kabsetz said:Having used the 15x50 IS extensively, mostly for birding, over the last five years, I react with a mixture of great amusement and mild annoyance whenever someone says something alike to: "well, the IS is probably very nice, but isn't that thing rather heavy? And it needs batteries too?"
If IS binoculars had been the norm for the last hundred years and now some top brand would come out with a stunning new binocular which is 5-10% brighter, a tad sharper when tripod mounted (and, hopefully, we can nix these arguments with the advent of the 10x42), and a full 200-300 grams lighter, but as a tradeoff would lack the IS, birders would consider the concept ridiculous. To be honest, though, there is the issue of long-term durability which I admit weighs in the favor of pure optomechanics devoid of any bells and whistles.
As it is, there are so many preconceptions about the IS that I have thought that once I get the 10x42 under our ALULA test regime, I'll split the field tests into two parts: first a field trial without power - to evaluate just the optics and the ergonomics against the best 10x42 references - and the a second field trial with the same users but now with rechargeables inserted.
Joe, related to this, have you used the 10x42 with NiMh cells yet? I have used nothing but on my 15x50 after the first pair of batteries run out, but since the rechargeables have a nominal voltage of 1.2, I cannot be sure they work on each and every IS model. If they do, they pretty much obliterate the objections people have about environmentally unfriendly mountains of used batteries, and as a bonus they work extremely well in cold temperatures. I had thought that just about everyone would use rechargeables by now, but just the other day I met an extremely experienced birder who uses his 15x50 IS a lot and swears by it whenever he is abroad birding in rainforests (which he does a lot, as he also works as a bird guide among other things), but had never even thought of using anything but batteries.
Thanks, Joe, for sharing your experiences. I must admit a slight bit of envy. Spring migration is at its peak here, and it would be nice to combine binocular testing with watching real action in the avian world.
Kimmo
Hi Kimmo,
Does ALULA plan to test another Zeiss 10x42 FL, one that is not defective? It would be good if the new Canon could be compared to a non-defective FL.
Thanks,
Rich