Zeiss Terra ED: First Look (1 Viewer)

eitanaltman · Aug 7, 2013

Are you sure you are talking about pincushion distortion (i.e. the bending/bowing of straight lines away from the center axis)? The Terra has very limited pincushion, especially compared to the Zen ED3 which has a ton. It should have been obviously better in this respect, I've owned both and the Zen-Rays have a lot of pincushion as a trade-off for that wide FOV.

I don't see how a "lemon" could produce additional pincushion, typically it's something like miscollimation (causing poor focus and eye strain) or some aberration that reduces resolution in one or both barrels. The basic distortion characteristics though should be inherent to the optical design.

ceasar · Aug 7, 2013

I agree. My TerraED has very little pincushion distortion showing at the edges of the view.

Pincushioning can be a good thing and it is a characteristic on binoculars with very wide fields of view but the TerraED does not have a wide FOV. If you look at the edge of the view in the Monarch 7, which has a wide FOV, you should see some.

There may be other things wrong with your binocular but we will need more specific details to discuss them.

The focus wheel on mine works perfectly. It is smooth and well damped so it doesn't feel loose. It turns freely without any backlash.

Bob

Terracentric · Aug 8, 2013

Are you sure you are talking about pincushion distortion (i.e. the bending/bowing of straight lines away from the center axis)?

Yes, the pincushioning started close to the center. I tried them with and without Rx eyeglasses. When I looked at sides of buildings with a grid of windows. The image was very noticeably concave. Edges of buildings had an ugly cartoonish bent look to them.

HOWEVER, I got another Zeiss Terra ED from OpticsPlanet today. It was backordered for many weeks and I thought I cancelled my order. Good thing it came because this unit is waaayyy better. Minimal distortion and smooth "buttery" focus wheel. Now if only the fog will lift in San Francisco, I can check color.

eitanaltman · Aug 8, 2013

How bizarre. But good to hear that the surprise arrival of the second sample is working out

report back with your impressions. The Terra has the best focus knob of any budget binocular (i.e. cheaper than Vortex Viper) I've tried.

ceasar · Aug 8, 2013

eitanaltman said:
How bizarre. But good to hear that the surprise arrival of the second sample is working out report back with your impressions. The Terra has the best focus knob of any budget binocular (i.e. cheaper than Vortex Viper) I've tried.

Mike Jensen, who is President of Zeiss here in the USA would like to know about it.

See his comments in thread #176 above and other places in this Zeiss forum.

Bob

FrankD · Aug 8, 2013

Terracentric said:
HOWEVER, I got another Zeiss Terra ED from OpticsPlanet today. It was backordered for many weeks and I thought I cancelled my order. Good thing it came because this unit is waaayyy better. Minimal distortion and smooth "buttery" focus wheel. Now if only the fog will lift in San Francisco, I can check color.

That is good news. I have had one on backorder from Opticsplanet for going on two months now. If you received yours then mine can't be far off. I look forward to comparing it directly with the other ED glass binoculars I have in my selection.

Kammerdiner · Aug 8, 2013

:cat:

Terracentric said:
Yes, the pincushioning started close to the center. I tried them with and without Rx eyeglasses. When I looked at sides of buildings with a grid of windows. The image was very noticeably concave. Edges of buildings had an ugly cartoonish bent look to them.

HOWEVER, I got another Zeiss Terra ED from OpticsPlanet today. It was backordered for many weeks and I thought I cancelled my order. Good thing it came because this unit is waaayyy better. Minimal distortion and smooth "buttery" focus wheel. Now if only the fog will lift in San Francisco, I can check color.

Sounds like Zeiss may have QC problems.

Enjoy the fog. I love SF fog. No sunburn.

Mark

ceasar · Aug 8, 2013

Kammerdiner said:
:cat:

Sounds like Zeiss may have QC problems.

Enjoy the fog. I love SF fog. No sunburn.

Mark

Everybody has QC problems. Not just Zeiss. So saying so on the internet does not make it so. It will happen if one has contracts with Chinese firms. Or if one purchases any goods made there. But it's a big world and we have to live with each other.

