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

Another set of impressions of the Nikon 8x32 SE (1 Viewer)

jaymoynihan

Corvus brachyrhynchos watcher
I broke down and purchased a pair of Nikon 8x32 SE’s when I stumbled upon them on-line for $450, new with warranty.
A bit of background about me. Eyeglass wearer, thick-ish lenses. Normally use Zeiss (classics, 8x30 and 7x42), Swift (Audubon series), and Leica (10x42BA). So tht is my own basis of comparison.

For me:

VERY sharp, contrasty. Color balance excellent. Very flat field. Possibly more so than on these, under similar normal daylight conditions, than my other glass, and certainly a match for my 7x42’s. Impressed.
For me, no black-out problems. I of course use them with rubber rolled down.

Build quality is excellent. At the same time, very light in weight. Feel when holding great, the only porro I have had (since the old B&L Audubon Custom 8x36’s) that is one hand comfortable.

Field feels very wide, due to for me, perfect eye relief.

The edge of the field of view on this glass is interesting. There is a very thin (thinnest of my binoculars) edge where the image degrades. But, it appears sharper in that error area than most others, because the color correction does not also degrade at the very edge also.

Very good color correction.
Like them a lot.

Negatives:
The non-waterproof aspect is not a negative for me, since I new that when I got them.

The rain guard is not to my tastes. May replace with the one for the Zeiss Classics series.

Has made the 12x50 SE an object of lust for astronomical use.

jay
 
$450.... $450 I mean $450, life is so unfair. they are nearly double that over this side of the pond. Begs the question why???
Sounds like you are going to enjoy them a lot, I am exceedingly jealous.

Nick

PS good review.
 
Normally, they push towards $700 USD. Amazon.com had/has a sale on them.
jay

Tried to order them and pay for delivery to UK but, surprise surprise, no deal. On Amazon UK they are £455 ($900 approx) that is almost exactly twice the price. Needless to say I will not be buying them.

Nick
 
Addendum.

OK.
These are kind of amazing...

Have had them out this weekend in a variety of habitats. After some more trying them, and reflection (pardon the pun), a few more thoughts.

1. Yes there is some color fringing. Least though i have seen under very tough conditions, in a non-special glass binocular.

2. Flare in VERY well controlled. In fact, if you are scanning with them anywhere near the Sun, be careful. It can enter the FOV quite suddenly with much less of the usual "flare warning".

3. These are unusually bright for a 32mm glass. The trunk of a paper birch tree, in direct morning Sun, is almost too bright. Used them yesterday under thick canopy forested environment, on a day of thick clouds. Performed very well.

4. They excel at "pulling out" small animals and birds from forest floor and plant/branch clutter.

In comparison to my other binos, well

While "different" than my Zeiss 7x42 classics, they are optically, similar.
If the weather is crumby, i will grab the Zeiss 8x30 classics for birds. If it is not wet out, i will grab these.

Assuming that:

A. You do not suffer from the reported "black-out" effect with these, and,
B. You do not always need a waterproof binocular,and
C. You can live with 32mm (that behaves like 42mm until just after sunset)for terrestrial nature viewing;

You may want to strongly consider these, vs the high 4 figure uber-glasse.

jay
 
Jay, the kidney bean/blackout effect on these requires rather precise holding of the binoculars to your eyes. IF you can master that, they are fabulous. Took me some doing but I like them. I'd bought mine last year for about $500 IIRC and thought they were a great deal for the money.
 
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