Comparing three 32 mm binoculars (1 Viewer)

Hi guys, today rained all day so I took a day off birding to write down some thoughts about my three currently most used binoculars.
No great secrets are actually revealed since one of them is discontinued many years ago, another recently discontinued and the last stands in the line, too.
Sorry about that, but it was what I could afford 3

This simple comparison suffers from a number of inherent error sources. The most apparent among them is that the Vortex binocular has a radically different magnification than the other two.
This will earn it some extra points in the Spectacle friendliness and Ergonomics moments.
To avoid erroneous interpretation of their brightness, they were stopped down to 21 mm, yielding an exit pupil of 3.23 mm.

Ranking problems
I often found the differences too small to discern, then I gave two binoculars the same points.
On other occasions, the numbers may suggest that there are larger differences than there really is.
An exception would be the contrast, where the Nikon's contrast is way above the other two and where I'd have liked to give it a 4 or a 5, thus abandoning the ranking method for a points method.

Selection of properties used for ranking
Another objection that can be made against this ranking contest is that some properties are excluded. Value for money, warranties and some individual properties that are judged as a whole can be argued.
As an example, I have excluded image distortion from the test since I'm not particularly susceptible to it.
None of these bins have ever caused me eye strain or nausea, nor have they shown objectionable distortion in field use.

Below follows explanations and a plethora of added details regarding the various parts of the contest.

Image sharpness – edge.
All three samples exceed my visual acuity at the center, although the Zeiss is clearly the sharpest when resolution is boosted. The Nikon, being considerably sharper than its contenders outside the center and all the way to the edge, is the clear winner.
But how to judge the other two when they have different magnification and very different AFOV? If they had similar sweet spot percentage, the Zeiss with its massive 69 degree AFOV would win over the 55 degree Fury, but in sweet spot as an exact number of degrees, the Fury would win. Dead heat I guess.

Low light performance
After stopping down the Fury, the Zeiss FL is king here. Despite the twilight factor impact, the Nikon wasn't quite able to match the Fury looking into deep shade in dusk.
This may be the downside of its high contrast. But once there is just a little more light, it lifts out brighter details against a seducingly black background.

Straylight
The Nikon and the Vortex are very close here. Neither of them loses contrast facing the Sun, but the Nikon's high contrast is there all the way which makes the view through them a lot more contrasty than without them. A truly outstanding result!
The Zeiss' amazing brightness takes another jump up when pointing them towards the general direction of the Sun. Unfortunately this is straylight and the brightness increases at the expense of contrast loss. Shading them with the hand regains the contrast.
Considering that these binoculars are very short, have a massive FOV and don't produce any ghost images or gray crescents, the result is still quite good though not at alpha level.

Ghost images
I have abstained from giving points here since none of them produce reflections or ghost images to an objectionable degree.

Image color
The Fury is the clear winner with a mostly imperceptible and always occasional warm hint.
Their color rendition is in other words very, very neutral.
Ranking the two alphas was quite difficult. As has been described before, the FL is so bright that the colors seem washed-out and sometimes downright dull. Furthermore, the color rendition is not neutral but leans towards the blue/green side, though much less than the Nikon leans towards the orangey side.
The latter could serve as an example of ”augmented reality” since it seemingly makes all colors very saturated, except possibly for the blue. Especially different nuances of brown stand out and (sort of) gives the brown birds a luscious ”make up”.

Contrast
The brightness of the Zeiss makes some details more readily visible, though this is not high contrast. On the contrary, their brightness seems to reduce contrast and color saturation.
They always seem at least as bright as the naked eye as long as there are traces of daylight left.
The Nikons often give me an impression of being slightly darker than the naked eye, but their incredible contrast make everything I look at ”POP” out from the image.
I have found myself preferring these for use in bright sunlight since they seem to cut through the haze like no other binoculars I have tried. But on overcast days they seem to improve the colors.
The Fury's contrast seems the most natural, just like their color rendition.

Chromatic aberration
Of course the FL is the clear winner, displaying a minimum of CA in virtually any situation.
The Nikon's CA can be excessive at times, but for the most it doesn't make much noise. Comparing it to the Fury is not easy because of the difference in magnification, and I must admit I have to push myself to find CA in the Fury.
However, if I try to imagine how it would perform if it were a 10x, I'd possibly rate them equal.

Mechanical construction
The Nikon is built like a tank and leads my feelings towards the Nikon Tropical I owned some time ago. One remark could be made about the rubber eyecups that seem a little loose. -I can't see this thing break!
The Zeiss is rugged as well, but the focus knob is a bit rough and gritty. Have some doubts about the diopter too.
The Vortex is quite solid but nowhere near the other two. The eyecups are a bit wobbly and need to be readjusted now and then.
The rubber armor seems thin where the thumbs rest, since I can feel the armor slide against the metal when I push and pull. The focus knob is decidedly better than the Zeiss', though.

