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New Zeiss Victory FL binoculars (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Leif
- Start date
Adey Baker
Member
scampo said:
I used to have a Summicron (35mm), but that's a different story - it had to go, along with the M4 behind it, when I got married!
scampo
Steve Campsall
Just think what it would be worth now, Adey. And what beautiful photos it would still take.
There's a super camera shop in Loughborough (Paul Moffat's Cameras on Baxter Gate, from where I bought my first 'real' camera when I was 14), they seem to specialise in old Leitz-Wetzlar kit - what beautiful cameras and lenses they are.
There's a super camera shop in Loughborough (Paul Moffat's Cameras on Baxter Gate, from where I bought my first 'real' camera when I was 14), they seem to specialise in old Leitz-Wetzlar kit - what beautiful cameras and lenses they are.
Adey Baker
Member
scampo said:
I made a decent profit on it at the time, which was more useful then than yet another camera around the house!
I don't like to think what it might be worth now - the M4 was a limited edition 50th anniversary version, the last of the M4s to be made in Wetzlar. When they stopped production of the un-loved M5 they made the modified M4-2 in Canada.
The Summicron was made in Canada, and although it had the classic 'plasticity' of typical Leica lenses, it was prone to flare into the light! This was before Leica 'bit the bullet' and applied multi-coating to all their lenses to avoid flare problems - apparently the simpler coatings made the colour transmission of their lenses similar across the whole range.
As I've got the optical tele-attachment for my scope I can still do a bit of 'Leica-photography' of a sort!
Adey Baker
Member
scampo said:I see why you bought a Leica scope, now, Adey! Pretensions of grandeur, eh? Oh to be rich!
'Posing' more like - Although hiding it inside a Skua case kind of defeats this object!
And buying lots of expensive optical kit is one way of making sure I'll never be rich!
Adey Baker
Member
A 'decent scope' is key to the whole experience, isn't it?
Some of the debates on the various threads on colour casts, CA, fov, etc., just wouldn't have been relevant when I first started birding!
I remember looking through the then popular scopes such as Nickel Supra and Hertel and Reuss Televari and wondering how the hell people could claim to see primary projections, tertial edging and the like when I had a job even seeing the bird clearly!
Either they had much better eyes than I did or they were damned good 'blaggers!'
All of today's scopes are excellent by comparison - it's only a matter of degree!
Oh dear, this thread's supposed to be about Zeiss bins! - well I hope the new ones are as good as they promise to be so they're back up there with the best. If the new scope's anything to go by then I'm sure they will be!
Some of the debates on the various threads on colour casts, CA, fov, etc., just wouldn't have been relevant when I first started birding!
I remember looking through the then popular scopes such as Nickel Supra and Hertel and Reuss Televari and wondering how the hell people could claim to see primary projections, tertial edging and the like when I had a job even seeing the bird clearly!
Either they had much better eyes than I did or they were damned good 'blaggers!'
All of today's scopes are excellent by comparison - it's only a matter of degree!
Oh dear, this thread's supposed to be about Zeiss bins! - well I hope the new ones are as good as they promise to be so they're back up there with the best. If the new scope's anything to go by then I'm sure they will be!
Leif said:
I agree on the excellence of the current Zeiss Victory, except that my type 1 suffers from the well known glare problem under certain conditions. And I'd hate to run into a similar problem once more. As for the Leica Ultravids, their optics are essentially the same as in the previous models, except for the coating. One would then expect less basic flaws than in a completely new model.
One thing that keeps puzzling me about Zeiss; I seem to remember that when the original Zeiss Victories came out, Zeiss claimed that its optics were as good as fluorite glass. Meanwhile, they issued telescopes with fluorite glass, and now the same happens with the binoculars. I'm thus very curious about the claimed improvements. Or else, the original claim must have been full of bull?
scampo said:
I'd rather have a pair without "character" than one that does not feel right, as is the case with the Leica Trinovids. (And my attempt to file off some of those bothersome ribs has not really helped much either. Except that those binoculars now really do have some "character", albeit an even worse look.)
laika said:
Some people would say that English is not my native language either. Anyway, a dielectric coating consists of several layers of so-called dielectric materials. By appropriate choice of layers, the designer can create a mirror surface with a high reflectance across a wide range of frequencies. The thickness of each layer is important. Each layer is very thin: a value I saw was ~1/4 of the wavelength of light. The materials are typically simple metallic compounds such as MgF2. I believe that Swarobright (Swarovski) and HiLux (Leica) are both dielectric coatings. Traditionally roof prism binoculars would use metal coatings e.g. silver.
Incidentally, I think that anti-reflection coatings applied to lens elements work on the same principles, using the same materials, but in that case the aim is to prevent reflection!
I don't know about your Fujinon binoculars but I suspect EBC is indeed Fujinon's version of dielectric coatings. They probably have a special way of making them (using an electron beam?).
As Henry said elsewhere, it can be quite hard to peel away the marketing spiel and work out what manufacturers are doing, and why!
mak said:
As I said I SEEM to remember. When I was in for an additional pair of binoculars I searched around in the internet so much that it is impossible for me to say whether the claim really came from Zeiss. And that one printed (in German) Zeiss publication I still have does not make such a claim.
scampo
Steve Campsall
Aren't most marketing claims spurious or hyperbolic? What happens once a marketing department gets a hold of a product and converts its objective technical details into hype is often quite extraordinary - the technical wizards beavering away behind the scenes must look on in wonderment that they can get away with it.
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Swissboy said:
As has been said earlier, even the present Victories are claimed by Zeiss to be "four element superachromats". I don't know how this could be made without some kind of low dispersion glass - which someone may well call "as good as fluorite". At least this is something that eg. Swaro and Nikon (who use HD, ED-glass) would like us to think with their scopes (Zeiss, Leica and Kowa use "real" fluorite crystals).
Ilkka
iporali said:
Ilkka: A very good point and that struck me too. Quite how they can be super-achromats is beyond me. All reports suggest that they are no worse and no better than competing products in terms of CA. (Or maybe they do use low-dispersion glass? Sounds unlikely since Zeiss make no song or dance.)
(The definitions of apo-chromat and super-achromat are somewhat elastic, and some manufacturers simply take them to mean an objective with 3 or 4 elements one of which is low dispersion glass. Others use a more strict definition in terms of the image quality.)
Leif said:
I think that Zeiss and other manufacturers now use glass types that no longer contains lead or arsenic, but give a similar optical performance as the previous glass types. The Victory FL has the advantages of the AOS system, but also utilised lenses containing fluorine ions, along with special lenses with abnormal partial dispersion.
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C A
Coming from a photo background, CA (false color) drives me nuts. That Leif considers the Ultravid to have objectionable CA is distressing since it was the top bin on my purchase list. The only reason I don't already own the 8x42 BL is the complete absence of product on these shores.
With this announcement from Zeiss, I will now move my bet to the new horse. While Leica still gets my vote for a beautiful, all-Mg case and leather trim, one must focus on the central aspect, viz optical quality. At least the FL appears to have a proper design for strap attachment: that rivetted lug on the V2 was plain embarrassing.
Coming from a photo background, CA (false color) drives me nuts. That Leif considers the Ultravid to have objectionable CA is distressing since it was the top bin on my purchase list. The only reason I don't already own the 8x42 BL is the complete absence of product on these shores.
With this announcement from Zeiss, I will now move my bet to the new horse. While Leica still gets my vote for a beautiful, all-Mg case and leather trim, one must focus on the central aspect, viz optical quality. At least the FL appears to have a proper design for strap attachment: that rivetted lug on the V2 was plain embarrassing.
