Sandy Martin
Well-known member
elkcub said:
I do wonder just how profitable Swarovski Optik is for the company. From what I gather, Swarovski Crystal bail them out big time.
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What are Swarovski up to? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter pduxon
- Start date
I do wonder just how profitable Swarovski Optik is for the company. From what I gather, Swarovski Crystal bail them out big time.
Stewart J.
Well-known member
Yo all, been following this thread with interest as I've been in the market for new bins for a while and have traipsed to quite a few Optic demo's over last 2 months. Was at the "In Focus" demo on Northumbrian Coast today and finally (after believe me much testing and soul searching) chose the Nikon HGL 8 x 42. Swaro were close but definately NOT worth the extra £200 for a similar product. The Nikons suited me and are optically awesome but what finally clinched it was the price differance, money was not the issue I'm just not prepared to be ripped off for the sake of a badge.
Slightly off topic I also own a pair of Swaro 8 x 20's and my wife Leica 8 x 20's we were allowed to compare them with the Nikon 8 x 20 HGL compacts at todays demo and the Nikons were noticeably brighter with to me better saturation.
Am I just a cynic or are the top end manufacturers bumping the price to rip off those who care about brand image??
No doubt I'll get slated for this but I'm old and ugly enough to take it. So fire away and convince me otherwise, meanwhile I'll just enjoy my HGL's.
For the Leica fans, tried the Ultravids and others, was impressed optically but not with the focussing.
Let battle commence
Good birding all
Stewart
Slightly off topic I also own a pair of Swaro 8 x 20's and my wife Leica 8 x 20's we were allowed to compare them with the Nikon 8 x 20 HGL compacts at todays demo and the Nikons were noticeably brighter with to me better saturation.
Am I just a cynic or are the top end manufacturers bumping the price to rip off those who care about brand image??
No doubt I'll get slated for this but I'm old and ugly enough to take it. So fire away and convince me otherwise, meanwhile I'll just enjoy my HGL's.
For the Leica fans, tried the Ultravids and others, was impressed optically but not with the focussing.
Let battle commence
Good birding all
Stewart
elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
Hopefully, not to labor the point. If the "competition" can provide an equally good product (including quality control, reliability, and customer service), they could increase their prices to match Swarovski's, hence, they are currently offering a very good deal. If they can not, the pricing puzzle is solved because Swarovski is in fact offering more, and, hence, it's reasonable to charge more.
I believe the market has a way of sorting these things out.
As a historical curiosity, I have several catalogs dating back to the early 90s that refer to Swarovski products as terrific buys relative to the much higher priced Leica and Zeiss of the day.
-elk
elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
Stewart J. said:Yo all, been following this thread with interest as I've been in the market for new bins for a while and have traipsed to quite a few Optic demo's over last 2 months. Was at the "In Focus" demo on Northumbrian Coast today and finally (after believe me much testing and soul searching) chose the Nikon HGL 8 x 42. Swaro were close but definately NOT worth the extra £200 for a similar product. The Nikons suited me and are optically awesome but what finally clinched it was the price differance, money was not the issue I'm just not prepared to be ripped off for the sake of a badge.
Slightly off topic I also own a pair of Swaro 8 x 20's and my wife Leica 8 x 20's we were allowed to compare them with the Nikon 8 x 20 HGL compacts at todays demo and the Nikons were noticeably brighter with to me better saturation.
Am I just a cynic or are the top end manufacturers bumping the price to rip off those who care about brand image??
No doubt I'll get slated for this but I'm old and ugly enough to take it. So fire away and convince me otherwise, meanwhile I'll just enjoy my HGL's.
For the Leica fans, tried the Ultravids and others, was impressed optically but not with the focussing.
Let battle commence
Good birding all
Stewart
I'll start by lashing out with a wet noodle. You did what an intelligent buyer should do, by making an informed decision. If you didn't feel that the Swaro product was as good, or not worth the extra money, you voted with your pocket book.
Oh, yes, of course, brand image is being marketed. It's part of the product you get. Same old, same old — is a Rolex watch or Mercedes auto really worth the extra bucks?
Enjoy the view whatever you do,
Elkcub
Robert Ellis
Larus marinus
elkcub said:
In those cases, probably. The last time I was in Finland, the town I was in had Mercedes taxis. I asked them why, they said it was the most reliable. And which watch has been to the top of Mount Everest more times than any other and come back working? Dare I say Rolex?
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
Hmmm...
In my part of the world, many of the taxis are Skodas: tough as old boots, reliable as a house brick, but still Skodas...
(Don't get me wrong, Skoda drivers, the ones available in the UK are great cars, but they have none of the supposed cachet - or unnecessary expense - of Mercs and whatnot).
No, you're not being a cynic, and yes, there's a definite "brand image" thing going on here.
In my part of the world, many of the taxis are Skodas: tough as old boots, reliable as a house brick, but still Skodas...