Ergonomics
The Fury is the largest of the three, even bigger than the Nikon and fits my large hands like a glove.
Everything is in the right place and works intuitively.
The small Zeiss has surprisingly much space for the thumbs but is too short to hold comfortably with two hands.
The Nikon, finally, leaves me puzzled since I probably hold it in different ways every time I pick it up, and none of them is very comfortable. Then, there's the weight issue where three or four ounces less weight would have been welcome.

Spectacle friendliness
This interacts with the PFOV part. The Fury's massive eye relief allows it to be held 4 mm in front of the spectacle lenses and the whole field is easily visible.
Thus, the eye relief could be named excessive.
The Zeiss' huge AFOV is fully visible with my spectacles, which is quite an achievement.
If I had been hyperopic, I doubt I would have managed to see it all.
The Nikon falls short because of an inappropriate eyecup design where the outer edge is raised to a lip, then inclined inwards against the ocular lens. If it had been squared at the edge, about 1.5 mm of usable eye relief had been gained.

PFOV
The huge AFOV of the Zeiss make up for a great walk-in or PFOV experience. When the eyecups are collapsed on the Fury, they also nearly seem to disappear when held in front of the eyes, but only then!
The Nikons would be better off with other eyecups, and I'll search for others to exchange them in order to see the field stop.

Focus knob
I prefer fast focusers and the Nikon is about as fast as it can get. It is superbly smooth and with perfect friction to avoid overshooting, which otherwise would be easy with such a fast focus.
The Fury's knob goes very easy and is fast as well. The huge depth of field in the 6.5x eliminates the overshooting problem. I doubt I'd like the Fury 10x32 to have such a loose knob.
The Zeiss' knob is reasonably smooth but still somewhat gritty, but it does what it's supposed to.

Diopter
Nikon: Set and forget!
Vortex: Set and set and set and set. It's as easy to lose the setting tucked into a backpack as it is to set it again.
Zeiss: I have to admit I feel uncertain whether my eyes change or the diopter drifts. Adjusting it is more difficult than with the Fury and it is difficult to perform the very minute touches required to get it right. This is not alpha-style, IMHO.

Field of view
The Fury should not participate here, being a 6.5x wide angle bin. But considering the Zeiss is extremely wide for its magnification, the Nikon quite wide and the Fury 6.5x normally wide for its magnification, I decided to give the Nikon and the Fury the same points. After all, the Fury 10x32 has about the same FOV as the Nikon.


Other thoughts

The results were NOT prearranged to reach a dead heat. The fact that the Zeiss FL didn't score higher was in fact a surprise for me, as were the nearly identical final results.
All three are, in their own way, a joy to own and use. With some premeditation, I could pick either of the 10x32s and have the bin that's tailored to match the situation. On the other hand, it is obvious that with a great advantage follows some disadvantage. The Fury, though, seems to be wisely engineered to balance and avoid disadvantages by offering a sober set of advantages. Considering its retail price, I can but repeat that it was a great buy.

My favorite bin? It has the shape, weight and color balance of the Fury, the contrast, straylight control, edge sharpness and mechanics of the Nikon and finally the brightness, CA control and wide FOV of the Zeiss.
And here, I'm pretty sure Dennis will chime in and say that it's the EDG I want.
He might be right, too.

//L


Zeiss FL Vortex Fury Nikon HG
_____________________________________________________________________
Image sharpness – edge 1,5 1,5 3
Low light performance 3 2 1
Stray light 1 2 3
Ghost image - - -
Image color 1,5 3 1,5
Contrast 1 2 3
CA 3 1,5 1,5
Mechanical construction 2 1 3
Ergonomics 2 3 1
Spectacle friendliness 2,5 2,5 1
PFOV 3 2 1
Focus knob 1 2 3
Diopter 1 2 3
Field of view 3 1,5 1,5
_____________________________________________________________________
Total 25,5 26 26,5

Chart easier to read here:
http://www.evernote.com/shard/s199/sh/ef8967bc-b0fc-40eb-91eb-b3c786900c9e/e9234732be463d79ffd3f0ebb6dd6c67

"It has the shape, weight and color balance of the Fury, the contrast, straylight control, edge sharpness and mechanics of the Nikon and finally the brightness, CA control and wide FOV of the Zeiss".

