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"Immersion" - What Price Glory? (1 Viewer)

I've read numerous viewers' writings about the "immersive" experience of a fine pair of binoculars: the sensation of a direct link between the scene and the viewer, with no device in between. I've had limited direct experience of such a phenomenon, and would like to ask what binoculars give you that feeling.

Allied with, and probably components of, "immersion" are stereoscopic effect, field of view, and depth of field. Do you agree?

Can you tell me which bins, in your experience, have the qualities of immersion? Maybe this will give me an idea of where to search for this experience, and what it might cost. No doubt the top price models share this attribute, but is that the only place it can it be found?
 
I think immersion can mean slightly different things to different people. For example for the binos to seem to disappear, some folks need them to have very balanced/controlled distortions, others emphasise freedom from chromatic aberration or need sharpness all the way to the edge, while still others cite a large field of view.

I am one of the latter. If a bino has a narrow field of view then the 'tunnel vision' constantly reminds me I am looking through binos. If the field of view is wider then its a different and immersive world.

Once I get up to 130 -135m at 1,000m and wider I am in that immersive world so quite a few good quality 8x32s do the trick (Meopta B1 8x32, Kowa Genesis 8x33, Opticron Traveller 8x32, Zeiss FL 8x32, Zeiss Conquest HD 8x32) and Zeiss's SF 8x42 with 148m and 8x is terrific.

IMHO you need to find out what works for you and if you are a nature observer the best thing about the 'immersive experience' is that you can forget about the binos and concentrate on what you are observing.

Lee
 
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The old ultrawide (10degree) 7x35 Porro models of yesterdecades. Many models available. Quite heavy and the eyerelief is quite short, but sure gets the field stop out of the way and allows you to enjoy the view. It’s good to be able to catch motion in your peripheral vision, helps find things.

Peter
 
Lee, post 2,
Immersion is a typical Dutch invention, you can read the beginning of it in my power point presentation published on the WEB-site of House of Outdoor, which describes the optical inventions and the optical industry in The Netherlands from around 1600-2013. Around 1980 other developments led to much better and deeper immersion experiences which originate in the Dutch coffee shops, where ordinary people discovered that you do not need an investment of hunderds or thousands of euros for top of the line binoculars with all their limitations like color diffraction, astigmatism, coma, distorsion of images etc.etc. to receive deep observations of immersion by buying some of the stuff supplied there. Very clever invention so the Dutch optical industry took a very different turn and, if we look a bit further across the North Sea and go to the small village of Daresbury, close to Manchester, where the famous inventor Lewis Caroll had his home base and where he described the beautiful immersion experiences in "Through the looking glass" by Alice, so many examples of highly sophisticated and deep immersion experiences without having to spent a lot of money and one does not even have to use the eyes a lot.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
Lee, post 2,
.... Around 1980 other developments led to much better and deeper immersion experiences which originate in the Dutch coffee shops, where ordinary people discovered that you do not need an investment of hunderds or thousands of euros for top of the line binoculars with all their limitations like color diffraction, astigmatism, coma, distorsion of images etc.etc. to receive deep observations of immersion by buying some of the stuff supplied there. ....
Gijs van Ginkel

Just to clarify: in a Dutch coffee shop, they don't serve much coffee, although you could get coffee if you really want to. The coffee shop business is mainly about that green smelly weedy "stuff" some like to smoke :smoke:

Beautiful, bright vibrant colors tend to enhance my viewing/immersion experience
:king:
 
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Can you tell me which bins, in your experience, have the qualities of immersion? Maybe this will give me an idea of where to search for this experience, and what it might cost. No doubt the top price models share this attribute, but is that the only place it can it be found?

Definitely the Nikon E II 8x30. To large extent because of the wide AFOV, but also the porro build style which contributes to the immersive experience with more pronounced 3D cues.

Other factors like sharpness, contrast, color representation, straylight handling and more need to be in place. Otherwise their absence will rapidly degrade the "immersion".

Thus, a very "clear" roof binocular is better than a dirty old porro with single-coated or uncoated lenses.
But it's my firm opinion that the E II beats just about everything else out there in the immersion contest.

//L
 
Another vote for the EII.

Besides the factors already mentioned maybe the shortish eye-relief of the EII has something to do with its 'immersiveness' too?

And its curved field? Often the bird in the hedge AND the field in the foreground (closer to me) are both in focus at the same time. How's that for edge-to-edge sharpness? ;-)

The other day I was casually comparing 8x42 Noctovid, Zeiss SF and 8.5x42 SV FP, focussing more on differences in handling than on optical characteristics. Then I put my EII to my eyes and it was as if I had more magnification and could see more detail. When I checked more carefully this wasn't the case, but with the EII I was right 'there' in the scene, 'with' the target I was looking at. The difference really hit me. Maybe it's just that I'm so accustomed to the EII, but I saved a lot of money that day :)

George
 
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A tripod mounted 8.5x42 ELFP is mighty impressive to me, when its rock steady you can really appreciate just how good that view is.
 
