review of Bushnell 8x42 Legend Ultra HD
I've had ample opportunity now to test the Bushnell 8x42 Legend Ultra HD. The unit I have now seems free of major manufacturing flaws (unlike the first two I tried, see previous posts in this thread). If it manifests any problems, I'll take the warranty repair route. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that I talked with customer service at the Bushnell world headquarters (in my home state of Kansas) and found them extremely helpful and accommodating--they were willing to replace my previous defective unit with new, sent me a pre-paid shipping mailer, and waived all return ship charges etc--but it ended up being faster turn-around for me to do all this with the dealer (Adorama, which gets full marks for quick and courteous customer service). Normally I'm more patient and prefer to send flawed products to the manufacturer, but I'm getting these to give to a friend in a few days.
The unit I have now is close to everything I was hoping for based on my more limited previous experiences with this model, which is perhaps the lowest priced of readily available "Chinese ED" bins in the USA. They are amazing in all ways--specs, performance, and price. Improvements of alpha roofs over the past 20 years have been trivial in comparison to economy roofs. I've long been a hater of cheap roofs, even though my first beloved bins were such--the Bushnell 8x42 Banner--and by cheap roofs I don't just mean the cheapest, I mean the ones that aspired to be roof equivalents in price and sales to the decent porros of the 1990s (e.g. B&L Custom 8x36, Swift Audubon or Ultralite, Celestron Ultima). It was a breakthrough when roofs got phase coating for under $500, but those still had poor specs such as narrow FOV and other performance limitations. The current generation is a whole new game--they aspire to do it all and invite comparison to roofs of any price.
Good stuff, and all for only $150:
All specs are really impressive: an 8x42 with 426 foot FOV (didn't measure it but it seems accurate, making it wider than any full-sized 8x alpha), ~140mm long (= slightly shorter than Leica 8x42 Ultravid, which is a small alpha), 24+3/8 oz weight (=less than many 8x32, less than any alpha 8x42) yet feels traditionally solid (like metal, not plastic), 5ft close-focus, reasonable focus ratio requires 1.5 turns from 5ft to infinity, and eye-relief is fine with my glasses (though I wouldn't mind another 1-2mm). The ergonomics are very much to my liking (nothing fancy, no flaring contours around the strap lugs, well-placed strap lugs, short center bridge allows ring and little fingers a wrap-around grip) and they have good "hang". Besides all this, the oculars are impressively large (~24mm diameter), the lenses have hydrophobic/lipophobic coatings, and what other bin, at any price, has "HD" on the name plate and marked below one side of the ocular _and_ "ED prime glass" marked below the other side of the ocular?
I find the view stunning overall. Most significant to me, because it is where most sub-alphas fail, is performance against the light (e.g. strong backlight, sun just outside view and shining directly on the oculars off-axis). These are the best I've seen--as good or better than any of my alphas as far as I can tell. The sweet spot is large (comparable to alphas other than those with "field flatteners") and the overall quality fall-off, which is more about field curvature than astigmatism, is gradual until very near the edge. CA control is excellent both in the center and off-axis, certainly way better than the non-HD version of the Leica 8x42 Ultravid (which bothers me even more than the Swarovski 8x32 EL).
Stuff that isn't bad but could be better:
Color is very slightly warm, though is closer to neutral than most alphas of 15 years ago. Rubber armor is intentionally squishy in places (like where other bins might have thumb cut-outs) which concerns me for long-term durability. Armor is on the slick side. Minimum IPD is 56mm and unnecessarily limited by the hinge design--could easily have been designed to reach 52 or 53mm if anyone had thought to break with the industry-wide dumb default spec (Zeiss is the leader in this arena, and threw caution to the winds by designing the Conquest and FL models with 52 or 54mm minimum IPD depending on the model). The view has strong pincushion distortion, which usually doesn't bother me, but in this case it is so strong that it makes the view seem not as easy on the eyes as it should be while panning. After a some days of use, my brain appears to have adjusted, and the distortion no longer bothers me, but I'm not so sure that it isn't still requiring more mental processing, which might not be a good thing on long days of heavy birding. Zero diopter setting is printed in the wrong place on the rubber armor (I blame the armor because the zero setting does seem centered on the range of adjustment).
