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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

New scope from Zeiss... (1 Viewer)

Well, don't forget that this is all speculation based on an anomaly in the specs that could turn out to be a simple mistake. Hopefully someone will be coming along soon with some real information.

Edit: I confess I have been trying to make sense of the specs as if the Harpia is something close to a normal telescope. I hadn't considered that the design might be closer to a zoom camera lens with an eyepiece viewer attached.
 
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Well, don't forget that this is all speculation based on an anomaly in the specs that could turn out to be a simple mistake. Hopefully someone will be coming along soon with some real information.

A 'simple mistake' in the initial document does not suggest improved quality control. Hope the real explanation is something else.
 
I confess I have been trying to make sense of the specs as if the Harpia is something close to a normal telescope. I hadn't considered that the design might be closer to a zoom camera lens with an eyepiece viewer attached.

Henry and the others:

Have a look at the drawings of the Zeiss Photoscope. I believe the Harpia will somewhat similar to the Photoscope: https://www.zeiss.de/sports-optics/...produktarchiv/victory-photoscope-spektiv.html. The brochure that is still available for download has a fairly detailed drawing of the Photoscope. The optical system of the Harpia will be a bit less complex of course, because the Harpia doesn't have a built-in camera.

BTW, I found the Photoscope to be very good - except for that built-in camera that was already outdated when the Photoscope came onto the market.

Hermann
 
Hermann,

Thanks for posting that. The specs of the Photoscope hint that its clear aperture may have varied, presumably with magnification. The "eintrittspupille" is given as "max. 85mm", implying that there was also a minimum effective eintrittspupille, which Zeiss preferred not to mention.

We should find out soon enough whether the exit pupil spec for the Harpia is real. If it is then the aperture loss as magnification decreases will also be real.

Henry
 
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I hadn't noticed the exit pupil anomaly until you guys pointed it out. Assuming that the zoom integrated into the objective really does cut down the effective aperture at lower magnifications, that would be a pity also from the viewpoint of perceived image sharpness. It will be interesting to test the Harpia against the ATX at lower magnifications and see what kind of a difference there would be, if any, in resolving power and distance from which a given pattern can be resolved at 30x-50x magnifications. For me, it would markedly lessen my enthusiasm for the scope if it turned out that as a tradeoff for getting a wider zoom range and wider fields of view at low magnifications one would have to settle for slightly lower resolving power at those bonus low magnifications. Hopefully there will be a chance to try these out soon enough.

Still waiting for first user reports from Birdfair.

Kimmo
 
I'm heading out to the boondocks of South Carolina to see the eclipse now. I'll be interested to see where this has gone when I return on Tuesday.
 
Just checked out the Harpia at the Birdfair. The nice Zeiss man reckons the 95 version should retail at £4000 approx ...£4000...for a scope??? Enough cash to get you the complex technology of a 40'' HD TV + Blu ray + surround sound. Scopes have been around since 1605, and have remained basically unchanged since, i.e. some bits of glass in a tube. Thanks, but I'll stick with my HR80, I can see birds through it...in colour...magnified.
 
I hadn't noticed the exit pupil anomaly until you guys pointed it out. Assuming that the zoom integrated into the objective really does cut down the effective aperture at lower magnifications, that would be a pity also from the viewpoint of perceived image sharpness. It will be interesting to test the Harpia against the ATX at lower magnifications and see what kind of a difference there would be, if any, in resolving power and distance from which a given pattern can be resolved at 30x-50x magnifications. For me, it would markedly lessen my enthusiasm for the scope if it turned out that as a tradeoff for getting a wider zoom range and wider fields of view at low magnifications one would have to settle for slightly lower resolving power at those bonus low magnifications. Hopefully there will be a chance to try these out soon enough.

Hi,

I don't think you will notice the lower resolution due to the stopping down at lower mag... unless you use a doubler or very short alternative EPs to result into much higher magnification than the 23x at the low mag end...

Joachim
 
Just checked out the Harpia at the Birdfair. The nice Zeiss man reckons the 95 version should retail at £4000 approx ...£4000...for a scope??? QUOTE]

NO, NO, NO!

Don't know which Zeiss guy you spoke to but he was way off.

The 85 goes for about £3k and the 95 for about £3.5k.

This is straight from not one Zeiss guy but several including their sales director during 3 days of visits.

These prices look competitive with Swaro ATX.

Lee
 
Thanks for putting me right Troubador. I've read up lots about the Zeiss Conquest 32s and the same guy seemed shaky when I questioned him. Apologies everyone for any confusion -we're in the hands of 'experts'.
 
The RRPs for the Harpia are £2995 for the 85mm and £3395 for the 95mm.