When by myself walking in the woods on a clear bright day, there is nothing like a EII with the FOV and the depth of field. I wonder for the sake of it, how good would a 7X30 EII, can you imagine what depth of field would be like? Take a look through an older NVA 7X40 porro, reticle removed, spot on collimation and crystal clear optics, you will really appreciate what depth of field is.

Andy W.
 
I think Lee is correct that the term might mean slightly different things to different people (and maybe my standards are just lower... |;| )

For me, a reasonably sharp, reasonably wide view with enough eye relief to allow the field stop circle to "disappear" into my mid peripheral vision feels "immersive." The "3D" effect of porros probably enhances the effect, but I also get it with my Japanese 7x42 roofs.
 
Virtual reality headsets get to immersive. Even an excellent, still by today's standards, late model Bushnell Rangemaster 7x35 and an 11* field don't quite get there, for what I'd describe as immersive. So Lee is correct about different meanings for different people.

As a contrary view, too much fov can be distracting. You can go from say a 7* fov to an 11* fov. That is fine and many, even most, would prefer the view. However we take our our DNA inherited narrow focus vision into an immensely larger viewing area. At some point that will get distracting, particularly in a target rich environment.

People like to use adjectives to try and explain their perceptions of the view they adore. Immersive is a good one. At one end of the scale too little is just that. At the other end we get to more than enough. We differ where we all sit on the scale.
 
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I think immersion = richness, a feast for our most important sensory organs. Aside from narrow technical goals (military, hunting, identifying birds) the binocular view is about enjoying visual perception: field of view, sharpness across the field, detail (magnification), brightness, contrast, color, resolution, plasticity (OK, that was just a joke about the Noctivid), stereoscopism, freedom from defects (aberrations etc), and so on. As others have said, which of these are more important to you is a matter of personal taste, as is your threshold of satisfaction. No binocular is perfect, even as they approach $3K, as you can easily confirm by trying a few... not to mention physical considerations of size, weight/balance, ease of focusing etc. For me, a high quality 32mm glass is ideal and my taste runs to Leica, anything from Trinovid BN to UV HD+.
 
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For me "immersive experience" is when you almost forget that there is some device between you and what you are looking at. The binos that give me that feeling are the Swaros SV 10x50 and 12x50, as well some good wide-angle porros. I think that a wide FoV is a necessary condition. A smallish ER, as suggested by a previous poster, allows you to get closer to the EP and seems also to be necessary.
 
Another vote for the EII.

Besides the factors already mentioned maybe the shortish eye-relief of the EII has something to do with its 'immersiveness' too?

And its curved field? Often the bird in the hedge AND the field in the foreground (closer to me) are both in focus at the same time. How's that for edge-to-edge sharpness? ;-)

The other day I was casually comparing 8x42 Noctovid, Zeiss SF and 8.5x42 SV FP, focussing more on differences in handling than on optical characteristics. Then I put my EII to my eyes and it was as if I had more magnification and could see more detail. When I checked more carefully this wasn't the case, but with the EII I was right 'there' in the scene, 'with' the target I was looking at. The difference really hit me. Maybe it's just that I'm so accustomed to the EII, but I saved a lot of money that day :)

George

George,

High time for you to visit the nearest coffee shop

:smoke::smoke:
 
Nagler eyepieces. 82 or 84 degrees.
That is what is needed.

For some 100 degree eyepieces do the trick.

Perhaps a Nikon WX 10x binocular would work.
 
Gijs

I bow before your wisdom and sagacity. Who needs edge to edge sharpness when you can experience Dutch edge to edge fuzziness combined with a warmth of view that excels in plasticity and all manner of similar illusions?

I think you should open your own coffee shop and invite us all round to experience this Dutch hospitality :t: Gijs's verbazingwekkende koffie

Lee
 
Synaps, post 5,
Everybody on this forum is familiar with the Dutch coffee shops and the immersive experiences of the products served there, since they have experienced it themselves quite often, so your explanation was not necessary I think.

Lee, post 16, Thank you for the appreciation of my wisdom, it was a pleasure to share it.
Now I am going to dive into the immense deep images of a newly found binocular, but it is too early to unravel the secrets of this deep, yes extremely deep immersive image quality, I have to save that for the coming year, which I hope, will be a Happy one for all of us.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
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