(Don't get me wrong, Skoda drivers, the ones available in the UK are great cars, but they have none of the supposed cachet - or unnecessary expense - of Mercs and whatnot).
Uuummm... no and yes.Stewart J said:
No, you're not being a cynic, and yes, there's a definite "brand image" thing going on here.
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Robert Ellis
Larus marinus
blythkeith said:
They key to this is "no PERCEPTIBLE difference" as you brain corrected the two since you presented them into each eye at the same time. Had you done this all day you would have had a terrible headache, just ask anyone whose spectacles are not quite right. Your eyes and brain can correct for a great deal of difference in the image, including size. Had you mounted half a barrel of each into a system which allows you to flip flop (a la the optician's "better like this, or like this") you would have probably been able to perceive a slight jump in the image size flipping from one to the other.
Robert Ellis
Larus marinus
As a follow up I decided to duplicate you test for myself. I grabbed my 8x30 EII, my 8.5x44 Audubon, and my 10x35 EII (as an outlying subject) and pointed them at my doorknob. With the 8x and 8.5x over each eye the image would blend into one cohesive image. Closing the eye with the 8x made the image "swell" a small amount. Closing the eye with the 8.5x and the image shrank just a bit. Next the 8.5x v 10x. It took more eyestrain but I got one image. Then the left/right only test showed more marked image size change. Finally 8x v 10x, same results, only slighly moreso. The one object in apparent focus does not indicate there is no difference in what is presented to the eye. The test would seem to indicate that the eye/brain setup can overcome this amount of image difference, but the difference is there.
I am not saying you are wrong, I am saying that is not a valid test considering the ability of the brain to factor out the difference. The brain can both tell them apart and blend them into one.
I am not saying you are wrong, I am saying that is not a valid test considering the ability of the brain to factor out the difference. The brain can both tell them apart and blend them into one.
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elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
blythkeith said:
Interesting experiment (really!), but flawed for several reasons including the fact that you clearly knew which binocular was which. The statistical Just Noticeable Difference (JND) for length is ~3% under ideal laboratory conditions, and the physical size difference you were trying to detect was 6.25% under less than ideal conditions. Statistical JND means that the difference is detected correctly more than a given percentage of observations, like 50%. In short, the difference between an 8x and 8.5x binocular is very near the threshold of perception to start with, and there is no assurance that the manufacturers are consistent in rating power. Moreover, given manufacturing variations it may only be that the two magnification distributions are centered on 8.0 and 8.5 respectively. I've been told by two binocular techs that even today an expensive aspect of manufacture is matching the optics in both tubes, particularly power. (That's done with measuring instruments.) So, we need to understand that part of what we're paying for in high-end binocs is quality control, and this aspect of performance shows up in the form of product consistency.
"Pricing games to be reassuringly expensive" is a cute way to put it, but so far I fail to see what "game" they're playing other than making great products at a fair profit. You wouldn't want them not to make a profit would you?
I hope you don't find this offensive, as, of course, it's only another opinion.
Enjoy the view whatever you do,
Elkcub
elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
Robert Ellis said:
That was a very interesting procedure to use. Still, it has problems because the AFOV is different for the three binoculars, and the binocularly fused image (i.e., percept) had to also contend with that. Still, all in all, the results are provocative. Did you get the predicted headaches?
-elk
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Robert Ellis
Larus marinus
elkcub said:That was a very interesting procedure to use. Still, it has problems because the AFOV is different for the three binoculars, and the binocularly fused image (i.e., percept) had to also contend with that. Still, all in all, the results are provocative. Did you get the predicted headaches?
-elk
Terrible eyeaches for after about an hour of fussing about.
Because of the differences in field size I chose the small object and focussed my attention as best I could. Not ideal by my own standards, but quick and dirty.
As a research scientist part of my job is peer review of other research. It is second nature to look for less than ideal experimental procedure.
I don't have a simple solution for measuring absolute magnification, but if you have a booster or the possibility of mounting one binocular solidly behind the eyepiece of the ones you want to check, you can get very accurate relative measures by viewing a ruler at a set distance and recording how many millimeters long the diagonal of the booster's viewfield is when the booster is mounted behind each of the binoculars to be evaluated. I did this with two Zeiss FL's, the 8x and 10x when I had those for testing. I could determinen the length of the diagonal with an accuracy of about a millimeter, the diagonals being 223mm for the 10x and 279mm for the 8x. With these two binoculars, the ratio of magnifications was thus remarkably near to the nominal, 0.799 versus 0.8. As the scientists will readily see, I have not included an estimate of the likely total margin of error, but you can easily determine that it is not large enough to be meaningfull. Another brand's 10x binocular I measured at the same time, however, differed from the 10x Zeiss by about 0.22x, so at least based on this very small sample, a 10x is not necessarily a 10x by any other name.