Delivery is expected to start in January 2018.

The Diascope 65 and 85 models, straight and angled are discontinued.

Regards, The In Focus Team
 
Why this deafening silence about whether the Harpia scopes actually have an exit pupil of 2.5mm at lowest power?

It would take me about 2 minutes to verify it if I saw the scope. I was unable to go to Birdfair.

And if it is a zoom lens system, 25x and 30x movie and T.V. lenses of very high quality have been around for 40 years.
And consumer zooms are everywhere.

If it is a zoom system it should be 8 to 1. 23x to 185x. If these scopes are high quality then they should readily take 185x, making them genuine all purpose scopes.
 
The RRPs for the Harpia are £2995 for the 85mm and £3395 for the 95mm.

Delivery is expected to start in January 2018.

The Diascope 65 and 85 models, straight and angled are discontinued.

Regards, The In Focus Team

Many thanks In Focus, for giving us the exact prices.

Lee
 
Why this deafening silence about whether the Harpia scopes actually have an exit pupil of 2.5mm at lowest power?

David

I must admit that measuring the exit pupils at different magnifications was not a priority for me at Bird Fair and when I was actually looking through the scopes I was too gob-smacked at the constant angle of view, and lack of tunnel vision, no matter what the magnification, to read through the specs, notice the exit pupil figures and get out a calculator to check them.

I have sent an enquiry to Zeiss and we will see what they come back with.

Lee
 
...when I was actually looking through the scopes I was too gob-smacked at the constant angle of view, and lack of tunnel vision, no matter what the magnification, ...

Ok, but you looked at the edges of the FOV at low mags and when zooming?
When zooming, you noticed changes on eye-relief?
Did you compared the brightness/contrast with other scope?
...
;)
 
Ok, but you looked at the edges of the FOV at low mags and when zooming?
When zooming, you noticed changes on eye-relief?
Did you compared the brightness/contrast with other scope?
...
;)

I didn't examine the edges in fine detail because I only use the full field to spot the subject or new subjects and then I centre the subject in the middle of the field. Ultimate edge sharpness is not a priority for me.

When zooming I did not notice any changes at all in eye relief and I was very careful to precisely position the eyecup to suit my spectacles. If there had been a change I am confident I would have noticed it immediately.

Other brands of scopes were too far away to do any meaningful comparisons of brightness and contrast and in any case the brightness was changing all the time due to the weather conditions.

Lee
 
Here is an extract from my report on the Bird Fair that is available in full in the binos section:

This year’s Bird Fair was as well attended as ever. On the first day (Friday 18th August) by 11:00 previous year’s total for the whole of Friday had been exceeded.

Zeiss
The newly announced Harpia scope was available in 85mm and 95mm objective sizes and will be priced in the UK at around £3000 and £3500 respectively, so very much in the same price league as Swarovski’s ATX. It is only available as an angled version which is by far the most popular format, and folks who prefer straight versions to make aiming easier should read further to find out how Zeiss has worked to help them out too.

What does it bring to the table that is new? Well curiously enough it borrows the optical concept of the Zeiss Photoscope which flopped in the market due to its built-in camera being out of date before the scope was released. But the optical train that used an objective-group zoom rather than a zoom eyepiece captured a lot of attention among scope aficionados due to the angle of view remaining constant all the way from the lowest to highest magnification.

So Zeiss took this concept and redesigned the system having in mind two targets: a low magnification to allow a wide field of view to make target acquisition easier (helped also by the ridge-and-groove ‘rifle sight’ on top of the retractable sun hood) and ultimate sharpness at high magnifications.

Whenever I went to try the Harpias out, there was a crush of folks queueing up to see them so evaluating them in detail wasn’t possible. What I can say is that the constant angle of view all the way to 70x magnification on the 95 and the consequent lack of the ‘tunnel vision’ effect was stunning. It made viewing at all magnifications such a pleasure, and with the low magnification of 23x on the 95 it made finding targets easy. Anyone who, like my wife, hates scope tunnel vision should have a look through a Harpia.

Lee
 
Thanks Lee.

I'm not also a fanatic of edge sharpness - I prefer an AFOV of 72º, with the out 12º not perfectly sharp, to an AFOV of 60º with the edge totally sharp, but it seems shouldn't be bad. However edge sharpness is very important for digiscopy as well as the aperture issue - the Swaro X are very good for digiscopy. By the way what scope do you use?

Nice to know that the eye-relief is good enough for eye-glass users like us! :t:

It would be interesting to know what standard Zeiss used for the stated 72º, but if you were impressed with the 72º, imagine what would be with 82º, 92º, 100-102º and/or 110º...;)
Hope it will be possible to use astro eps!...:eat:
 
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