-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Here are the new Victorys: Victory HT (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter frank.e.oy
- Start date
RJM
Don't Worry, Be Happy!
I finally got to look thru both an 8x and 10x HT today. As the shop had no display models out, both samples were taken new out of the box. Meh, the infamous Zeiss astigmatism lives on in both as far as I could tell in my brief testing. It was so obvious I was surprised it has never been mentioned. I even checked each barrel of each binocular individually with some graph paper at close focus just to make sure my eyes weren't playing a trick.
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
Well, as Ron said, this thread is now complete
I think that edge sharpness / astigmatism is very subjective, and that is why some mention it as blatantly obvious and others say ''sharp to near the edge'' and the rest just don't seem to see it or care one way or the other.
In fact, the more I read, the more I am convinced that most aberrations are just as subjective - pincushion, rolling ball, colour cast, sharpness, brightness - almost every optical aspect seem user dependent.
I'm one of those that either has good focus accommodation or whatever, but don't see much of a problem in the FL. In fact, just like Ceasar and his 7 FL, I see no astigmatism at all - I can refocus the edge to good sharpness, but others call me crazy, willfully blind or just plain wrong.
I'm sure that Zeiss's design philosophy has not changed too radically, and [as a result] the HT will show some degree of edge sharpness differences like most of their models. It all depends on how you see it or how much it bothers you.
Personally, I hope that it is gradual and unobtrusive, while maintaining most of the central sweetspot. Otherwise, I'll stick to my [excellent] FL.
Well, as Ron said, this thread is now complete
I think that edge sharpness / astigmatism is very subjective, and that is why some mention it as blatantly obvious and others say ''sharp to near the edge'' and the rest just don't seem to see it or care one way or the other.
In fact, the more I read, the more I am convinced that most aberrations are just as subjective - pincushion, rolling ball, colour cast, sharpness, brightness - almost every optical aspect seem user dependent.
I'm one of those that either has good focus accommodation or whatever, but don't see much of a problem in the FL. In fact, just like Ceasar and his 7 FL, I see no astigmatism at all - I can refocus the edge to good sharpness, but others call me crazy, willfully blind or just plain wrong.
I'm sure that Zeiss's design philosophy has not changed too radically, and [as a result] the HT will show some degree of edge sharpness differences like most of their models. It all depends on how you see it or how much it bothers you.
Personally, I hope that it is gradual and unobtrusive, while maintaining most of the central sweetspot. Otherwise, I'll stick to my [excellent] FL.
Still holding back the pangs of desire James!
Better not try one or you will give in
But yes the FL is still world class in my book. Must admit the Conquest HD is a lot of bins for the money though.....
Lee
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
Lee,
Will still be trying out the HT soon, as a few have landed in the Great White North. I have to say, I greatly value your contribution to this thread, as you are one of very few that has taken the time to actually use your HT in the field, and your experiences have been instrumental in my interest in this binocular.
If the HT is anything like the FL, initial enthusiasm will be high, with rave reviews, until the edge sharpness thing takes over and that's all that is discussed.
Will still be trying out the HT soon, as a few have landed in the Great White North. I have to say, I greatly value your contribution to this thread, as you are one of very few that has taken the time to actually use your HT in the field, and your experiences have been instrumental in my interest in this binocular.
If the HT is anything like the FL, initial enthusiasm will be high, with rave reviews, until the edge sharpness thing takes over and that's all that is discussed.
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
Here is good review, if your translator will give you anything close to a readable copy!
http://forrest143.blog.163.com/blog/static/34424406201318325810/
At any rate, I can say [with experience with the 10FL] the edge performance of the 10HT is much improved over the FL. If you look at the photo's, the lower FOV sharpness extends nearly to the edge of the bottom of the FOV. This [to me] was about the poorest area of edge sharpness for the FL. The rest of the FL field [8 to 4] is quite good.
So, looks good!
http://forrest143.blog.163.com/blog/static/34424406201318325810/
At any rate, I can say [with experience with the 10FL] the edge performance of the 10HT is much improved over the FL. If you look at the photo's, the lower FOV sharpness extends nearly to the edge of the bottom of the FOV. This [to me] was about the poorest area of edge sharpness for the FL. The rest of the FL field [8 to 4] is quite good.
So, looks good!
Too bad I can't read this. Must be an interesting review.
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
Try Google translate - or Bing.
Anyone have a clue what ''benign-like'' or ''liang-like'' mean?
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
Check out the rest of the reviews on the site [go to ''home'']
Some wonderful stuff there, very thorough and some very surprising results for some venerable models! I must say, I like these critical reviews [even if he is dissing on Zeiss!] - I get tired of reading reviews where everything about a bin is just great....
I wonder, does the author post here?
Some wonderful stuff there, very thorough and some very surprising results for some venerable models! I must say, I like these critical reviews [even if he is dissing on Zeiss!] - I get tired of reading reviews where everything about a bin is just great....
I wonder, does the author post here?
