Frontier ED 8x36 Nikon SE rivalling sharpness! (1 Viewer)

Am I going mad? I've owned the original Hawke ED 8x43's and the Zen ED2 7x36's before and both got sold due to a perceived lack of sharpness and transparency compared to porros like the 8x SE and the Opticron HRWP 8x42 .

Well, I picked up some Hawke ED 8x36's on the bay pretty cheap just as a back up pair to the SE's and the HRWP's and these thing are seriously sharp! I've been repeatedly going back and forth testing between the Hawkes and the two porros and where previously the two roofs always seemed lacking to my eyes in sharpness and transparency compared to the porros these ED 36's are right up there!

I must admit I do doubt my own judgements sometimes, I've often changed my mind regarding initial opinions of optics and I've only had these for two days ( so take what I say with some skepticism) but I've just spent a good half hour comparing the three bins at long and short distance and these ED36's just seem plain sharper that the ED43's and the Zens I had.

Could be I've got a cherry pair or that I had less than perfect samples of the others, or of course that I've just gone mad or am plain inconsistent and unreliable in my reporting of optics but there you go

Just a quick mention of other aspects of the ED 36's, the focus is less than perfect, a bit spongy and slow for my liking. The eye relief is a tiny bit less than I like for my glasses but perfectly useable. Handling is nicer that the 43's , they are just that bit more compact, I never liked the length of the 43's, they just seemed to go on forever.

One more thing to mention is that the depth of field is, from what I remember, a fair bit less than the 43's and obviously much less that the ED2 7x 36's , could this have something to do with how I perceive the extra sharpness?

Light gathering for my 40 year old eyes seems good, I was out in the dingy tail end of a gloomy yesterday watching curlews curlewing in the rain and murk and had no problems.

So there you are, this has turned into a bit of a review but I'm just sharing my enthusiasm really

I tried the 8x42 Hawke Frontier HD on two different occasions @ Sportsmans Liquidation Outlet (not Sportsman's Warehouse, as I wrote earlier on another thread), which is now an authorized Hawke dealer. I didn't like them even when I had them outside on a sunny day. There was too much distortion of some sort. I'm not sure what was going on, it wasn't like the 7x36 ED, which had too much pincushion, just something "off". I tried two samples, and they were both the same. The ER was shorter on the ED than the non-ED version, and as you mentioned, the body was too long, which despite the open bridge, made it feel awkward in my hands.

The non-ED Frontier had less distortion but the new style semi-open bridge body was not to my liking. The bridge had "overhangs" on top that kept me from getting my fingers deep into the open space. The overhangs should have been on the bottom to support your thumbs. I turned them upside down, and they were more comfortable to hold that way, but impossible to focus.

I tried the 8x36 ED model a couple months ago when I want back to see what they had new. The 8x36 had the same distortion as the 8x42 model and more "fuzz" at the edges but the FOV is wider, so the edges are further out.

I had my 8x32 SE along for comparison, and I do agree that the Hawke 8x36 ED is very sharp, not as sharp as my sample SE but closer than any other bin they had in the store that I tried. I compared them looking at a Jeep in the parking lot, and the detail in the convertible hood was similar, just a tad behind the SE, but again, closer than the other bins they had for comparison (non-ED Frontier, Monarch 5, Steiner 8x30, Action 7x35). The distortion was less in the non-ED Frontier, but the image was not as sharp as the ED version.

The 8x36 ED's body appeared to be identical to the 7x36 ED2, not even any effort to disguise it like a lot of clones. I thought the 7x36 ED2's view was very sharp and "transparent". But neither the Hawke or ZR achieve a good balance of pincushion and AMD like the SE. I think they wanted $299 for the 8x36 ED, which I thought was a good price.

I'm glad you like the 8x36 ED. If not for the distortion, I probably would too.

Brock

Hi Brock, I agree that the Hawkes just don't work as a whole the way the SE's do, the SE's just become natural extensions of my hands and eyes and brain when I'm out birding ( except when it rains and the SE's disappear under my jacket like a frightened gremlin)

What puzzles and pleases me is the sharpness of these Hawkes compared to the ones I had before. I guess I just cant say anything definite about the difference though as I don't have the zens or the 42 Hawkes to compare directly anymore, memory can be a funny thing. I swear these buggers are sharper though, In previous comparisons I could always tell the SE's and the HRWP's were significantly sharper than my old Hawkes and Zens. I'm gonna have to do some more careful comparisons with the SE's to really decide if they really are as sharp, or at least near as dammit, they are that close.

It amazes me that people find fault with more than one pair of Hawkes when I am now on my ninth pair of Frontier ED's and have yet to have a single issue with any over the years and lord knows how many more I have tried in the store. The sharpness and brightness for that matter comes as no surprise to me. If you try hard enough I suppose you can find fault in anything.

I like this MO but shouldn't it read "Mogwai"? My father has been looking at purchasing a pair 10x Hawkes. Have you had any experience of those? They are for my mother. She uses his 10x Ultravids and does not have a problem with the weight as they are primarily used looking out of their camper. Opticron Traveller was the other pair he was looking at. I must admit to recommending the Hawkes to him based on reviews from this forum.

Cheers,

Rich

mulligatawny owl said:

( except when it rains and the SE's disappear under my jacket like a frightened gremlin)

.

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ClarkWGriswold said:

I like this MO but shouldn't it read "Mogwai"? My father has been looking at purchasing a pair 10x Hawkes. Have you had any experience of those?

