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Best 8x30 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Liliput
- Start date
henry link
Well-known member
I think the Zeiss FL is considerably better than the Swarovski EL, brighter and sharper across the field with more accurate color transmission. I haven't seen the Leica Ultravid and haven't looked at an SLC in a long time. Another to add to the list, if for reference only, is the redoubtable Nikon 8X32 SE.
Wehr
Well-known member
Liliput said:
There is no best. You have to test them by yourself to check, if you are comfortable with the different brands and which individual eyerelief you need. And don't forget to also check the Nikon HG(L). If two or three of them are good for you take the cheapest.
All those bins represent the group of the best you can buy for money.
Holger Merlitz defined an orientation for a binocular buy. In your case wisdom No. 6 is the most important:
Wisdom No. 6:
Tests are helpful to evaluate middle class binoculars - and losing significance toward the low- and the high-end
The idea behind a test report is simple: To pre-inform somebody about strong and weak sides of a binocular he possibly never had been able to hold in his own hands. Instead, such a review was created by somebody else, including all those potential obstacles like individual experience and personal preferences.
This limitation remains of little relevance as long as the binocular is imperfect enough to exhibit a sufficient number of technical faults the reviewer is then able to point on. In this case, each half-way experienced tester should come to more or less the same conclusions.
Things become different once a binocular approaches a state close to perfection, like these 'beyond 1000 €/US$ cruisers' of Zeiss, Leica, Swarovski or Nikon's top line. It becomes increasingly difficult to discriminate their performance by technical means alone. At this point, individual preferences of the reviewer tend to become the dominating factor for the outcome of the evaluation. My suggestion is therefore: Don't waste your time reading test reports on high-end binoculars, but make sure to get one sample glass and try them out yourself. Technically, any of them will be good enough. It is left to your own decision which one is going to be your personal favorite. A totally different problem shows up when testing the low-end side: These binoculars are often of mediocre mechanical construction and may display a wide range of de-collimation even at the time of purchase. This is frequently the case with cheaper products made in Russia and China. The test instrument may then not represent the performance level of the series, but just a random selection, and the test result is of limited accuracy and validity.
Walter