Mike Jensen addressed this in an earlier post.

http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=2791636&postcount=331

Bob

Kammerdiner · Aug 8, 2013

ceasar said:
Everybody has QC problems. Not just Zeiss. So saying so on the internet does not make it so. It will happen if one has contracts with Chinese firms. Or if one purchases any goods made there. But it's a big world and we have to live with each other.

Mike Jensen addressed this in an earlier post.

http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=2791636&postcount=331
'
Bob

Agreed. Totally. I mostly wanted to say how much I liked the fog in SF. Off topic I know

Kammerdiner · Aug 8, 2013

Kammerdiner said:
Agreed. Totally. I mostly wanted to say how much I liked the fog in SF. Off topic I know

Nonetheless. If you can't collimate a bino.... well no thanks.

Troubador · Aug 8, 2013

Mark just stop teasing.

You are just being provocative for the sake of it.

Just have a beer and behave yourself B

Lee

ceasar · Aug 8, 2013

Troubador said:
Mark just stop teasing.

You are just being provocative for the sake of it.

Just have a beer and behave yourself B

Lee

Yeah!

Do something useful.

Contact SONA and see if you can find our if their stellar, free warranty repairs are factored into the original costs of their binoculars or something like that. Ask them if their binoculars are so good why do they need a warranty that generous?

Maybe SONA has someone like Zeiss's Mike Jensen who will come on Bird Forum and engage in back and forth with all the Swarovski Fanboys?:t: They were getting beat up somewhat in the current thread about their Hunting Optics. No comments from them at all on that.

Bob

jgraider · Aug 8, 2013

Whatever Swaro is doing, they're doing it right. I've had probably 120 hunters in camps over the past 10-12 years and probably 70% of those have Swaro's of some config around their necks. Even if the price of their warranty is factored into the original cost, which common sense says it is, their retail pricing is competitive, and sometimes less than the competition.

Besides Leupold and maybe Vortex, nobody is even worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence with Swaro when it comes to CS/warranty issues.

james holdsworth · Aug 8, 2013

Kammerdiner said:
:cat:

Sounds like Zeiss may have QC problems.

Enjoy the fog. I love SF fog. No sunburn.

Mark

Shameful, considering how you brush off each and every Swaro. problem as a ''non-issue.''

So far, two HT's have had focus issues and two Terra's have had issues. That's four dissatisfied customers - FOUR.

How many Swaro focus gripes have we had...........?

FrankD · Aug 9, 2013

jgraider said:
Besides Leupold and maybe Vortex, nobody is even worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence with Swaro when it comes to CS/warranty issues.

Zen Ray?

ceasar · Aug 9, 2013

jgraider said:
Whatever Swaro is doing, they're doing it right. I've had probably 120 hunters in camps over the past 10-12 years and probably 70% of those have Swaro's of some config around their necks. Even if the price of their warranty is factored into the original cost, which common sense says it is, their retail pricing is competitive, and sometimes less than the competition.

Besides Leupold and maybe Vortex, nobody is even worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence with Swaro when it comes to CS/warranty issues.

You are referring to some banter Mark and I had about what Lee described as a "provocative" comment Mark made about Zeiss's new low cost binocular, the TerraED which I own and have reviewed here.

I responded to Mark in the same bantering manner with comments about their warranty and noted that SONA, among other things, did not offer any comments to the thread questioning their ethics for their being involved in hunting and I pointed out that the head of Zeiss in America, Mike Jensen, had come on this forum and discussed QC issues Zeiss had encountered in China with the TerraED.

In fact, I made the first comment in defense of Swarovski ethics by noting in the 1st comment to it that all major optical manufacturing companies who made sport optics also made optics for hunting.

You are a hunting guide, as you stated above, and I note that you didn't comment either. Perhaps you did and your post was removed. If so, I apologize.

Bob

mjensen6577 · Aug 9, 2013

ceasar said:
You are referring to some banter Mark and I had about what Lee described as a "provocative" comment Mark made about Zeiss's new low cost binocular, the TerraED which I own and have reviewed here.