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
Jerry,
Follow the link. If you are using explorer, right click and then select ''translate with bing''
If you are using Google Chrome, it will ask you if you want to translate at the top of the page. The translations are often very poor but give you a vague idea of what is being said.
NDhunter
Experienced observer
James:
Thanks, and now I was able to read the review. It is interesting, and I am not
able to determine if the reviewer has had much experience with many binoculars including the Zeiss FL, or not.
Much of it is common to what most would want to know, the Zeiss HT is a bit brighter, and may be a small update to the FL.
The Swarovski SV. is well regarded and is truer to color, and what I find interesting, is the final mention, the Zeiss Classic 7x42 Dialyt was still his favorite.
So in summary, if you ask 10 members here, what is their favorite in a high
end binocular, you will get many different opinions. No surprise.
Jerry
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
Jerry,
If you go ''home'', you will find all the other reviews. As I mentioned, he [she?] finds more than his fair share of flaws in many of the top alpha models.
I think you took from the HT review what you wanted and ignored the rest - I guess we all do that, don't we? It will all come down to laying eyes on the actual piece.....
If you go ''home'', you will find all the other reviews. As I mentioned, he [she?] finds more than his fair share of flaws in many of the top alpha models.
I think you took from the HT review what you wanted and ignored the rest - I guess we all do that, don't we? It will all come down to laying eyes on the actual piece.....
brocknroller
porromaniac
Well, as Ron said, this thread is now complete
I think that edge sharpness / astigmatism is very subjective, and that is why some mention it as blatantly obvious and others say ''sharp to near the edge'' and the rest just don't seem to see it or care one way or the other.
In fact, the more I read, the more I am convinced that most aberrations are just as subjective - pincushion, rolling ball, colour cast, sharpness, brightness - almost every optical aspect seem user dependent.
I'm one of those that either has good focus accommodation or whatever, but don't see much of a problem in the FL. In fact, just like Ceasar and his 7 FL, I see no astigmatism at all - I can refocus the edge to good sharpness, but others call me crazy, willfully blind or just plain wrong.
I'm sure that Zeiss's design philosophy has not changed too radically, and [as a result] the HT will show some degree of edge sharpness differences like most of their models. It all depends on how you see it or how much it bothers you.
Personally, I hope that it is gradual and unobtrusive, while maintaining most of the central sweetspot. Otherwise, I'll stick to my [excellent] FL.
Gradual and unobtrusive fall off at the edges is also what I like in a bin, which describes almost all the bins I have even the EWA Novas. The only exception is my Japanese made 9x63 roof with A/K prisms. It has astigmatism at the edges, it's close to the edge, but the fall off is steep.
I never understood how "astigmatism" could be "subjective". I started a thread titled something like the "End All FL Edge Sharpness Thread" to find out, but I never did. If you can refocus the edge on the 7x42 FL, it's not astigmatism, it's field curvature. You can't refocus astigmatism.
If anybody realizes that there are perceptual differences between users with the same bin, it's me, but how one person can see astigmatism at the edges of the same bin that someone else sees field curvature is a real puzzler. Of course, you can have both aberrations at the edges, some field curvature and astigmatism at the very edges, but I would think that one or the other would dominate.
But from the responses I've gotten on the "End All" thread, FL edge sharpness is like light, which is sometimes seen as packets of photons and sometimes as waves, depending on how you set up the test. IOW, there's a duality in the FL's edge sharpness depending on who looks through the bin. The Heisenberg FL Edge Uncertainty Principle.
Hopefully, someday Ed or someone else will finally come up with an explanation that makes sense of it.
<B>
Last edited:
Zeiss said the HT would be a few percent brighter than the FL, lo and behold it is. I tend to doubt that the HT edge sharpness is significantly better however, because Zeiss has not advertised it. At this level of product, where reputation is so important, not only do specifications not lie, even advertising does not lie very badly, and certainly will not not quietly ignore improvements!
Ron
Ron
xu42
Well-known member
The author is a Chinese living in Japan, works in a Japanese optic company. He used many Chinese idiomatic expressions and even some Japanese in this review. I don't think web translator can process those infomation
Learn Chinese, it's not too late:-O
Specs do not lie?
Zeiss finalised the official specs for publication in brochures and on the websites before the HT was finalised for production. At least that's how I read the situation.
The transmission claim of up to more than 95% was made this vague because I am sure they had not arrived at a reliable figure when the specs were written. I believe they were aiming at a consistent 95% min (don't know the wavelength though) and at the time of writing the specs they hadn't achieved this but expected to.
This perhaps premature fixing of the publicised specs has however left 'inaccuracies' ('lies' is such an ugly word) with regard to length and weight of the HTs which have not been corrected. This is odd because the websites would be easy to fix but then there would be an inconsistency between website and printed brochures. We can't have that can we? Much more consistent to have an inconsistency between specs and the truth LOL.
The launch of HT, despite the excellence of the product, has not been one of Zeiss's finest hours.....
Lee
