Habicht 7x42 Porro for birding?
As many will be aware, I’m a fan of the Habicht Porros
BUT for a number of reasons I would not recommend any of them as a general purpose birding bino,
and in particular the 7x42’s very narrow FOV (114 meters at 1000 meters/ 342 feet at 1000 yards), is a significant additional count against birding use
- see my summary here:
https://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=3850436&postcount=16
The Habichts are much more acceptable for general outdoor use, offering lots of bang for the buck, and are also a very nice addition for an enthusiast who wants to explore binocular qualities
And since they've been in production for so long, some notes for those considering second hand models, which offer even more value:
- the current fogproof version was introduced in 1984 (it’s immediately recognisable by the valve cap screws on the front bridge arms)
- the first multi-coated (aka Swarotop) version was introduced in 1991 (the image was slightly yellow)
- the coating was significantly updated by Feb 1997 (resulting in a very slightly yellow image) *
- and the coating was again updated in Aug 2009 (the current paper white version)
* some perspective: the degree of yellowness of my late-1999 8x30 model is similar to that of my mid-2006 SLC 8x30, and is slightly less than that of my Nikon EII 8x30 #811,134 purchased from Japan in 2012
Confirmation of the coating changes is easy, as in 1991 Alpha-Numeric serial numbering was introduced
- the number includes both the year and month of production (see this post and especially the second attachment:
https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=369004 )
John