That describes the EDG perfectly.It's the EDG you want. I'm telling you it's the perfect binocular. Expensive true but as close to perfection as you can get. Just like a Swiss Watch(Patek Philippe).

[email protected] said:

"It has the shape, weight and color balance of the Fury, the contrast, straylight control, edge sharpness and mechanics of the Nikon and finally the brightness, CA control and wide FOV of the Zeiss".

That describes the EDG perfectly.It's the EDG you want. I'm telling you it's the perfect binocular. Expensive true but as close to perfection as you can get.

Click to expand...

:-O I knew it!!! But you know, since I need at a minimum three of them, could use four and wish for five (2# 7x42, 2 # 10x32 and 1# 8x32), I'd better await the
EDG III line so I won't have to change again! Ooops I meant the EDG IV line

//L

Lars,

Thanks for an interesting analysis.

My first impression was that the results looked strange to me based on short try outs of the 8x32 Zeiss FL, 8x32 Nikon HGL and the 6.5x32 Fury. Could they really be so close? First impressions can be unreliable and I certainly couldn't score some of the categories based on my short encounters. Out of curiosity I scored my own impressions, and left your scores in where I didn't check or couldn't remember. I got:
Zeiss FL 28.5
Fury 20.5
HGL 29

OK the HGL is not the same as the HG and I tried 8x not 10x but I don't think it would have made any difference.

Some of the points where we differed. On sharpness I biased centre resolution not edges. Not saying the Fury was bad, it probably makes little practical difference, but the other two were definitely sharper. Low light is a tricky one. It depends so much on the illuminating residual light and how late you leave it. Beyond sunset it can be strongly orange to strongly blue and the Nikon and Zeiss behave very differently, but transmission and magnification win for me. Sorting out true contrast, colour contrast and colour neutrality into your two categories was a bit tricky. I agree with your description, but the true contrast on the Zeiss and Nikon were better than the Fury IMO and I scored it that way, but gave the nod to the Nikon for colour vibrancy. The rest I left pretty much the same.

Who's right? Of course we both are. It just reflects our differing priorities. I liked the Fury/Meopro a lot and got very close to buying one but opted for a 7x36 in the end. Are either a technical match for the Zeiss or Nikon? Sorry, I don't think so. Is the Nikon better than the Zeiss? Not that I could judge in the time I had. If I'd put in another or different categories the numbers could/would have switched the other way.

I'm not a fan of any totting up system of ranking binos but it was fun comparing notes.

David

Thanks David!

The results are not based on first impressions. I had the Fury for about two years, the Zeiss for roughly a year and the Nikon for about a month.
In the introduction I mentioned that there were inherent problems with ranking systems, here the selection of properties could be questioned.

Re the center sharpness - when boosting the Fury it's not really sharp, but in actual use it is.
The rock solid image that comes with this low magnification may contribute to this.
If the 10x32 has the same objectives, one could suspect that it would be visibly less sharp than the other two.
The edge sharpness match is in fact only interesting when comparing the FL and the HG, but I wanted to mention the characteristics of the Fury's distribution of sharpness across the field.

After stopping the Fury down, all three had the same exit pupil size. The difference [against full aperture] during daylight was there, but a lot less visible than I had expected. The test was performed by looking into gaps of a thick black thorn shrubbery in my backyard, first in overcast daylight, then when dusk fell around 9:30 pm, in heavy rain and overcast sky .

Commonly, magnification wins, but every time the Fury was a smidgeon brighter than the Nikon. This has to mean its transmission is higher, as far as I can guess.

Re the Zeiss, maybe the 8x32 has somewhat better contrast due to its smaller AFOV that might depress the straylight levels. Just a thought.
My interpretation of the 10x32 FL is that it's the brightness alone that makes details more readily visible, because the brighter image means that even the darker parts are brightened and not as "popping" as in the HG. But this levelling of illumination is the opposite of contrast, IMO.
The Fury was stopped down through all of the test, and I have some suspicion that its contrast may have benefited from that. If so, it wasn't much, but possibly enough to defeat the FL in this match.

//L

I'd like to add that I'm looking for a bargain 8x32 HG since I expect that its larger exit pupils might mean that it never feels darker than the naked eye, and that the longer eye relief would suit me better when wearing spectacles.

Lars,

Agree first impressions are not always reliable. I'm pretty confident on the sharpness thing though, but my judgement was most likely swayed by the light conditions. Very bright at that time, and I'd guess my pupil had shrunk to 2mm or less, so I was only judging the centre 16mm of the Zeiss and Nikon objectives and 13mm of the Fury. Maybe different light, different judgement. My acuity falls off fast at lower light levels and I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to separate them.

