New Zeiss Victory SF !!!!!! (1 Viewer)

[Chosun Juan]

Dyed in the wool SV man Jan ..... reluctantly having to admit after viewing, that the Zeiss SF is the new :king: ...... has said it once earlier in this thread after having it dragged out of him - but couldn't bear to say it again ...... LOL hilarious !!!! :-O


Chosun :gh:

 

[elkcub]

I will 2nd that Henry! :t:

I think that even though the view through a binocular consists of a 'system' comprising instrument + observer (+ target and environment that matter! that steps to quantify the optical characteristics of the instrument are extremely valuable. Especially when attempted to a disclosed 'scientific' method that in essence should be repeatable, open to changes in assumptions and starting conditions, and able to be critiqued and improved upon.

'Removing' the 'human' 'variable' as far as possible (even though that's nowhere near complete) is worthwhile and much appreciated. :t:

Folks making the point that 'their' viewed experience is the only thing that counts is correct - for them as a 'unique' individual 'system'. Even though we share common DNA, environment, broad range of behaviours, physiology, and development etc, and instruments are designed to accommodate the 'normal' user ('normal' as in the statistical sense), our own makeup may present an entirely different 'view' compared to other people. All are correct for themselves. Besides we've all been living with our 'own' 'views' for our entire lives, and thus are 'normalised' to it's peculiarities - so much so that we may not even notice. Hence my earlier question to Ed about just what exactly is 'normal' human vision.

Other users and different instruments are great - they can bring these 'peculiarities' into stark relief. We have already seen such a phenomena even with the few scant reports of viewing the SF.

So keep up the good work henry! :t: It does help :cat:


Chosun :gh:

Hi Chosun,

Sorry, I missed your question about 'normal' human vision. Did I mention that somewhere?

In addition to what you said, some properties we elect to attribute to an instrument are objectively definable only when it's optically coupled to an observer, e.g., depth of field, stereopsis, tunnel effect, globe effect, and so forth. I'm coming very close to concluding, on purely a logical basis, that 'flat field' instruments also require optimized coupling with a human eye.

Ed

 

[brocknroller]

According to Einstein, the universe is filled with rolling balls due to the warping of space-time, but I decidedly do not like them filling my binoculars.

<B>

 

[Chosun Juan]

Hi Chosun,

Sorry, I missed your question about 'normal' human vision. Did I mention that somewhere?

In addition to what you said, some properties we elect to attribute to the instrument are objectively definable only when it's optically coupled to an observer, e.g., depth of field, stereopsis, tunnel effect, globe effect, and so forth. I'm coming very close to concluding, on purely a logical basis, that 'flat field' instruments also require optimized coupling with a human eye.

Ed

Ed,

It was here that I followed up with another question if you would be so kind, post#1034 http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=3065501&postcount=1034

With your knowledge of human physiology as well as optical design, I was really after what sort of optical prescription (optical field characteristics) most closely resemble, or improve upon our normal vision?

Some of the things you mentioned above come into it as well, along with perceived things like focus speed, but how would it best translate into an optical design ..... I had my little layman's crack at it in post #1034 ---- but what are your views? and is the SLC as I'm guessing the closest actual bin to it (for you anyway) ??

Thank you.


Chosun :gh:

 

[bh46118]

Ok, now I understand.

Dyed in the wool SV man Jan ..... reluctantly having to admit after viewing, that the Zeiss SF is the new :king: ...... has said it once earlier in this thread after having it dragged out of him - but couldn't bear to say it again ...... LOL hilarious !!!! :-O


Chosun :gh:

 

[jan van daalen]

Dyed in the wool SV man Jan ..... reluctantly having to admit after viewing, that the Zeiss SF is the new :king: ...... has said it once earlier in this thread after having it dragged out of him - but couldn't bear to say it again ...... LOL hilarious !!!! :-O


Chosun :gh:

Chosie,

Isn't it better sometimes to keep people in the dark.....?

 

[Chosun Juan]

:t: Your secret |:x| is safe with us Jan

:cat:


Chosun :gh:

 

[bh46118]

Can I have a post # ?

Dyed in the wool SV man Jan ..... reluctantly having to admit after viewing, that the Zeiss SF is the new :king: ...... has said it once earlier in this thread after having it dragged out of him - but couldn't bear to say it again ...... LOL hilarious !!!! :-O


Chosun :gh:

 

[Chosun Juan]

Where's Pompadour when you need him?! :brains: 3

Bruce, if you go to the main page and click on the post numbers in the third column it will list everyone who has posted to this thread and how many times. Click on that number to see a list of each of that person's posts -- it will be in there ...... but you didn't get that from me! |:x|

I might want to go to the Netherlands one day and I'd hate to get stopped at the border !! :eek!: :-O


Chosun :gh:

 

[jan van daalen]

:gh::gh:

A Kingdom for an Army.......

