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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Homage to the Nikon Travelite (1 Viewer)

B

b-lilja

Well-known member
I just received my fourth pair of Travelites. $29 on ebay. This is a particularly nice clean pair of late series 9x25 II's, with the older body style which hearkens to an earlier era.

I don't want to make too much of them, I just think for the money they are a great set of well made binoculars, that every time I've looked through a pair are very well collimated and generally really sharp. I've had:
Early series 9x25 II's, bought in a 2nd hand shop in Cambridge, MA,
8x25 V's, bought new for around $110 in NYC,
8x23 III's, bought on ebay for less than $20,
and this most recent pair.

I gave the III's and V's to my young niece and nephew without a second thought.

All are Japan made (don't know about current issue), and a ton of bang for the buck. Portable. I them in the kayak and don't worry in the least. About every other year, I look through a pair of expensive mini roofs (Leica, Nikon, etc.) thinking I'm going to buy a pair and while there's that sharpness, overall I find it's pretty hard to justify based on the QPR of the Travelites. I especially like the older II style which comes from that era of the strong yen and tons of build quality for the $$.

I say all this from the overall context of Zeiss 8x32 Conquest HDs and Nikon 8x32SE's as primary bins...
 
b-lilja said:
I just received my fourth pair of Travelites. $29 on ebay. This is a particularly nice clean pair of late series 9x25 II's, with the older body style which hearkens to an earlier era.

I don't want to make too much of them, I just think for the money they are a great set of well made binoculars, that every time I've looked through a pair are very well collimated and generally really sharp. I've had:
Early series 9x25 II's, bought in a 2nd hand shop in Cambridge, MA,
8x25 V's, bought new for around $110 in NYC,
8x23 III's, bought on ebay for less than $20,
and this most recent pair.

I gave the III's and V's to my young niece and nephew without a second thought.

All are Japan made (don't know about current issue), and a ton of bang for the buck. Portable. I them in the kayak and don't worry in the least. About every other year, I look through a pair of expensive mini roofs (Leica, Nikon, etc.) thinking I'm going to buy a pair and while there's that sharpness, overall I find it's pretty hard to justify based on the QPR of the Travelites. I especially like the older II style which comes from that era of the strong yen and tons of build quality for the $$.

I say all this from the overall context of Zeiss 8x32 Conquest HDs and Nikon 8x32SE's as primary bins...
Click to expand...

If your reference standards are the CHD and SE, that speaks well of the Travelites. I like reverse porros, too. I have an Olympus 7x21 PC III. My hands are too big for compact roofs. Don't have big thumbs like Alexis. ;)

I would think the V's are made in China like most other porros these days.

What is an homage w/out a song?

Travelin' Light

<B>
 
B-lilja - You have found Nikon compacts to have excellent optics. They certainly do. With reasonable care they will last a long time. Plastic bodies, however, do not lend themselves to repairs, but at $20 cost, what the heck. I have found the Nikon Diplomats to have outstanding optics. They were never inexpensive and are hard to find. Had three pairs but they wound up with older women. One time a friend with a 10x42 Leica compared that to a 10x25 Diplomat, and I could tell he thought the Nikons would be junk. But it didn't take long for him to realize the view, particularly the center, was superior to the Leica. He has never got over that.

John
 
John Dracon said:
B-lilja - You have found Nikon compacts to have excellent optics. They certainly do. With reasonable care they will last a long time. Plastic bodies, however, do not lend themselves to repairs, but at $20 cost, what the heck. I have found the Nikon Diplomats to have outstanding optics. They were never inexpensive and are hard to find. Had three pairs but they wound up with older women. One time a friend with a 10x42 Leica compared that to a 10x25 Diplomat, and I could tell he thought the Nikons would be junk. But it didn't take long for him to realize the view, particularly the center, was superior to the Leica. He has never got over that.

John
Click to expand...

I remember Stephen Ingraham reviewing the Diplomats on BVD. They were one of the first bins to use aspheric optics. Like the Aculon, which also uses aspherics, they were very sharp in the center, but not at the edges.

Brock
 
.My experience with second-hand Nikon Travelites has unfortunately been that they contain various amounts of fungus or moisture condensation on the internal optics. Maybe the English weather is not kind to them.

Mind you this is not confined to Nikon binoculars.
 
David - One of the benefits of living in the low humidity states such as Montana is that fungus is rarely a problem. All the used binoculars I have acquired with fungus growth come from the coastal regions. Of course binoculars like humans get to travel around, so fungus may be acquired during vacations, etc.

John
 
John Dracon said:
B-lilja - You have found Nikon compacts to have excellent optics. They certainly do. With reasonable care they will last a long time. Plastic bodies, however, do not lend themselves to repairs, but at $20 cost, what the heck. I have found the Nikon Diplomats to have outstanding optics. They were never inexpensive and are hard to find. Had three pairs but they wound up with older women. One time a friend with a 10x42 Leica compared that to a 10x25 Diplomat, and I could tell he thought the Nikons would be junk. But it didn't take long for him to realize the view, particularly the center, was superior to the Leica. He has never got over that.

John
Click to expand...

I actually did have collimation issues in one (can't remember what happened) and sent it into Nikon for repair. It came back in great shape (they did repair, not replace it). One of the objectives then cracked clean through - I think it must have been glued under tension, or something - and I sent it back again. It came back in great shape again, and those continue to work great years later.
 
Reverse Porro's as a group are under appreciated. Nikon Travelites and Venturers in particular were outstanding examples and are great bargins on the used market today. They are somewhat bulkier than the alpha pocket roofs but are every bit as good (and in some cases better) optically.
 
There are only a few compacts I can easily use glasses with.
The Travelites are one. Mine have very wide black plateau when you
fold the eyecups (eye rims, more like) down. This is exactly the sort of
'dark theatre' eyecup substitute you want for glasses.
 
I too have a soft spot for the Travelites, and the optical quality make them very useful in certain situations. Mine got slightly relegated when i got a pair of Monarch 7 8x30s, as i found the Travelite's restricted FOV difficult in the environments i'm usually found in. They're great pocket bins when getting on your target isn't an issue though. I've been using them for monitoring a Peregrine which is roosting on our local church, and the views have been great!
 
Now that there are such very good compact roofs such as the M7 8x30 and Kite (and apparently the Maven, but i haven't even seen that yet), the days of the reverse porro (with the exception of the Papilio) might be numbered, as the 'niche market' may be gone. The Pap is of more use as a field microscope, i tend to find. The one i've got is no use for birding at all, but unrivaled for examination of fairly static insects, leaf and flower detail, staring into ponds etc. I still wouldn't get rid of the Travelite though, as i'm used to having it in a jacket pocket and know i would miss it.
 
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