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Endurance ED Quality Issues (1 Viewer)

Solar Cycles

Well-known member
I purchased a pair of 8X32 Endurance ED last week and they arrived on Saturday. First impressions showed the optics were very sharp and colours looked very natural with no obvious signs of biases towards other colours, not being a optics expert but to me I could see no colour fringing though there was a degree of softening towards the edges.

These were the plus points because the overall fit and finish of this model was very poor indeed, with indentations on both front barrels due to the thinness of the armouring. There was also a small bubble on the right barrel roughly where the diopter adjuster connects to the barrel.

I did email pictures to Hawke and they've said that a new pair of binoculars shouldn't look like that and asked me to send them to them to investigate further and presumably exchange them. I wasn't sure whether to just exchange them at the retailer I purchased them from but everything I fancied was above my budget so reluctantly sent them off to Hawke but I don't fancy my chances of getting a cherry pair as the retailer had a look at the rest of his Endurance stock and all of them had the same defect, bar the bubble where the diopter adjuster meets the barrel.
 
I am sure Hawke will go out of their way to provide you with a pair that you ate satisfied with; that is their usual MO. Personally, my new Sapphires could have arrived battle scarred and I would still be happy with the image they present. Fully understand why you would and them perfect, let us know how you get on.
 
That's sad to hear.

I'll add this to the problems I've found in the Phase Corrected (non-ed models) I've encountered. It's also why I sent back two pairs of Frontier EDs before finding a good set.

Now happily birding with my Sightron Blue Sky ll without losing anything optically.
 
I've had two pairs of Hawk's before without any issues regarding build quality, these however were poorly constructed which is a shame as optically I was impressed by their sharp bright view they gave. I've sent them back to Hawke and I do rate their CS highly, but I want a cherry pair to restore my faith.

I was looking at the Frontier ED but they were beyond my budget, but going of what your saying Ratal these maybe no different. Do you think the quest for specs comes at a price of build quality?
 
I've had two pairs of Hawk's before without any issues regarding build quality, these however were poorly constructed which is a shame as optically I was impressed by their sharp bright view they gave. I've sent them back to Hawke and I do rate their CS highly, but I want a cherry pair to restore my faith.

I was looking at the Frontier ED but they were beyond my budget, but going of what your saying Ratal these maybe no different. Do you think the quest for specs comes at a price of build quality?

Something has to give, and sadly yes I think build quality and equity control are lacking behind. After all, if you get a cherry set, the package is stellar!

I had the 85ED Hawke spotting scope and always found it a delight, so I'll never say they don't produce a great image in their equipment.
 
Something has to give, and sadly yes I think build quality and equity control are lacking behind. After all, if you get a cherry set, the package is stellar!

I had the 85ED Hawke spotting scope and always found it a delight, so I'll never say they don't produce a great image in their equipment.
Sadly since manufacturing moved en mass to China QC has been an issue for many products in life. There needs to be an overall improvement in this area but that will come at a costs to us the consumer I'm afraid, still I'll rather pay a few pounds more than continue down the lack of QC road.
 
These Sapphires are my 11th pair of bino's from Hawke and I have not been able to fault a single one. In fact, all were to coin your phrase SC "cherries".
 
These Sapphires are my 11th pair of bino's from Hawke and I have not been able to fault a single one. In fact, all were to coin your phrase SC "cherries".

The image, as I've said above, cannot be faulted at the price point and double that to be honest.

Great bins, just prefer my Sightrons to the 8x32 ED.
 
These Sapphires are my 11th pair of bino's from Hawke and I have not been able to fault a single one. In fact, all were to coin your phrase SC "cherries".
I've had two pairs from Hawke prior to these and no issues whatsoever, these are definitely of shoddy standards a one off hopefully but the retailer where I purchased them from said all of his stock had indentations on the front barrels where the eye pieces connected. On the flip side of that the ones I tried at my local store didn't, or I didn't notice it at the time. I still rate Hawke very highly and I'm sure they'll sort me out with a cherry pair and it certainly wouldn't put me off buying Hawke products again.
 
Hawke endurance ed 10x 42 binocular

Greetings all. I recently purchased a set of hawke endurance binoculars. The delivery was quick and customer service was good so far. Upon first examination from delivery I found a loose seal on my left eyepiece. Within minutes a plastic ring fell off and then all the lenses fell out! I have since contacted the seller and emailed hawke but I will have to wait until Monday. I have heard from many places that hawkward make great optics but this was a real shocker! My trust in the hawke brand is almost completely lost and I'm not sure what I should do next? Do I accept an exchange or should I save my money, get a refund and go for a better brand? Any advice much appreciated.
 
Hi Binoscoper and welcome.
Take a bit of time to get over the shock.
How many glass elements are there in the eyepiece? Are some cemented pairs.

It will be up to you to decide what to do after reading other peoples comments.
 
Eyepiece update: hawke sent out a courier to collect the broken set yesterday. Hawke have inspected the binoculars and have decided to dispatch a new set by the weekend. I hope this set will be fine otherwise I won't be a happy bunny!
 
I'd say there is a good chance they will be fine and if you liked the binocular before the unfortunate disintegration 8-P then I think you will be happy with this new pair. Hope so and let us know how it turns out.

