding and polishing is similar, and the structural design and integrity of most binocular models is similar retaining lens alignment, then binocular manufacturers could greatly increase their total sales by offering (at least for porros) a variety of different AR coatings. For roof prisms the various frequencies that were improved by their phase coatings could be identified, and listed, so that if optics buyers knew their eye color peak sensitivity frequencies (3 or 4 numbers somewhat like a blood type), they could reduce the total time searching by, at least, beginning their optics browsing search with the coating array that most matched their eye color sensitivity. This would be even easier if manufacturers did what Steiner does w/AR coatings, and make their roofers with phase correction coatings at different color frequencies.
We all know that people of even similar shapes and sizes can adjust their driver's seats in cars in very different ways depending on what is most comfortable to them. Eyes might be similar. While we cannot adjust our eyes, because our color peak sensitivities come with us from birth, binocular manufacturers would be able to save us allot of searching time, if they listed the 2 kinds of color frequencies that are changed when coatings are used for phase correction and AR. Roof prism phase coatings modify the appearance of some colors more than others. AR coatings modify (through rejection) a certain group of colors as well. Giving buyers this information isn't useful unless buyers know which colors they are most sensitive about, but it gives buyers a stating point to compare models.
Now back to Nikon Action bins. While the rejected green color of their AR coatings might seem to be the same green color all the time, this isn't really likely due to the "imperfect" method of coating applications. So even though there may be 10 surfaces with the "same" green color of AR color coating, which should have the same center frequency of the rejected color, in the real world there is likely to be rejection of 10 different shades of green, all near to the center color frequency of the intended rejection band of the AR coating. So even if manufacturers specified the intended rejection color frequency, they should also specify how many times in the optical system, they use that same coating, in order to allow for buyers to waste less time in making their choices in binoculars.
Right now, even though browsing is great fun for some of us (like me), it is a truly burdensome task for many potential buyers, which wastes so much time, trying to find the binocular that suits them best. The time wasted either finding or NOT finding a suitable binocular for their purposes reduces sales greatly. Although I visit Cabelas often and the huge Kansas City, Bass superstore quite often recently because they are near my ophthalmologists' offices, these are stores are aimed at the hunting/camping market, I also visit the Wild Birding stores and the local store that services the KC Astronomical Society. Almost every kind of binocular made is available in these places or for sale at the KS Astro flea market.
Most everyone agrees that the Nikon highest end porro bin is the best in general, but not waterproof. The guide and I both liked the Zeiss Marine 7x50 porro and the Swaro Habicht porro 10x40 because they are truly great bins, and they are waterproof. Now with our discussions about coatings over a cup of Cabelas coffee in the KC store's very nice cafeteria, we both wondered if the coatings on our preferred choice in bins might make those 2 bins "better" for us because their coatings might better match our color sensitivity peaks.
The guide did tell me that his regular area of guiding took place in a mountainous area of Wyoming with numerous cliffs. He laughed as he tald stories about numerous hunters who threw their bins or rifle scopes off of cliffs because they had spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on binoculars (mostly roof prisms), and then discovered that in real world settings, they were unable to see from one cliff to the sides of the next nearest hill or mountain, while their guide was frantically trying to get them to see what he could see. It was only when these hunters looked away from their bins or scopes with their eyes that they could usually see the tiny (camouflaged-by-nature) animals they had paid allot of money to find. I find this problem to be the same with birding.
I can usually spot birds in sunlight on my ranch about as well as the next guy with binoculars. But when they hide in shadows or it is dusk or dawn, I often find birds others cannot fully make out. If the binocular you use maximizes your ability to distinguish color and shadows (and thus forms), then they are doing the best job for you. But if bins are designed for the "average eye", and your eyes aren't average (almost no one has perfectly average eyes with respect to the center color frequency of their peak sensitivities), then your eyes could be fighting the binocular view, instead of being enhanced by this view. So maybe by wasting enormous amounts of time trying out binoculars, I've found a few pairs that maximize the abilities my eyes already have. But I was lucky to have the time and the opportunities to find these bins, not everyone is so lucky.
Manufacturers could make things easier for us with some real information about their coatings. Anyone else find this is the case for them? Why should it be random chance, CONSTANTLY, and a huge effort by buyers to find a binocular that suits us best? Even if one set of variables is eliminated by only buying the best porros available, not everyone has stores carrying all the available models. A good set of useful specs about the center frequencies of the colors affected by phase and AR coatings would help, once we have each established our own particular eye/color-peak-frequencies. Then we could buy bins by mail order and be more confident we were getting what we really wanted. At least this way, we could use our own color-peak-sensitivity-type as we browsed to teach ourselves which colors mean the most to our eyes, and then in future we could reduce the amount of time we might waste, searching for a new or vintage binocular.
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