Hello!
In preparation of my first binocular purchase I obtained a lot of valuable input from sites like allbinos.com, bestbinocularsreviews.com, holgermerlitz.de and also from this site. As a small gesture of appreciation I would now like to share my observations with you.
My budget for a binocular is set to 1.000,-€. After some hours of reading in the mentioned sites, the Nikon HG and the Kowa genesis series seemed to offer best value for that money. I had no idea what would separate the 32mm and 42mm variants performancewise, so I decided to test both sizes.
Currently, the HG 8x42 and 8x32 are available at 839,-€ and 667,-€, the genesis 8.5x44 and 8x33 at 939,-€ and 759,-€. I ordered a sample of each from an internet tradehouse that is named after a mythological caste of female warriors, hence enjoying 30 days testing time before the throwouts need to be returned.
Except for the Kowa 8x33, all of them arrived last Friday, so I was doing a first evaluation in my illuminated living room and also outside in the street lit by streetlights.
Looks and feel
The Nikons are well padded in a sturdy textured rubber that offers a soft feel. All metallic surfaces are covered, and (in contrary to the Kowas) this even includes the focus wheel, the diopter ring, the front edge of the lens tubes and the eyelets for the neck strap, meaning that there is 0 chance that these instruments will cause any unwanted noise during transport and handling. The lens tubes feature some curvature which makes them very comfortable to hold (the 8x32 is however by default a little bit too small to offer perfect grip for two hands).
The Kowa in comparison sports a rubber that feels stiffer and shows a straight, slightly conical shape which does not feel a bit as "natural" as the Nikon 8x42 but is still ok.
The Kowa focus wheel offers good grip and plenty of space for two fingers. Due to the fact that I have quite slim fingers, I was also able to place two of them on the Nikon's focus wheel. The grip of this wheel was ok at least in dry conditions (I did not test wet). All wheels operated smoothly, the Nikon 8x32's almost felt too light and emitted some slight noise.
The eye cups of the Kowa are significantly wider than the Nikon's, which suits me better. I found that I had to extend the eye pieces of all models as far as possible in order to avoid kidney beaning and other shading effects. However, with the Nikons, this still was not 100% satisfactory. It was very hard for me to constantly keep them in a position that would not create shading effects. This improved considerably after I removed the Kowa's eye cups and placed them over the eye cups of the Nikons, thus preventing the eye pieces from sinking too deep into my eye sockets.
Optical impressions
This is of course by no means a scientific research. You can get plenty of that on the sites mentioned at the beginning of my post. However, in the next few lines I will try to verify some of the statements I found there. Despite the fact that the Kowa 8.5x44 has got almost 10% more light collecting area than the Nikon 8x42 and its light transmission is rated 94% in allbinos.com as compared to the 87% of the Nikon, I found the Nikon to be a touch brighter, even under low light conditions. Of course the Nikon 8x32 is not as bright as the other two, but I was surprised to see how good the low light performance of this device actually is, not lagging far behind the two bigger binos.
As indicated in other reports, both Nikons show blur only at a greater distance from the centre of the field of view than the Kowa. However, the performance of the Kowa in this respect is still better than the performance of my naked eye, and because of that I was unable to notice differences between the three contenders in field use.
A testing session in bright sunshine yesterday unveiled the Nikon 8x42's susceptibility to chromatic aberration. When directed towards (of course not directly into) the sun, CA was clearly visible even in the very centre of the FOV, sometimes obscuring details of small targets. CA in the 8x32 was not as strong and appeared also not right in the centre. The Kowa 8,5x44 in comparison showed very well controlled CA (much slighter than the Nikon 8x32's and at much greater distance from the centre of the FOV) which I found not distracting at all.
In one go with the CA I had the chance to evaluate stray light performance. Unfortunately, I found much more unwanted reflections in the FOV of the Nikon 8x32 than I would have liked (to say the least). What a pity! Furthermore, the small depth of focus in combination with the aggressive pitch of the focus wheel of that model made it pretty difficult to focus on small targets, and to keep focus was quite tiring over time. For those reasons, I ruled the Nikon 8x32 out, despite its great price.
Regarding stray light and depth of focus I did not find much difference between the two remaining contenders. One thing I noted is that the Nikon 8x42 seemed to deliver slightly brighter colours than the Kowa 8,5x44. The Kowa instead offered a little bit more detail in the targets I was viewing. Whether that is due to its 0,5 higher magnification I cannot say, writing this now I do not recall having noticed the difference in magnification at all. No "rolling ball" effect on both of them.
So what am I going to do now? If the Nikon HG 8x42 only showed a lesser degree of CA, it would have been a no brainer (maybe there is somebody among you who could confirm that the sample I tested showed some untypical behaviour and a "normal" HG performs much better? In that case I would order another one, along with a pair of Kowa eye cups|;|).
In the meantime however, I got the impression that the Kowa 8,5x44 does not have any flaw as serious as the Nikon 8x42's CA. Since I am not willing to sacrifice flawless optical performance just for nicer body details and 130g less weight, I am leaning towards the Kowa 8,5x44 now. The final decision will be made when I have had a chance to look at (and through) its 8x33 sibling (probably by end of next week). I will post my experience with that one here also.
