I went and took a look at the new SLC's today, and having the opportunity, weighed them on a digital scale the shop uses to determine postage weights. Should be pretty accurate.
"Old" 8x42 SLC HD 828 g
"New"8x42 SLC 796 g
"New" 10x42 SLC 762 g
So this SLC HD was 4 g lighter than my home measurement of possibly a different sample, and the new SLC 8x is lighter but not as light as King's salesman had reported. The 10x42 on the other hand is very light for such a binocular. Its body is also shorter than that of the 8x42, although I did not measure the difference.
I also checked the focusing. They all have the spring loading, making turning resistance higher from far to close than from close to far. Of these three, the 10x42 SLC had the least resistance, the 8x42 SLC the highest, and the 8x42 SLC HD was in between (that one has served as a demo for a while) I thought they were all okay.
Focus speed was different in these new ones. We did a test where we checked the amount of focus wheel rotation needed to go from ca 3km to ca 10m (this was not measured, probably a bit under). We did not move while testing, so the distances, while not exactly known, did not vary. The SLC HD had focus about twice as fast as the new SLC. Since we have different eyesight, me and my friend got different results. I'm farsighted, so for the same distances I'm essentially focusing the binoculars closer, and therefore need more focus travel than my friend who does not need glasses for viewing far. For him, the focus travel from 3km to ca 10m was about 90 degrees for the SLC HD and 180 degrees for the SLC, and for me about 130 degrees for the SLC HD and about 260 degrees for the SLC.
I was not expecting any difference in focus speed between these two, so was rather surprised by the results.
I hadn't realized before how much of a difference to focus speed farsightedness/nearsightedness makes for a person not wearing glasses with binoculars, but of course it makes perfect sense. For me, this was the most interesting finding of the day.
Kimmo
"Old" 8x42 SLC HD 828 g
"New"8x42 SLC 796 g
"New" 10x42 SLC 762 g
So this SLC HD was 4 g lighter than my home measurement of possibly a different sample, and the new SLC 8x is lighter but not as light as King's salesman had reported. The 10x42 on the other hand is very light for such a binocular. Its body is also shorter than that of the 8x42, although I did not measure the difference.
I also checked the focusing. They all have the spring loading, making turning resistance higher from far to close than from close to far. Of these three, the 10x42 SLC had the least resistance, the 8x42 SLC the highest, and the 8x42 SLC HD was in between (that one has served as a demo for a while) I thought they were all okay.
Focus speed was different in these new ones. We did a test where we checked the amount of focus wheel rotation needed to go from ca 3km to ca 10m (this was not measured, probably a bit under). We did not move while testing, so the distances, while not exactly known, did not vary. The SLC HD had focus about twice as fast as the new SLC. Since we have different eyesight, me and my friend got different results. I'm farsighted, so for the same distances I'm essentially focusing the binoculars closer, and therefore need more focus travel than my friend who does not need glasses for viewing far. For him, the focus travel from 3km to ca 10m was about 90 degrees for the SLC HD and 180 degrees for the SLC, and for me about 130 degrees for the SLC HD and about 260 degrees for the SLC.
I was not expecting any difference in focus speed between these two, so was rather surprised by the results.
I hadn't realized before how much of a difference to focus speed farsightedness/nearsightedness makes for a person not wearing glasses with binoculars, but of course it makes perfect sense. For me, this was the most interesting finding of the day.
Kimmo
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