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12x50 Alpin and 12x45 Baigish (1 Viewer)

Binastro

Well-known member
. Over the last few days I have been testing a 12×50 Alpin against the 12×45 Russian Baigish.

What seems to me to be interesting is that the field of the Alpin is quoted in several places as being 4.9° and the weight 730 g or 795 g.
My measure of the field gave 5.15° and 5.2° but I will try to refine this further.
However, the weight I measured as 640 g.
I calibrated the electronic scales at 1000 g but I will try to also calibrate it at 500 g.

These 12×45 field was measured as 5.50° and 5.55°.
The weight is 816 g.

The star images and Jupiter's disc are good in both binoculars.
The Russian binocular gives a considerably brighter image however, although initially the Alpin looked optically to be very good, by shining a very bright light behind the eyepieces there is a small amount of haze on the prisms. I would estimate that there is a light loss of about 15%. And there will be some loss of contrast.

I think that a new Alpin may be as bright as the Russian binocular or nearly so.
The surfaces of the Alpin seem to be all coated, with the prisms being single coated.
The Russian binocular is multicoated but has some surfaces uncoated.
So the transmission of the Alpin should be greater than the Russian binocular.

In the presence of bright streetlights both binoculars have similar amounts of ghosting, but the Alpin has one particular nasty ghost image.

The Alpin is suitable for spectacle wearers as the eye relief is greater than with the Russian binocular.

For astronomy, both binoculars are pretty evenly matched assuming a new Alpin.

For birdwatchers, I think that the Alpin is superior as white objects look white, whereas the Russian binocular might give a yellow cast.
The chromatic aberration is a bit better with the Alpin, which is probably helped by the long focal ratio of the objectives if they are only 42 mm instead of 50 mm.
I think that Holger is correct in this assessment.

The edge performance of both is similar.

I find that the resolution of the Russian binocular is a bit better than the Alpin, because the Alpin is so lightweight I cannot hold it as steadily as the Russian 12×45 binocular.

The exit pupils of the Alpin are a bit of a mess not being symmetrical and also square shaped in part.
The two binoculars seem to have almost similar sized exit pupils, with the Alpin probably being slightly smaller.
I think that the Russian binocular is a genuine 12×45 or very close.

The weather sealing of the Russian binocular may be better than the Alpin, as I rarely see moisture getting in to Soviet/Russian binoculars. It also probably works at minus 40 degrees.
 
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