Like I said, the low light thing is tricky and my score was inferred from a whole bunch of other low light tests I've done not the three at the same time.

I've definitely noticed that the high blue transmission pairs do better after sunset under blue skies, and confess I wasn't able to do that comparison at that time. I'd would concede that the Fury appeared to have more blue than the Nikon and less than the Zeiss and may well have done well in your test. Under red skies or when it's really dark, then green transmission seems to count. I've not seen transmission figures for the Fury or the 6.5x Meopro. I judged the 6x Viper to be be brighter and sharper than the 6.5x Fury and the 8x Meostar brighter and sharper than the 8x Meopro. I thought the Meopro, was a shade better than the Fury. The Meostar was sharper than the Viper IMO and in the same league as the Nikon and Zeiss. Given the same transmission profile, magnification wins. So all in all I'm quite happy with my scoring. But at the end of the day what does it matter?

Good fun this stuff. :t:

David

typo said:

But at the end of the day what does it matter?

Good fun this stuff. :t:

David

Click to expand...

Absolutely. The binoculars are interesting when there's no bird of interest to watch. When there is, any binocular is better than none. :king:

The point I tried to make about the center sharpness is that it exceeds my resolving ability. The Fury only slightly and the Zeiss by many times - I have boosted it to 25x and it is more than usable. Even boosted to 65x it is quite sharp. But since all three of these binoculars are sharper than my eyes at the center, I abstained from putting that into the contest, especially since the 10x have a huge magnification advantage over the 6.5x.

When comparing the 8x32's sharpness against the Fury 6.5x, did you compensate for the magnification loss with the latter? If not, this would contribute to the lesser detail rendition or sharpness with the Fury.

Low-mag binoculars will have a definite and unsurpassable disadvantage when used for long distance viewing, but when used for short range glassing you only need to take a few steps forward to obtain the same image size as with an 8x. This is why I find a 6.5x + 10x combo superior to a single 8x.
(the HG 8x32 I'm looking for would be a travel glass)

//L

Lars,

Sadly I've been stuck at home with too much time on my hands. I have tested full and reduced aperture boosted resolutions on my 6x, two 7x, 8x, 9x, three 10x and 12x pairs. I can confirm that once the light levels reach about 3000 lux I can accurately rank them for sharpness. How sad, there must be better things to do:-C

I usually take a 7x and either a 10x or 12x if I'm not walking far but I need a lot of weight to hold a high power steady. 1.2kg is no good for the neck.

David

Nice. One thing is missing, though: some side-by-side photographs of the binoculars. Manufacturers don't always measure dimensions the same way, and sometimes a binocular seems bulkier than its dimensions suggest.

I also wonder if stopping down the Fury was the right course of action, since that reduces many optical aberrations (spherical, coma, astigmatism, field curvature, axial colour). And if it's brighter than the others with its full aperture, then it's simply brighter, no? It doesn't really matter if it's brighter by dint of better coatings or a larger exit pupil, though I agree it would be interesting to know which is the case.

I've been very intrigued by Nikon binoculars lately, mostly because they seem to me to offer good value. They're not cutting edge (EDG excepted, natch) and they're not stylish, but they're sturdy and apparently high performance. They're relatively inexpensive considering their high construction quality.

In an ideal world I would have 6x, 8x, and 10x magnifications at my disposal, and the three binoculars would also have varying characteristics to suit almost any task (portability, resistance to stray light, weatherproofness, low-light usefulness, etc.). Since I have a Zeiss Victory FL 8x32 I was thinking of eventually adding a Nikon 10x32 HG L for the high magnification, plus something like a 6x30 for a 5 mm exit pupil and low magnification (to use from a moving train, for example).

My main concern with the HG L 10x32 is that it's heavy. In fact, it's only 95 g lighter than the HG L 10x42. You could argue that the 10x32 is already too heavy at 695 g, and that another 95 g would break the camel's back; or you might think a 42 mm objective would be nice at only 95 g more weight. I can't make up my mind.

The EDG is also moderately heavy at 650 g (which is actually very heavy for people not accustomed to the weight and density of high-quality binoculars). It's also pretty big for a mid-size binocular, suggesting that Nikon aimed at optical excellence rather than best portability.

Just to spice things up with a bit of wild guesswork based on what I've recently gleaned. If you multiply the reduced entrance pupil resolution by the magnification you get an apparent resolution that you can compare to your acuity. My guess for the 6.5x Fury would be 100arceconds/lp. The Meopro 90, Viper 75, and the Zeiss and Nikon 60 or better. 3

David

PS. I should have mentioned you need to multiply the resolution (gap) values from a Snellen Chart by two to compare them to those values.