 

[Gijs van Ginkel]

Dear all,
The SF keeps us puzzling/excited/full of expectations/dreaming etc.
Now something else about the SF: I was told by a Zeiss representative at the Dutch Bird Fair, that the development of the SF took three years.
Three years, that means (my calculations and hypothesis) teamwork of about six people earning 50.000 euro per person per year , that is approx 1 million euros development costs of the SF. There are complaints on this forum about the price of the SF, but reading the present Photokina news with a Nikon camera of 8000 euros with top quality lenses of 1000 to 10.000 euros, the price of an SF is peanuts.
Three years ago we had a meeting of the Binocular History Society at Carl Zeiss in Jena. An international community of binocular lovers was present and we listened to a number of excellent lectures with different topics. All participants were asked to bring material of interest to the particpants, so there were many fascinating old and historically interesting binoculars. Jan van Daalen had brought cutaways of Swarovski EL's and a bare metal housing of this binocular. We were asked not to sneeeze, since they are so light that they might be blown away (joke of course, but you will be amazed how light these metal housings without optics are). Zeiss employees came with cameras and made close ups of the cutaways and of the metal housing. Jan was asked over and over to sell the cutaways and the housing to them and they really tried hard to obtain one. Now I started to wonder: was this the trigger for the Zeiss idea to build the SF binoculars? I never asked, but I would not be surprised.
Gijs

 

[bh46118]

Was the FOV the main thing, or were they just better overall ? Same as the SV but a little more resolution would really do it for me, not that the SV doesn't resolve pretty darn well.

Chosie,

Isn't it better sometimes to keep people in the dark.....?

 

[David Swain]

Jan van Daalen had brought cutaways of Swarovski EL's and a bare metal housing of this binocular. We were asked not to sneeeze, since they are so light that they might be blown away (joke of course, but you will be amazed how light these metal housings without optics are). Zeiss employees came with cameras and made close ups of the cutaways and of the metal housing. Jan was asked over and over to sell the cutaways and the housing to them and they really tried hard to obtain one. Now I started to wonder: was this the trigger for the Zeiss idea to build the SF binoculars? I never asked, but I would not be surprised.

This anecdote has the quality of an urban legend. Are we to believe that it never occurred to Zeiss to simply buy an EL and dissect it? Nevertheless, taking on the concept and design of the EL must have been a bit of a paradigm shift at Zeiss.

 

[NDhunter]

This anecdote has the quality of an urban legend. Are we to believe that it never occurred to Zeiss to simply buy an EL and dissect it? Nevertheless, taking on the concept and design of the EL must have been a bit of a paradigm shift at Zeiss.

David:

Good point, the SV has been on the market since 2010.
Zeiss has had plenty of time to design a copy, since the market
has directed that is now the direction.

I think Gijs likes to just play things up. It makes good reading and
I like it. If it took 3 years, then they better have it right.

If Zeiss makes any dent in the Swarovski sales advantage that is
to be determined.

Jerry

 

[brocknroller]

The SF may have taken three years to develop, but it's purely speculative how many people worked on it, how much their salaries were, and how many hours a week they dedicated to it. From reading what Gijs wrote, you get the impression that these Zeiss employees did nothing but work on the SF for three years, at least 40 hours per week, and this is the justification for the high price. I'm doubtful. Even if all his speculations turn out to be true, the R&D is only half the story.

What matters is R&D vs. profit. No matter much money you put into developing a product, if you can't sell enough units to recoup your R&D and make a healthy profit, then the project wasn't worth doing to begin with, and that's something that Zeiss won't know until the SF is in full production and competing with the SV EL, EDG and other top bananas.

On one hand, the SF is a late comer to the game, and those who already own premium bins they are satisfied with will probably stick with them, as we have already heard from some BF members. On the other hand, the SF is being touted as the "latest and greatest," and there are those deep pocketed birders, hunters and safari Msafiri who are going to eat 'em up like candy, just because...

And then there are the true optics aficionados who will beg, borrow or sell their bins to own truly world-class glass regardless of price.

As to the price, is it mere coincidence that Swaro is selling the SV EL now for precisely the same price? Not likely. The SF is priced at $2,600 not because that's the price it will take to recoup the R&D in whatever time frame the company wants to, which is implied by Gijs, but because the SF's closest competitor is priced at that point. Pretty obvious, I would think.

Either that, or the SV EL also took three years to develop, and teamwork of about six people earning 50.000 euro per person per year, with approx 1 million euros development costs of the SV EL. Quite a coincidence, don't you think?

No, whatever the actual R&D costs were, both Swaro and Zeiss are pushing the price envelop to see how far they can go. Swaro kept raising the price of the SV EL over the past few years since it was first introduced, starting with a modest $80 price hike after the first year, and it kept going up and up and Bingo! it ends up at the same price as the SF.

The bottom line is that consumer products sell for whatever people are willing to pay for them. If they don't buy, prices come down like they did on the Nikon LX, which initially broke a new price barrier @ $1400. That didn't last very long. Now, 14 years later, the renamed LXL (Premier) is selling for $1500. Finally inflation has caught up.