They replaced my little 10x25 Endurance and those have been doing well and I will be heading out shortly and choosing that bin from my bunch of bins for a light carry for some distance usage. The only slightish negative I have about them is the focus is very fast and it can take a bit of hunting for focus as both sides have a slight lag relative to each other and this is more noticeable with a 10x bin but you sure can zoom from near focus to far pretty fast or make that superfast. The focus is super smooth though also. Bit of CA at times but in general a pretty decent little binocular that I find more useful than a lot of my other higher speced compacts but yes you do need to get one that works well or Hawke to sort it out which they most times do.

I'd say you are soon to be happy and better to get that bin fixed than start all over again with a different brand that could possibly have some other issue. No brand is immune from them and at least Hawke get the finger out fast to do something as you have seen.

I just noticed you wrote in #10 about Hawke being "Hawkward" lol ;)
 
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Hello all.

Since I've been away I've had plenty of time to play with and analyse my endurance ed 10x42's. They where good to begin with but over time I slowly started picking up on the little niggles like glare, blackout and as CliveP mentioned in another post, some rather dodgy focusing is apparent in this model as well!

So I'm at the stage of debating wether to sell up and invest in a decent set of porro's?

I used to use a vintage set of chinon 10x50 porro binoculars and loved them! So now I'm looking into porro style binoculars. There doesn't seem to be much on the market though? Any suggestions / recommendedations appreciated!

Thanks in advance.
 
Here is a picture of what happened originally. No more than 5 mins out of the box.
 

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Hello all.

Since I've been away I've had plenty of time to play with and analyse my endurance ed 10x42's. They where good to begin with but over time I slowly started picking up on the little niggles like glare, blackout and as CliveP mentioned in another post, some rather dodgy focusing is apparent in this model as well!

So I'm at the stage of debating wether to sell up and invest in a decent set of porro's?

I used to use a vintage set of chinon 10x50 porro binoculars and loved them! So now I'm looking into porro style binoculars. There doesn't seem to be much on the market though? Any suggestions / recommendedations appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Ebay is full of porros. Maybe get something there.

Roofs are the fashion now.

I think you explain your situation very well in your opening comment of analysing. I don't think the perfect bin has yet been produced whereupon some analysing will not produce some doubts as to its perfection, although the latest attempt to solve this riddle seems to be the Leica Noctovid so maybe you need one of those ;)

But seriously I think most folks on here have or have had a lot of bins and I'm sure they find niggles of some kind in them all. I have about 10 bins at the moment and I change around all the time trying to work out which I prefer and which is best used when. It does help to stop me focusing on any particular weakness on one or other so by all means obtain a second or more bins and get to know more about this.

I think folks who are happy to settle with one bin don't analyse to much and are fine with that. It's another choice.

My latest Endurance 10x25 is working quite well and in fact I've decide to use it as my desk bin i.e. from here to view outdoors and the garden where the 10x is quite fun and they are pretty good in low light given their size.

I did take it out last week and it had some weird glare problems and I suspect it has something to do with the insides of the barrels being plastered with lubricant where it obviously isn't needed i.e. on the no reflecting internal barrel surfaces and so these surfaces are now for the most part very wet and shiny reflective so I think that might explain the glairiness but this only affects it when outdoors in stronger light. otherwise for the time being until I decide to try it outdoors again it will serve well for house use and I have other compacts which work better outdoors whereas this Endurance is very good for use here. So best tool for the job or the right application but without the glairiness this Endurance might well have been my best outdoors compact also. At least it focuses well enough and all else seems good but I do need a good outdoors compact and luckily I have some already such as my Viking Vistron 8x25 and my self repaired Pentax 8x20 ED (now very good) or my Carson 8x22 or my RSPB 8x20 HD already but to find something better again would always be welcome.

For 10x I use a Nikon M7 10x30 which satisfies my need for 10x bins along with this 10x25 Endurance for the time being. I'm not into large bins so my Hawke Sapphire 8x43 is my large carry and it is great so maybe you might like the 10x43 Sapphire or something similar upper mid price?

Whatever happens your search for perfection might be a long road. No bin works perfectly in all light conditions and circumstances but it most likely is possible to find something that suits you in particular better and if you then analyse it you will still find some niggles. They are all a compromise of some sort and much depends on the assembly and so forth also.

As always get to try as many as different bins as possible if possible. It's really the only fool proof way.
 
I used to use a vintage set of chinon 10x50 porro binoculars and loved them! So now I'm looking into porro style binoculars. There doesn't seem to be much on the market though? Any suggestions / recommendedations appreciated!
I've sent you a pm with a few Opticron models you might care to look at.
From your user name is it the case that you want something that works well on night sky? Just did a little research on the Minox BD 10x44 model (which looks similar to Opticron HR WP) and see one user had problems with that giving spikes on bright lights. Not sure if that was a one off though.
 
Thank you to those above for your replies/suggestions. Unfortunately I don't have the biggest budget in the world and as tempting as it is, I can't justify spending loads on an alpha bino! In the future I can see myself saving up for a decent spotting scope though.

For now I can make do with "binoscoping". I know the image quality isn't great but I'm happy with everything so far.

Below is a picture I got from a local estuary. I was pleasantly surprised what these old chinon 10x50 porro's could do!
 

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There are some Nikon 8x30 E2s for sale in the classifieds for what I think is an interesting price. These are one of the best porros on the market. I have no connection to the seller.
 
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