Let's talk PORROS! (2 Viewers)

[Conndomat]

"Post 299"
And you now believe that Birder and other nature observers with these huge and heavy binoculars with single focus are walking through the meadows just because they say they have better optics?

The Fujinon are good glasses, but Imho no better than a Swarovski EL and comparable candidates, quite unsuitable for birding, built for marine and astronomy.
No serious birder will use these glasses for a long time, you will find out for yourself.

Andreas

 

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Dennis, I can't keep up; could you clarify...

1. Why did you sell the Swaro 8x42 NL?
2. Why did you sell the APM 7x50 ED MS APO?

3. What do you currently use when you go birdwatching?

1. Because I tried a Fujinon FMTR-SX 10x50 and I liked the 3D view natural view of the porro much better than the NL. The big porro literally blew the NL away for me. It has a better 3D view, it is brighter, it pans better, the edges are just as sharp, and just overall I much preferred the view. This describes my feelings perfectly of the NL. "The view had an odd, almost “parallax effect” to it. I found it unnatural and bothersome. Once again, I think Swarovski is resorting to optical gimmicks for marketing’s sake. Just as the overly flat field of the EL renders them unusable for my eyes, the NL also is troublesome for my eyes."

2. I didn't sell the APM 7x50 ED MS APO. I bought the Fujinon FMTR-SX 7x50 and the APM APO 7x50 at the same time from APM to compare them and I decided I would keep the best of the two being the same format. On first look I thought the Fujinons were better, so I decided to sell the APM APO. I listed them in the classifieds and on Astromart. Then the next day I compared them again when the light was getting lower, and I found out the APM was every bit as good as the Fujinons and maybe even a little better. The APM APO controls CA a little better than the Fujinons with their HD glass. Both of them were INCREDIBLE as far as glare control even right next to the sun. No glare like the NL had! So I decided to keep them both and cancelled both ads.

3. The Fujinon FMTR-SX 10x50, Fujinon FMTR-SX 7x50 and APM APO 7x50 porros if I am not hiking a long distance. If I am hiking a long distance I use the Habicht 10x40 GA porro.

 

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"Post 299"
And you now believe that Birder and other nature observers with these huge and heavy binoculars with single focus are walking through the meadows just because they say they have better optics?

The Fujinon are good glasses, but Imho no better than a Swarovski EL and comparable candidates, quite unsuitable for birding, built for marine and astronomy.
No serious birder will use these glasses for a long time, you will find out for yourself.

Andreas

I will never go back to an EL after having a good porro. I can understand birders not wanting to carry the big 7x50 porros but there are many smaller porros that will give you a better view than a roof prism. Try a Habicht or any of the smaller porros.

 

[Conndomat]

Dennis there are a lot of eye-glasses users out there, what should they do with the habicht?

Which Porros would you suggest to those that are waterproof, provide enough eye relief, are small and light enough, center focuser, there isn't really much on the market.
You also seem to be particularly impressed by the big Porros otherwise you wouldn't have bought a NL after the habicht.

Andreas

 

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But Dennis this argument (ahem) carries no weight because you don't carry your belly on a strap around your neck
Unfortunately this is exactly what you do with a bino.
Lee

Enjoy your Porros Den.
Lee

You can use a harness instead of a strap which makes carrying a heavier binocular quite easy. I don't like to brag, but I have been working out lately, and I really don't have any problem carrying the extra pound of the Fujinon FMTR-SX 10x50. Here is a fairly recent picture of me working out at our local gym.

 

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Dennis there are a lot of eye-glasses users out there, what should they do with the habicht?

Which Porros would you suggest to those that are waterproof, provide enough eye relief, are small and light enough, center focuser, there isn't really much on the market.
You also seem to be particularly impressed by the big Porros otherwise you wouldn't have bought a NL after the habicht.

Andreas

I do like the 50 mm porros now, and they are heavier but most 8x42 roofs weigh 2 pounds so what is another pound? But if you are a "Momma's Boy" and can't handle the weight APM does make a 6x30 Porro for about $200 that will put the alpha compacts to shame I am sure, and it has 18.5 mm of eye relief.

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/binoculars/binoculars-30mm-aperture/apm-ms-6x30-binoculars.html

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/binoculars/binoculars-50mm-aperture.html

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/index.php

 

[PYRTLE]

The APM 6x30 looks like a lovely little porro indeed. I've noticed it's marked and featured as waterproof.

 

[Paskman]

With the APM APO 7x50 you hardly ever have to focus it because of the great DOF. The rubber eye cups are fine and actually simpler to use without glasses because there are no adjustments. You just put the binoculars up to your eyes and look through them.