Bad stuff:
These bins get it right in so many of the ways that I have always assumed were the biggest design and manufacturing challenges for any maker wanting to compete with the alphas (regardless of price), that I'm sad to say that these Bushnell Legend Ultra HD have lots of little flaws that keep them from being alpha contenders. To put in in colloquially, it's so dumb that these bins have these flaws because they aren't the sorts of things that should be what sets expensive bins apart from the cheapies. Here are my complaints:
The focus knob stiffens in the cold (again, I have to ask, how much does it cost to design bins to use light grease or to spec a better multiviscosity grease?). The focus knob rotates counter clockwise to infinity (see other threads for my opinion on that; how much does it cost to clone this feature of alpha design?). The focus knob has a bit of slop in it (not bothersome to me personally, but important for many, and I must say a pitiful flaw--hasn't the engineering and manufacturing of precise focus control been worked out, isn't it a trivial, mature technology?). A small portion of the slop may entail a bit of left/right focus asynchrony (extremely subtle, but I think it is there). Many optically mediocre roofs have better focus control, so this is a sorry shortcoming. The little disk at the front of the focus knob (akin to the sand trap of the Zeiss FL) is loose enough to rattle during normal use--it rings like a plastic bell! I solved the rattling problem by wedging a piece of rubber band between the disk and the back of the hinge on one side (stays in place, even when adjusting IPD). The eyecups are too short for some who do not wear glasses (for me they are OK even w/o glasses because I prefer to rest eyecups against my brow, not set them around the eye).
Other dumb stuff:
The case is big enough to fit the Zeiss 20x60 Stabilized (just kidding, but it is HUGE!). The supplied neckstrap is way too long for other than bandolier-style use. The neckstrap is over-engineered with segmented cushioning (I'd trade it, the case, and the supplied bino harness for a simple neoprene strap like the Op/tech "fashion bino" any day). Finally, it seems every binocular engineer is compelled to prove their mettle by giving us their own novel take on the ocular rainguard by designing one that is inexplicably (since rainguards are inherently very simple) dysfunctional. Examples that come to mind are the over-engineered hard plastic guard for the Swarovski EL, the original Zeiss FL designs that were either way too loose or way too tight, and the Leica Ultravid guard with its long floppy center piece and oddly tall profile. Well, the designers of the Ultravid HD rainguard were not to be outdone. It is a simple design, similar to the generic ones supplied with many bins these days,
http://www.eagleoptics.com/binocular-accessories/eagle-optics/eagle-optics-binocular-rainguard except that it only has a slot to feed the strap through on the right side. In other words, it is designed for left-handed users! That bias is refreshing in a way, but the right-handed majority will find that when it is dangling, that it impedes grabbing the bin with the right hand from its position hanging around one's neck, or that flipping it off the oculars (usually done with the left hand while the right hand simultaneously lifts the bins) encourages crossing the left hand from left to right in front of the body, meaning that the arm moves into, rather than out of, the way of raising the bins to one's eyes. What were they thinking? Maybe an irritated lefty seeking vengeance? Too bad for lefties and all of us that the sort of boring but functional guards such as Eagle Optics sells aren't made with closed strap holds on both sides of the guard so users could use it with both straps completely secured, or else use a razor knife to modify it according to their preference by slitting or entirely removing (as I do) one side or the other.
Final thought:
As I've known since trying my first "Chinese ED" bins (Zen Ray 7x36 ED2
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=1561454&highlight=Zen+Ray+7x36#post1561454) the alphas are no longer much distinguished by optical performance, but rather build quality and smooth function, qualities that are quite important in the heat of birding. I'd have guessed that economy optics makers would have figured out how to build a bin with those qualities before they figured out how to match alpha optics, but my guess has again proven wrong.
--AP