Dorian Gray said:

I also wonder if stopping down the Fury was the right course of action, since that reduces many optical aberrations (spherical, coma, astigmatism, field curvature, axial colour). And if it's brighter than the others with its full aperture, then it's simply brighter, no? It doesn't really matter if it's brighter by dint of better coatings or a larger exit pupil, though I agree it would be interesting to know which is the case.

Click to expand...

Dorian,

As the conditions get brighter, your pupil contracts and your eyesight gets better to a point between 2and 2.5mm. However that pupil contraction reduces the entrance and exit pupil on the binoculars correspondingly so with a 10x you use the middle 20-25mm of the lens. With a high quality lens, that would reduce the resolution correspondingly. Generally you are most likely to see the limitations of the binocular when it's bright. To make sense of it you need to stop down the binocular for testing.

The story, as you suggest, is complicated by the high levels of aberration in cheaper binoculars at full aperture, with the result the resolution may be worse than stopped down. In my cheaper pairs at least this isn't as bad as the deterioration in your eyesight in low light.

Hope that makes sense.

The brightness thing is complicated by what your eye and brain do.. perception. I'll try to come back to that when I have more time.

David

Made some photoshopping. Probably the images are vastly exaggerated, at least the Zeiss ones because in fact, it's not bad. I hope the images will give some idea about what I'm writing about.

And some more... The purple tint on the 4th image is exaggerated to show some of the CA.

Here is a very typical example of how the FL suppresses the reds and make colors more or less dull. The Nikon's color saturation is great, and above all this is true for the reds.

Your post makes sense, David, but a handheld binocular with an objective lens of relative aperture f/4 isn't nearly diffraction-limited. You do acknowledge this, but I think it's easy to overestimate the importance of diffraction in small binoculars.

My contention is that the most relevant test would compare binoculars as they're actually used, i.e. with their full aperture stopped down only by the eye's pupil in various light intensities (i.e. not at all in low light), with imperfect centring of eye and exit pupil, etc. If a binocular's basic parameters give it greater brightness in low light but lower magnification, then surely that is what it is, and shouldn't be normalised away.

Your example photos are good, looksharp65, but your written explanation was sufficient (for me, at least).

How about a photo of the binoculars themselves? I don't have any real idea how big a Fury is, for example.

Dorian Gray said:

Your example photos are good, looksharp65, but your written explanation was sufficient (for me, at least).

How about a photo of the binoculars themselves? I don't have any real
idea how big a Fury is, for example.

Click to expand...

The computer was busy, press the link below...
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s199//sh/5f2725ab-ccc6-49cb-a2e2-49582079e6e5/c552e0d4ba75b09149a353d410d2a8c7

Dorian, the reason I stopped down the Fury was to get an idea of its transmission rate.
Since it is a wee bit brighter than the Nikon under the same circumstances, I assume it has a greater transmission. And, like David also guessed, it is the blue part of the spectrum that is enhanced compared to the Nikon.

It is no secret that the Fury is much brighter when the 4.9 mm exit pupil is fully used, i.e in the forest when dusk hours have began. Their exit pupil area is 237% larger than the 10x32's and it shows clearly when looking into the shrubbery when it is not stopped down.
I think that my idea to equalize the exit pupils served its purpose to give a rough estimation of their transmission rate.

My other Fury 6.5x was used to compare how the stop-down influenced their general performance. The CA level remained unchanged and the improvement of their general image quality was nearly imperceptible. It is possible that the sweet spot increased by a few percent, maybe the contrast became just a little better, but as a whole the differences were almost negligible.

I also tried the stopped-down Fury "6.5x21" against the Pentax Papilio 6.5x21 and the Fury was significantly brighter.

looksharp65 said:

I think that my idea to equalize the exit pupils served its purpose to give a rough estimation of their transmission rate.

Click to expand...

Yes, I think so too. I was just concerned it might also significantly affect sharpness. That it didn't seem to affect sharpness reinforces the idea that diffraction isn't of great concern in such a binocular; the viewer's visual acuity seems to be the main limiting factor of resolution, probably followed by optical aberrations.

Thanks too for your photo of the binoculars. The Vortex is bigger than the Nikon, which is itself significantly bigger than the Zeiss. It's a truism that high optical performance is easier to extract from a larger design, but it's worth remembering. (It's also a good argument not to miniaturise too much, as AllBinos likes to remind us.)

looksharp65 said:

Made some photoshopping. Probably the images are vastly exaggerated, at least the Zeiss ones because in fact, it's not bad. I hope the images will give some idea about what I'm writing about.

Click to expand...

The second last pic reminds me of the non sv el color, the last one a Nikon.