Hello from South Korea! (3 Viewers)

[jackjack]

Welcome, and glad you're here! It would be interesting to know more about the environments you bird in, the species you see, and which birds you're particularly interested in. I focus on watching raptors, particularly in the urban environment. I've read that northern goshawks can be found in large parks of some Korean cities like Seoul. They are very much a bird of the forest here in the UK but I've seen them in Berlin - amazing creatures!

Does South Korea have a significant commercial/sports optics industry? I guess the ROK must produce military binoculars, but we seem to hear very little about civilian optics.

PS. what's the large individual focus porro with the Bausch & Lomb style one-piece body design at the top right of your photo? It's to the right of the center focus porro with what looks like a label "Mantis" in red text.

I've seen some northern goshawk in riverside and mountains in seoul. They are not very commen then eastern buzzard or kestrel but still can be seen in the middle of Seoul.

In korea, company call 'Sanju optics' make military binos and some cheap civil binos about 100 ~ 150$ they say optics are Korean made, but many optics mania thinks they just assemble the optical components made from japan.
and there quality is not as good as Chinese cheap one like SVBONY sv202...

Korean people usally use bino to whatch bird, stars, shows like mucical, oprea, Kpop.
but the main bino, (over 100$) is mainly sold to birdwatchers.

Korean bird watching population began to grow recently. mainly because of Youtube channel and SNS... some different thing is majority of the incresed population of birder is young people about teenager to early 30s especially women.
and I think also majority of korean birders want to take photoes than just watching them with optics. so there are many birders just using big cameras not binoculars and spotting scopes.
and 20 - 32mm binos aremuch more popular than 42mm.

so, the bino market in Korea is much smaller then other contries like America and Japan.
and there are very few off line shop for people to see optics before they buy them.
and almost all the remaing shop is the specific seller of the big brands such as Swaro, Zeiss, Nikon, Kowa...
so 'Real' information of the optics in Korea is very scarce...
(that's why I'm doing bino reviews in Korean website...)

+ the bino you asked is china brand. one korean company imports some bino which directly come out form chinese factory.

I think is is the same bino with Sightron Comatscan 10x50. large fov, very good transparency but lot of blurry edge and eye strain.... alomg side of the Efantis (which you see as mantis) it's a cheap entry bino (under 150$) for novice star gazers. but they are optically better then Nikon Action EX series

 

[jackjack]

Welcome, and glad you're here! It would be interesting to know more about the environments you bird in, the species you see, and which birds you're particularly interested in. I focus on watching raptors, particularly in the urban environment. I've read that northern goshawks can be found in large parks of some Korean cities like Seoul. They are very much a bird of the forest here in the UK but I've seen them in Berlin - amazing creatures!

Does South Korea have a significant commercial/sports optics industry? I guess the ROK must produce military binoculars, but we seem to hear very little about civilian optics.

PS. what's the large individual focus porro with the Bausch & Lomb style one-piece body design at the top right of your photo? It's to the right of the center focus porro with what looks like a label "Mantis" in red text.

I can say the exact bird I am interested on right now but many of the Korean birders are interested in Eurasian tree scraper which being commen especially this winter.

there are some photos of Eurasian treescraper below I have taken. (since I don't use any camera, I only take photos using digiscoping with my binos and spotting scopes.)

 

[tenex]

plus, I found out It's Abee prism is little bit different then other Abee prism. one of my colleague can get access to Xray device, so I could get my teton X rayed.
first photo is Alepn tetons X ray and second photo is comparing with ordinary shaped Abee prism of victory HT.
don't know why the place the prism reversed. have asked through Alpen SNS but never got a reply...

The prisms can be rotated any way one likes; Swarovski notably did that in NL. The main difference in the Alpen seems to be the shorter light path (shorter focal length, more CA?) and that enormous field lens next to the prisms. Perhaps a real expert here could speculate on how that's adding to the problem.

Your treescraper looks very much like our Brown Creeper in the US.

 

[exup]

(that's why I'm doing bino reviews in Korean website...)

I would be interested to read your reviews of your binoculars, can you please share your website with us? Thank you

 

[jackjack]

The prisms can be rotated any way one likes; Swarovski notably did that in NL. The main difference in the Alpen seems to be the shorter light path (shorter focal length, more CA?) and that enormous field lens next to the prisms. Perhaps a real expert here could speculate on how that's adding to the problem.

Your treescraper looks very much like our Brown Creeper in the US.

I agree with you too. it has ED lens but it's CA is much worse than non ED about 200$.
guess it's because of the shorter light path... and also they may not use good ED glass because of price issue. It seems that they mostly do the job to inhence brightness than correct abberations

 

[jackjack]

I would be interested to read your reviews of your binoculars, can you please share your website with us? Thank you

the site im uploading is hard for foreigner to get access... It use special domain and registration which many Korean use to, but others not...
and of course, written in Korean too.
so I think I'm gonna right some brief reviews of the bino that may be well known to you guys... if I have some time to do It.

I have written over 120 bino reivews in korean site so It will be hard to post it all even I summarize it a lot.....
and I have no idea where to post it or what to start first...

so If you want some information of the bino (that I said I have seen at the first thread...) I can give some brief feedback of It. just like the thread above.

 

[john highridge]

the site im uploading is hard for foreigner to get access... It use special domain and registration which many Korean use to, but others not...
and of course, written in Korean too.
so I think I'm gonna right some brief reviews of the bino that may be well known to you guys... if I have some time to do It.

I have written over 120 bino reivews in korean site so It will be hard to post it all even I summarize it a lot.....
and I have no idea where to post it or what to start first...

so If you want some information of the bino (that I said I have seen at the first thread...) I can give some brief feedback of It. just like the thread above.

Hello, I'm interested in your assessment of the Meopta Meostar HD+ 8x42. Thank you!

 

[jackjack]

Hello, I'm interested in your assessment of the Meopta Meostar HD+ 8x42. Thank you!

ok. It will take time but I'll try to post some about it.

 

[Patudo]

I think is is the same bino with Sightron Comatscan 10x50. large fov, very good transparency but lot of blurry edge and eye strain.... alomg side of the Efantis (which you see as mantis) it's a cheap entry bino (under 150$) for novice star gazers. but they are optically better then Nikon Action EX series

Thanks for the info, it's interesting to see brands/formats that are not so common in the West. A well executed 10x50 is still a pleasure to use. Do you have any favourites in this class of bino?

 

[jackjack]

Thanks for the info, it's interesting to see brands/formats that are not so common in the West. A well executed 10x50 is still a pleasure to use. Do you have any favourites in this class of bino?

I didn't use 50mm as many as 42 or 32...
the best 10x50 I've seen is swaro EL 10x50.
and It will give me hard time coosing what I like more between two great 10x56.
Zeiss TFL and Swaro SLC...

the Chinese cheap 10x50 like BW18 and MS from kunming unitedoptics and SV202 from SVBONY is widely used between star watchers. can found around 100~200$ in korea.
have good optics for price. clearly better than nikon aculone