I responded to Mark in the same bantering manner with comments about their warranty and noted that SONA, among other things, did not offer any comments to the thread questioning their ethics for their being involved in hunting and I pointed out that the head of Zeiss in America, Mike Jensen, had come on this forum and discussed QC issues Zeiss had encountered in China with the TerraED.

In fact, I made the first comment in defense of Swarovski ethics by noting in the 1st comment to it that all major optical manufacturing companies who made sport optics also made optics for hunting.

You are a hunting guide, as you stated above, and I note that you didn't comment either. Perhaps you did and your post was removed. If so, I apologize.

Bob

Hello all,
Watching this thread I felt it was appropriate to reply. As President of Zeiss, I'm certainly not going to say anything bad about Swarovski, I worked for them for 8 years. They're good company with great products but they live only in the Alpha world. Zeiss is simply here to stay and we are committed to bring "best in class" optics to the outdoor market in each of our 3 classes, Victory (alpha), Conquest (premium) and Terra (entry premium). If issues arise, we fix them, but Terra is not an Alpha product.

BruceH · Aug 9, 2013

eitanaltman said:
........... The Terra has very limited pincushion, especially compared to the Zen ED3 which has a ton. It should have been obviously better in this respect, I've owned both and the Zen-Rays have a lot of pincushion as a trade-off for that wide FOV.

...............

Eitan ...... Did you possibly make a typo and meant to key ED2 rather than ED3? I have both a 10X and 8X Zen-Ray ED3 and each have minimal pin cushioning for a classic (non flat field) binocular design. I also have an ED2 7X36 which does have noticeable pin cushioning, but that is expected for it's wide 477 FOV. Finally, I have a Zen-Ray ZRS HD 8X and it has noticeably more pin cushioning than the ED3, but not as much as the ED2 7X.

Actually, one of the things that impresses me about the 8X ED3 is that it has a generous 426 FOV with minimal pin cushioning. That additional field of view may be a justification for some to pay a little more and choose the Zen-Ray 8X over the Zeiss 8X Terra with a 375 FOV.

Kammerdiner · Aug 9, 2013

ceasar said:
...

Maybe SONA has someone like Zeiss's Mike Jensen who will come on Bird Forum and engage in back and forth with all the Swarovski Fanboys?:t: They were getting beat up somewhat in the current thread about their Hunting Optics. No comments from them at all on that.

Bob

Bob,

Actually, my comments on that other thread were dropped by the moderators. Hey, it's their website.

I'm hardly a Swaro fanboy since I own Zeiss, Leica, Zen, Nikon, Bushnell, etc. I recently passed over a Swaro scope in favor of a Meopta. Had 'em side by side and liked the Meopta. I just use what I like. If the Zeiss HT had been around when I bought the 8.5 SV I sure as heck would have tried it too. Who knows, maybe it's all that James says it is. Now there's a fanboy.

Bruce,

I have the Zen 8x43 ED2 and it does have a lot of pincushion, though not as much as the 7x36. Do you think they actually reduced the pincushion in the ED3? Haven't heard anything about that.

BruceH · Aug 9, 2013

Kammerdiner said:
Bob,
..........

Bruce,

I have the Zen 8x43 ED2 and it does have a lot of pincushion, though not as much as the 7x36. Do you think they actually reduced the pincushion in the ED3? Haven't heard anything about that.

The only ED2 I have seen is the 7X36 (which is known to have a more pin cushioning with it's wide FOV). I do not know how the ED3 compares to the other ED2 models (thus my question for Eitan). Maybe FrankD or Steve C can comment since I believe they have spent a lot of viewing time with various Zen-Ray models.

Describing the amount of pin cushion is difficult since it is a subjective observation rather than a measured observation. I do not think it is excessive in the ED3, BUT that is in relation to other binoculars without lens fatteners. You can definitely see curving, and if judged in absolute terms, someone else may conclude it is excessive. In theory, I would expect the Terra to have less pin cushioning due to the smaller FOV. I still have not found a Terra to examine.

Zeiss Terra ED: First Look (1 Viewer)

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