But in the real world you do have to focus when birding. So you have to take your glasses off, then focus; individually, each eye piece, whilst building the half ton binoculars, then the small LBJ that you are trying to identify will be long gone. Give me my ELs, CLs or the EIls ( that I regretfully sold), any day🙂

 

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But in the real world you do have to focus when birding. So you have to take your glasses off, then focus; individually, each eye piece, whilst building the half ton binoculars, then the small LBJ that you are trying to identify will be long gone. Give me my ELs, CLs or the EIls ( that I regretfully sold), any day🙂

No glasses here, and I never look at a bird that close anyway. Less than 30 feet away I use my eyes. Closer than that, and you are going to scare them away bringing a pair of binoculars up to your eyes. Think about it a minute.

 

[Paskman]

No glasses here, and I never look at a bird that close anyway. Less than 30 feet away I use my eyes. Closer than that, and you are going to scare them away bringing a pair of binoculars up to your eyes. Think about it a minute.

So are you saying that the 7x50s focus from 30 feet to infinity? There are also plenty of people who do watch birds at less than 30 feet, including me today.

 

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So are you saying that the 7x50s focus from 30 feet to infinity? There are also plenty of people who do watch birds at less than 30 feet, including me today.

Our birds are bigger out here though. We don't have many Goldfinches out here plus a lot of the birding out here is done in more open country, so you really are not getting that close to the bird. The big Fujinons are perfect for Pelagic and Birds of Prey at distance overlooking water or distant cliffs. You don't get any glare with them which is wonderful. I use them at our Rocky Mountain Arsenal Bird Refuge in Colorado to look for Bald Eagles nesting across the lakes. Close focus on the Fujinon FMTR-SX is 17 feet, and they are in pretty good focus even at that distance to infinity. If you are doing a lot of birding at 15 to 20 feet you might have to set both your diopters to +2. You learn where you have set your diopters for closer in birding. Really you can leave them at 0 if your eyesight is 20/20, and you will in be focus pretty good from 30 feet to infinity.

 

[tenex]

The topic has been discussed on this forum before and the phase shift problem had been observed already some decades before 1988 and a remedy was proposed by one of the Zeiss coworkers, but it never was realised.

I'd like to know more about that. As I've said before, I remain curious why it took so long to develop a solution. (It's quite obvious why the problem was never publicly acknowledged in the meantime.)

It is all about marketing. The manufacturers push roof prism binoculars because they make more money on them. If more people would look through a porro they wouldn't sell any of these expensive roofs.

This was certainly true, even somewhat suspicious, for several decades prior to 1988. But with the quality of today's roof-prism optics the compactness, waterproofing, close focus, etc are easily decisive for most people. (Yes you can have waterproofing in a porro, but hardly ever with central focusing.) I grew up with porros but they're pure nostalgia for me now.

I personally like Allbinos because I agree with them most of the time. Regardless of their detractors I feel they know what they are talking about.

As others have pointed out, there are legitimate questions about their testing methods (and changes in those), as well as whether what they're talking about matters. For example, they simply deduct points for rectilinear distortion without considering AMD, which favors certain designs over others in a completely arbitrary way, making their rankings rather dubious (and you do pay a lot of attention to rankings).

As you noted above it's present when there is zero rectilinear distortion (pincushion or barrel), but the radial compression of shapes that it causes will increase with increasing barrel distortion and decrease with increasing pincushion. Just the right amount of pincushion will reduce the angular distortion to zero. Too much pincushion will reverse the sign of the angular distortion and cause circles at thr field edge to stretch radially rather than compress.

This is an excellent explanation, highlighting the (to most apparently) strange fact that AMD does not go to zero when rectilinear does, i.e. there is no "distortion-free" binocular, only compromises.

I do like the 50 mm porros now

My father used to carry an IF Zeiss 7x50 everywhere... but he wasn't a birder. There's surely something nice about these designs, but let's say they're not for everyone.

 

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I'd like to know more about that. As I've said before, I remain curious why it took so long to develop a solution. (It's quite obvious why the problem was never publicly acknowledged in the meantime.)

This was certainly true, even somewhat suspicious, for several decades prior to 1988. But with the quality of today's roof-prism optics the compactness, waterproofing, close focus, etc are easily decisive for most people. (Yes you can have waterproofing in a porro, but hardly ever with central focusing.) I grew up with porros but they're pure nostalgia for me now.

As others have pointed out, there are legitimate questions about their testing methods (and changes in those), as well as whether what they're talking about matters. For example, they simply deduct points for rectilinear distortion without considering AMD, which favors certain designs over others in a completely arbitrary way, making their rankings rather dubious (and you do pay a lot of attention to rankings).