Peter
In preparation of my first binocular purchase I obtained a lot of valuable input from sites like allbinos.com, bestbinocularsreviews.com, holgermerlitz.de and also from this site. As a small gesture of appreciation I would now like to share my observations with you.
My budget for a binocular is set to 1.000,-€. After some hours of reading in the mentioned sites, the Nikon HG and the Kowa genesis series seemed to offer best value for that money. I had no idea what would separate the 32mm and 42mm variants performancewise, so I decided to test both sizes.
Currently, the HG 8x42 and 8x32 are available at 839,-€ and 667,-€, the genesis 8.5x44 and 8x33 at 939,-€ and 759,-€. I ordered a sample of each from an internet tradehouse that is named after a mythological caste of female warriors, hence enjoying 30 days testing time before the throwouts need to be returned.
Except for the Kowa 8x33, all of them arrived last Friday, so I was doing a first evaluation in my illuminated living room and also outside in the street lit by streetlights.
Looks and feel
The Nikons are well padded in a sturdy textured rubber that offers a soft feel. All metallic surfaces are covered, and (in contrary to the Kowas) this even includes the focus wheel, the diopter ring, the front edge of the lens tubes and the eyelets for the neck strap, meaning that there is 0 chance that these instruments will cause any unwanted noise during transport and handling. The lens tubes feature some curvature which makes them very comfortable to hold (the 8x32 is however by default a little bit too small to offer perfect grip for two hands).
The Kowa in comparison sports a rubber that feels stiffer and shows a straight, slightly conical shape which does not feel a bit as "natural" as the Nikon 8x42 but is still ok.
The Kowa focus wheel offers good grip and plenty of space for two fingers. Due to the fact that I have quite slim fingers, I was also able to place two of them on the Nikon's focus wheel. The grip of this wheel was ok at least in dry conditions (I did not test wet). All wheels operated smoothly, the Nikon 8x32's almost felt too light and emitted some slight noise.
The eye cups of the Kowa are significantly wider than the Nikon's, which suits me better. I found that I had to extend the eye pieces of all models as far as possible in order to avoid kidney beaning and other shading effects. However, with the Nikons, this still was not 100% satisfactory. It was very hard for me to constantly keep them in a position that would not create shading effects. This improved considerably after I removed the Kowa's eye cups and placed them over the eye cups of the Nikons, thus preventing the eye pieces from sinking too deep into my eye sockets.
Optical impressions
This is of course by no means a scientific research. You can get plenty of that on the sites mentioned at the beginning of my post. However, in the next few lines I will try to verify some of the statements I found there. Despite the fact that the Kowa 8.5x44 has got almost 10% more light collecting area than the Nikon 8x42 and its light transmission is rated 94% in allbinos.com as compared to the 87% of the Nikon, I found the Nikon to be a touch brighter, even under low light conditions. Of course the Nikon 8x32 is not as bright as the other two, but I was surprised to see how good the low light performance of this device actually is, not lagging far behind the two bigger binos.
As indicated in other reports, both Nikons show blur only at a greater distance from the centre of the field of view than the Kowa. However, the performance of the Kowa in this respect is still better than the performance of my naked eye, and because of that I was unable to notice differences between the three contenders in field use.
A testing session in bright sunshine yesterday unveiled the Nikon 8x42's susceptibility to chromatic aberration. When directed towards (of course not directly into) the sun, CA was clearly visible even in the very centre of the FOV, sometimes obscuring details of small targets. CA in the 8x32 was not as strong and appeared also not right in the centre. The Kowa 8,5x44 in comparison showed very well controlled CA (much slighter than the Nikon 8x32's and at much greater distance from the centre of the FOV) which I found not distracting at all.
In one go with the CA I had the chance to evaluate stray light performance. Unfortunately, I found much more unwanted reflections in the FOV of the Nikon 8x32 than I would have liked (to say the least). What a pity! Furthermore, the small depth of focus in combination with the aggressive pitch of the focus wheel of that model made it pretty difficult to focus on small targets, and to keep focus was quite tiring over time. For those reasons, I ruled the Nikon 8x32 out, despite its great price.
Regarding stray light and depth of focus I did not find much difference between the two remaining contenders. One thing I noted is that the Nikon 8x42 seemed to deliver slightly brighter colours than the Kowa 8,5x44. The Kowa instead offered a little bit more detail in the targets I was viewing. Whether that is due to its 0,5 higher magnification I cannot say, writing this now I do not recall having noticed the difference in magnification at all. No "rolling ball" effect on both of them.
So what am I going to do now? If the Nikon HG 8x42 only showed a lesser degree of CA, it would have been a no brainer (maybe there is somebody among you who could confirm that the sample I tested showed some untypical behaviour and a "normal" HG performs much better? In that case I would order another one, along with a pair of Kowa eye cups|;|).
In the meantime however, I got the impression that the Kowa 8,5x44 does not have any flaw as serious as the Nikon 8x42's CA. Since I am not willing to sacrifice flawless optical performance just for nicer body details and 130g less weight, I am leaning towards the Kowa 8,5x44 now. The final decision will be made when I have had a chance to look at (and through) its 8x33 sibling (probably by end of next week). I will post my experience with that one here also.
Peter
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). It's a binocular that doesn't get a lot of attention here, but in ability to deliver fine detail I'm not sure I've seen better. I'd formed similar impressions to your comments on the HG as well. I look forward to further updates.