Another example is the SLC-HD, which was priced too close to the SV EL. A change in close focus and armoring, and the price dropped hundreds of dollars, but it's still pricier than the SLCneu series. Will hunters pony up? Sure, as long as their hunting guides are using them! The ones that won't will wait for a good price on a "demo," and others will stick with their Monarchs, Bushnells, etc. and put their money in their guns, ammo, riflescopes and rangefinders.

Every company wants to recoup their R&D, and sometimes it works out beyond expectations (plain vanilla Monarch, best selling bin of all time), and sometimes it doesn't (Monarch X, probably a contender for Nikon's worst selling bin).

Okay, Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" is coming on, gotta go. :smoke:

Brock

 

[ceasar]

Zeiss always had a 7x42 with a huge wide FOV.

They could have made an HT version of it but it would not have sold so they made an 8x42 version of it with a huge FOV and threw in a Flat Field to make it unique and they made a comparable 10x42 with FF and a very wide FOV. If you like the 8.5x42 SV and 10x42 SV you will also like the 8x42 SF and 10x42 SF.

The FOV is the distinguishing feature between them. Otherwise it is tweedle dee and tweedle dum. They even have the same roof prisms.

Bob

 

[Troubador]

Zeiss always had a 7x42 with a huge wide FOV.

They could have made an HT version of it but it would not have sold so they made an 8x42 version of it with a huge FOV and threw in a Flat Field to make it unique and they made a comparable 10x42 with FF and a very wide FOV. If you like the 8.5x42 SV and 10x42 SV you will also like the 8x42 SF and 10x42 SF.

The FOV is the distinguishing feature between them. Otherwise it is tweedle dee and tweedle dum. They even have the same roof prisms.

Bob

You are right about the 7x42 there Bob. It is something I criticise Zeiss for. The FL had the same FOV as the previous Nighthawk which had the same FOV as the previous Dialyt. No progress in 20 years, no marketing support, the 7x was just the model on the end of the line-up with less magnification than the rest. An opportunity missed IMHO.

As for tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, apart from the prisms, the optics are totally different as is the focusing mechanism. But what differences this leads to in the hand and to the eye is what I want to discover with a shoot out test as soon as it can be arranged.

Lee

 

[garymh]

Jan van Daalen had brought cutaways of Swarovski EL's and a bare metal housing of this binocular. We were asked not to sneeeze, since they are so light that they might be blown away (joke of course, but you will be amazed how light these metal housings without optics are). Zeiss employees came with cameras and made close ups of the cutaways and of the metal housing. Jan was asked over and over to sell the cutaways and the housing to them and they really tried hard to obtain one.

Hi,

Strange really !!!!!

I work for Zeiss and personally own a number of Swarovski (and Leica) cutaway binoculars. This is common knowledge among my colleagues..........so why did they just not ask me if they could borrow them :-O :-O

Thi

 

[jan van daalen]

This anecdote has the quality of an urban legend. Are we to believe that it never occurred to Zeiss to simply buy an EL and dissect it? Nevertheless, taking on the concept and design of the EL must have been a bit of a paradigm shift at Zeiss.

Let's put this anecdote back to its right proportions, because mainly I am to blaim for this.
Back than, the temperature of the relationship between me/my company and Zeiss was below zero and visiting them in their roots..... well ,let's say it took some time for me to decide to visit the meeting or not.

On of the articles I took for the meeting was indeed a magnesium housing of a Swarovski EL which we have for educational purposes in our shop and are donated by Swaro, just like we have them from Leica etc.
In that time the SV was just launched and one of the Zeiss reps asked me of which model this housing was. I told him that this was a pre-production sample of the SV made by one of Swarovski's suppliers (instead of a housing of the old EL).
He was very interested because Zeiss could get a production model housing (just buy a SV bin) but not a pre-production housing so the tolerances were original from the supplier and not machined for assembly by the manufacturer, so that could give Zeiss some insight in the final production.
Yes, Zeiss wanted that housing and I did not want to sell it to them but to pull his leg some more I offered them to make some pictures.
Well they did!! Of a old EL housingB B

Jan

 

[Troubador]

Let's put this anecdote back to its right proportions, because mainly I am to blaim for this.
Back than, the temperature of the relationship between me/my company and Zeiss was below zero and visiting them in their roots..... well ,let's say it took some time for me to decide to visit the meeting or not.

On of the articles I took for the meeting was indeed a magnesium housing of a Swarovski EL which we have for educational purposes in our shop and are donated by Swaro, just like we have them from Leica etc.
In that time the SV was just launched and one of the Zeiss reps asked me of which model this housing was. I told him that this was a pre-production sample of the SV made by one of Swarovski's suppliers (instead of a housing of the old EL).
He was very interested because Zeiss could get a production model housing (just buy a SV bin) but not a pre-production housing so the tolerances were original from the supplier and not machined for assembly by the manufacturer, so that could give Zeiss some insight in the final production.
Yes, Zeiss wanted that housing and I did not want to sell it to them but to pull his leg some more I offered them to make some pictures.
Well they did!! Of a old EL housingB B

Jan

You wicked Dutch-person LOL LOL :-O

Lee