This is an excellent explanation, highlighting the (to most apparently) strange fact that AMD does not go to zero when rectilinear does, i.e. there is no "distortion-free" binocular, only compromises.

My father used to carry an IF Zeiss 7x50 everywhere... but he wasn't a birder. There's surely something nice about these designs, but let's say they're not for everyone.

"This was certainly true, even somewhat suspicious, for several decades prior to 1988. But with the quality of today's roof-prism optics the compactness, waterproofing, close focus, etc are easily decisive for most people. (Yes you can have waterproofing in a porro, but hardly ever with central focusing.) I grew up with porros but they're pure nostalgia for me now."

You should try a porro again. You might be shocked how good they are! They are not just nostalgia. The view still blows a roof away.

"As others have pointed out, there are legitimate questions about their testing methods (and changes in those), as well as whether what they're talking about matters. For example, they simply deduct points for rectilinear distortion without considering AMD, which favors certain designs over others in a completely arbitrary way, making their rankings rather dubious (and you do pay a lot of attention to rankings)."

Allbinos ranking favor flat field designs. They like flat fields with sharp edges.

"My father used to carry an IF Zeiss 7x50 everywhere... but he wasn't a birder. There's surely something nice about these designs, but let's say they're not for everyone."

There was some goofball redneck type guy on YouTube once who proclaimed that 7x50 binoculars were the best. I can't find his video anymore, but I remember when I watched it that I thought he was full of baloney, but now I am beginning to think he might have been right!

 

[dries1]

Dennis,

With all your time in the gym lately, and using large aperture porros, is everything Ok?,.... I mean, you are not going to go into roid-rage are you?

Andy W.

 

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Dennis,

With all your time in the gym lately, and using large aperture porros, is everything Ok?,.... I mean, you are not going to go into roid-rage are you?

Andy W.

I will just pretend you didn't say that! Didn't you SEE the biceps?

 

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Here is the $350 NL Killer! -----The APM APO 7x50-----I call him "King Kong."

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/binoculars/binoculars-50mm-aperture/apm-ed-apo-7-x-50-magnesium-series-binoculars.html

 

[albie...]

I've read lots of good stuff about the APM Magnesium Series binoculars . Been considering the 16x70 as a slightly better and lighter step up from my 15x70 BA8`s . Eyeglass friendly .

 

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I've read lots of good stuff about the APM Magnesium Series binoculars . Been considering the 16x70 as a slightly better and lighter step up from my 15x70 BA8`s . Eyeglass friendly .

They are great binoculars and the 50 mm APO porros are remarkable especially for their price. I was shocked when I looked through them for the first time and I thought a Habicht was good! They are made of magnesium and are light for their size. The build quality is excellent and they are waterproof. They remind me of a classic German built porro of about 10 years ago but with modern HD glass and optics. They have a killer view. They make you forget about all those wimpy 32 mm alpha roof prisms. If you are into astronomy you can get some very large ones up to 150 mm.

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/binoculars/giant-binoculars-100mm-aperture-more.html

 

[CharleyBird]

I've read lots of good stuff about the APM Magnesium Series binoculars . Been considering the 16x70 as a slightly better and lighter step up from my 15x70 BA8`s . Eyeglass friendly .

In my limited experience they're not a piece of kit to carry far, and in comparison to a premium 10/12x50 birding roof they may be best described as 'bulky' and 'awkward'.
They're really for a tripod, but I've used mine a couple of times leaning against window jambs, or supported with elbows on the car roof e.g. watching gulls on rocks from an open window, swans at distance while parked a causeway.

I was advised that the x70 size is the practical limit of any self-stabilised hand-holding. What do you think Dennis?

 

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In my limited experience they're not a piece of kit to carry far, and in comparison to a premium 10/12x50 birding roof they may be best described as 'bulky' and 'awkward'.
They're really for a tripod, but I've used mine a couple of times leaning against window jambs, or supported with elbows on the car roof e.g. watching gulls on rocks from an open window, swans at distance while parked a causeway.

I was advised that the x70 size is the practical limit of any self-stabilised hand-holding. What do you think Dennis?

I think the 50 mm are the sweet spot for hand holding versus all around performance. I don't find the 50 mm porros any more bulky or awkward than the 50 mm roofs and the increase in performance is worth the additional weight to me. In fact because of the wide spaced objectives you can hold them better in my opinion. The big 70 mm binoculars are getting up there too much in size and weight for any kind of hand holding. The APM 70 mm binoculars are at least 7 pounds so that is a bit much to hand hold for long although they are great on a tripod and well go deep into the night sky or would be a great long distance birding binocular say for Pelagic birding on the ocean or coastal waters.