Cheers,

Rich

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I have Hawke frontier 10x43s ED, and from the minute I picked them up, I adored them. I use them primarily out in the mountains or on the coast, and combined with the chest carrier I use, are perfection.

Good easy shape to hold, moderately fast focus but not too fast as to be annoying and are easy to use with gloves on in the cold.

Vision wise, crystal clear, with a small sliver of the very outside of the image going soft. However, as the field of view is so wide, it's negligible.

All in all, for less than 300, an absolute steal.

Cheers Ratal. I'll have a chat with them when they're back from Anglesey. £300 was what they were looking to spend.

Rich

PS always enjoy your posts about the Moray area btw. We'll be back up next Easter and can't wait.

Veracocha said:

It amazes me that people find fault with more than one pair of Hawkes when I am now on my ninth pair of Frontier ED's and have yet to have a single issue with any over the years and lord knows how many more I have tried in the store. The sharpness and brightness for that matter comes as no surprise to me. If you try hard enough I suppose you can find fault in anything.

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I've not mentioned those historical fault problems in quite a while now as I understand they got their QC problems sorted a while back. In fact I've been recommending them. I still don't like them (or the Sapphire) personally, but plenty do. That's fine with me.

Why do you need nine?

ClarkWGriswold said:

Opticron Traveller was the other pair he was looking at.

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The main appeal of the Traveller is it's size and weight. It does have it's peculiarities and I feel it works much better as a 6x than a 10x. Definitely one to try before you buy.

David

Cheers David. There's a shop in Carmarthen that stocks both so I think that is what he is going to do. They quite often travel to Australia to visit my brother which is why I thought the low weight maybe beneficial to them.
Rich

Rich

typo said:

The main appeal of the Traveller is it's size and weight. It does have it's peculiarities and I feel it works much better as a 6x than a 10x. Definitely one to try before you buy.

David

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Ahh yes, now I remember. From now on my SE's will be known as 'Mogwai'

Tried the 10x briefly in the shop but don't remember much about them.

Had the 8x36's out all day today and I can confirm that to my eyes the Hawkes are pretty much as sharp as the SE's and the HRWP's, i.e. alpha level pin sharp. The only way I could tell any difference would be to tripod mount them and do some pretty serious comparisons. Porro style pin sharpness still has that extra something for me though.

Unfortunately, and probably a bit worse that the 8x43's is the edge fuzziness and halo effect of the Hawkes view and the focuser is pretty awful too. But for less than £300 they are phenomenal, the centre field is just plain alpha quality! I'm still baffled why the Zens and the 8x43 Hawkes didn't wow me this way.

I'd still choose the HRWP's for £250 though. Even with their narrow field of view they work as a whole much better for me than the Hawkes.

The frontier ED's have definitely gone up in my estimation though, I'll no longer be telling people the view through the HRWP is 'miles better'!

ClarkWGriswold said:

I like this MO but shouldn't it read "Mogwai"? My father has been looking at purchasing a pair 10x Hawkes. Have you had any experience of those?

Cheers,

Rich

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Veracocha said:

It amazes me that people find fault with more than one pair of Hawkes when I am now on my ninth pair of Frontier ED's and have yet to have a single issue with any over the years and lord knows how many more I have tried in the store. The sharpness and brightness for that matter comes as no surprise to me. If you try hard enough I suppose you can find fault in anything.

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Vera,

If you are so happy with your Hawke EDs, why did you need to buy NINE pairs??

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Brock,my thoughts precisely Eddy

Why did I buy 5 pairs of Leupold Cascade porros? ....or 3 Nikon SE 8x32s?

I can't answer for him but in my case it was for a variety of reasons.

1. I liked the bin so much that I wanted to have at least one other pair on hand so if something happened to the first then I would always have a pair to use. (Just did the same thing with the Sightron &x32).

2. I owned one previously, sold it and then wanted to have it again as I enjoyed something about its performance.

3. The binoculars optical performance was a reference standard to just other binoculars by.

brocknroller said:

Vera,

If you are so happy with your Hawke EDs, why did you need to buy NINE pairs??

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I suppose it is mainly a case of trying each and every derivitive and seeing which one suits me best. Additionally I have let others try them out (mainly starparties) and three pairs have gone to fellow stargazers. I do not profit even though I was able to get them at a discounted rate. This is how I worked through the range.

Of the MKI I had every derivitive (8x36/10x36/8x42/10x42) and the MKII exactly the same. Recently I sold a pair of Swaro Swarovision to a nice member on here and when he came to purchase them he spent more time looking through the MKII 8x43 and my 10x43, he bought the 8 x 43 from me also as he was so impressed. I then sold my remaining 10 x 43 to fund my Sapphires which I did not go through with, instead settling on the new pair of 10x43 which I have now (I vow not to sell these).

Veracocha said:

I suppose it is mainly a case of trying each and every derivitive and seeing which one suits me best. Additionally I have let others try them out (mainly starparties) and three pairs have gone to fellow stargazers. I do not profit even though I was able to get them at a discounted rate. This is how I worked through the range.

Of the MKI I had every derivitive (8x36/10x36/8x42/10x42) and the MKII exactly the same. Recently I sold a pair of Swaro Swarovision to a nice member on here and when he came to purchase them he spent more time looking through the MKII 8x43 and my 10x43, he bought the 8 x 43 from me also as he was so impressed. I then sold my remaining 10 x 43 to fund my Sapphires which I did not go through with, instead settling on the new pair of 10x43 which I have now (I vow not to sell these).

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Got it! I thought you had nine samples of the same configuration. That would put you in league with Frank D. and John Cota. They like to "sample test," choose the best sample and sell the rest.

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