As has been demonstrated countless times, higher magnification allows us to perceive smaller detail, and the roughly six percent difference between an 8.5x mag and an 8x mag brings roughly six percent smaller detail into our awareness (or the same detail six percent further away), whether or not we are able to reliably tell apart size differences of that magnitude or not.
Hope this is usefull to some,
Kimmo
As has been demonstrated countless times, higher magnification allows us to perceive smaller detail, and the roughly six percent difference between an 8.5x mag and an 8x mag brings roughly six percent smaller detail into our awareness (or the same detail six percent further away), whether or not we are able to reliably tell apart size differences of that magnitude or not.
Hope this is usefull to some,
Kimmo
Robert Ellis
Larus marinus
elkcub said:
I am an ecologist, recent work has been integrating new molecular bio techniques into classical ecological study.
elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
I'm a quantitative psychologist recently retired. My latest work was integrating behavioral statistics into engineering studies for aircraft damage detection.
No offense to you or Keith, since these binocular fusion tests are fascinating, but I tend to guard against drawing conclusions too strongly. I believe your observation about the brain being well able to fuse discrepant visual information is very accurate, particularly since we are operating near perceptual discrimination limits. A fusion of 8x and 10x images (about 7 JNDs apart) would be a stretch, — although you seem to have done it at the cost of some pain.
One implication of all of this is that the brain, which we depend upon to fuse the left and right images, also provides manufacturers with a fair amount of wiggle room in quality control. Like collimation, sub-threshold variations are the hardest to detect initially, but give us the greatest headaches.
-elk
No offense to you or Keith, since these binocular fusion tests are fascinating, but I tend to guard against drawing conclusions too strongly. I believe your observation about the brain being well able to fuse discrepant visual information is very accurate, particularly since we are operating near perceptual discrimination limits. A fusion of 8x and 10x images (about 7 JNDs apart) would be a stretch, — although you seem to have done it at the cost of some pain.
One implication of all of this is that the brain, which we depend upon to fuse the left and right images, also provides manufacturers with a fair amount of wiggle room in quality control. Like collimation, sub-threshold variations are the hardest to detect initially, but give us the greatest headaches.
-elk
elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
kabsetz said:
Kimmo,
Yes, very interesting and useful. I suspect that if we were to compare a sample of 8x by different manufacturers there would be more variation than that observed within manufacturers. Hopefully, total within manufacturer variation would also be inversely related to cost. But, doing such a study is well beyond our means.
In this case, it would be interesting to know if a Swaro 8x vs 8.5x maintained a size ratio of ~.94. I certainly agree that the seemingly marginal increase in linear magnification (6.25%) provides more visual detail, but also note there would be an increase of ~12.8% in area for 2-D objects that are normally viewed. How that all works out psychophysically is hard to tell, but I have no doubt that the extra .5x does make a perceptible (if not critical) difference in birding tasks.
-elk
Steven Astley
Well-known member
the law of diminishing returns
Steven Astley
Well-known member
Its marketing strategy from the big 3 realising that in competing with each other they are losing profits. 2 of them have decided to lower there prices and thus using there brand name to compete with lower priced optics while 1 of them as increased its price knowing there is always people who will pay anything for the best. Its calculated and it means greater profits to all 3 companies. Companies are playing this game all the time. To me it appears text book games theory
elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
birdman,
Keith's comment was:
My point has been that Swaro's overall strategy has been to provide world-class optics with near-perfect customer support, and in return gain strong customer loyalty and make a fair profit. They've done a terrific job of it and I do not think they are playing a "reassuringly expensive" game. That distinction I associate with Leica a few years ago (personal opinion, of course).
Having captured this position, Nikon and others may well be going after the non-Swaro market, but I don't think Game Theory models what's going on very well. Note that Nikon and Zeiss are playing a "mixed strategy" with low- and high-end series, trying to leverage their names. If it's a Swarovski, however, it's always first class.
No I'm not on Swaro's payroll. I've just watched them operate for years and find them to be curiously refreshing in an otherwise dismal world.
-elk
PS. See my review of the free book Swarovski is distributing.
Keith's comment was:
My point has been that Swaro's overall strategy has been to provide world-class optics with near-perfect customer support, and in return gain strong customer loyalty and make a fair profit. They've done a terrific job of it and I do not think they are playing a "reassuringly expensive" game. That distinction I associate with Leica a few years ago (personal opinion, of course).
Having captured this position, Nikon and others may well be going after the non-Swaro market, but I don't think Game Theory models what's going on very well. Note that Nikon and Zeiss are playing a "mixed strategy" with low- and high-end series, trying to leverage their names. If it's a Swarovski, however, it's always first class.
No I'm not on Swaro's payroll. I've just watched them operate for years and find them to be curiously refreshing in an otherwise dismal world.
-elk
PS. See my review of the free book Swarovski is distributing.
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