• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

A New Interview with Gerold Dobler, SF Design Team Leader (1 Viewer)

ceasar said:
Henry posed an answer to that in Post #3 above.

You aren't still in the "Rabbit Hole" are you?;)

Bob
Click to expand...

I didn't read it since I hadn't posed the question yet, but at least I don't misspell my own username, Caesar. :smoke:

fracknroller
 
Last edited:
Lee,
Reading the interview with Gerold Dobler about a court case I get a strong feeling that we are looking through a key hole in history, since it is not at all clear why this court case took place and what was at stake. When Gerold Dobler left Swarovski he went to Leica to work there. During his work period there there was a rifle scope developed and this rifle scope induced Swarovski to go to court since the Leica rifle scope violated patents filed by Swarovski. Was this the reason that Gerold Dobler was heard by the court? We do not know. It is not of major importance for us but now the suggestion arises that the court case was about the design of the EL and that I never heard of.
From Leica Gerold Dobler moved to Zeiss, nothing wrong with it, but if a person is so closely involved in all aspects of design, production and work organisation as Gerold Dobler was at Swarovski and Leica some companies make arrangements that these employees are forbidden for a limited period of time to use their knowledge and information to the benefit of the new company. Was that at stake here? We do not know and actually I find it not very important would it not be that we are now confronted with a kind of image formation that may have nothing to do with reality and we are tempted to jump to conclusions on false grounds.
Gijs
 
brocknroller said:
I meant that in both interviews he never directly said "quote/unquote" the role you attributed to him when asked. Not that I expected him to say, "Ja, the idea vas mine, mine, mine, Seil and Murg vere just lackies. ;) I thought he was just being modest, being a team effort and all, but now that he's being frank, and coming out about the lawsuit, I was surprised he still couched his words carefully. Ed apparently felt the same way, though I know nothing about Dobler's legal issues prior to him leaving Swarovski.

Where did you get the information about Dobler coming up with the twin bridge idea?

So you understand and write auf Deutsche? We used to have oral test each month in my college German class. I dreaded it. I aced the written exams, but my teacher was from southern Germany, near the Austrian border, and she had a thick Bavarian accent like Disney's Professor Ludwig Von Drake. I had a hard time understanding her, because in the language labs, the speakers on the tapes spoke Hoch Deutche.

Brock
Click to expand...

Hi Brock

Read my history of the birth of the EL on the Swaro pages and IMHO all is made clear there.

I don't propose to add anything further to the EL history or the interviews.

Lee
 
oetzi said:
Lee, sometimes I think that here at BF hearsay, guesswork and wishful thinking play a big part.;)
I think it strange, how important it seems, whether Dobler played a big/small/ none at all part in developing the Sf. It was team-work anway, so what? Nit-picking for what purpose?

I really enjoy these interviews, thank you for the effort
Click to expand...


Thanks Oetzi.

Lee
 
I enjoyed that interview, thanks for putting it up.


On how much Herr Dobler was responsible for the design and legally embroiled employment, it sounds like he was ultimately responsible for it. I always wonder about questions like these, in my line of work if you are heading a project and it fails, it's your fault, but if it is a raging success then you were merely a figure head and the team pulled it off for you.

And as to embroiled employment, at that level if your employment goes to anything other than retired, you are usually embroiled.

Excellent interview.
 
perterra said:
So I take it you dont like your SF?
Click to expand...

So am I the alone in ascertaining from that interview, the implication that the SF is especially critical of eye placement or positioning ?

Or is the suggestion one should look straight through the SF not a little insulting.
 
Torview said:
So am I the alone in ascertaining from that interview, the implication that the SF is especially critical of eye placement or positioning ?

Or is the suggestion one should look straight through the SF not a little insulting.
Click to expand...

Dr Dobler's opinion is that all binoculars are made for looking straight through in the sense of not having the bins tilted, so looking around the FOV with the binoculars held straight in relation to the eyes is OK. His remark was aimed at all bins not just SF.

I haven't tried a production SF yet but the pre-production units I have tried have not been especially sensitive to eye placement at all.

Lee
 
Torview said:
So am I the alone in ascertaining from that interview, the implication that the SF is especially critical of eye placement or positioning ?

Or is the suggestion one should look straight through the SF not a little insulting.
Click to expand...

I agree, Sure does sound like that, but eye placement is critical in every glass I have tried. I know you like the E II, and the great glass that it is it was unusable to me due to eye relief. Everything is a trade off.

I was just wondering if you had found the SF unsatisfactory?
 
The Conquest HD's also show this blue ring - IF - you tilt the bin on an angle to see the very edge of the field, that part of the field not visible when using the bin in a ''normal'' way.

In real world usage, I never see it.

I'm not sure it is CA, more like seeing the edge of a lens element.
 
Gijs van Ginkel said:
Lee,
Reading the interview with Gerold Dobler about a court case I get a strong feeling that we are looking through a key hole in history, since it is not at all clear why this court case took place and what was at stake. When Gerold Dobler left Swarovski he went to Leica to work there. During his work period there there was a rifle scope developed and this rifle scope induced Swarovski to go to court since the Leica rifle scope violated patents filed by Swarovski. Was this the reason that Gerold Dobler was heard by the court? We do not know. It is not of major importance for us but now the suggestion arises that the court case was about the design of the EL and that I never heard of.
From Leica Gerold Dobler moved to Zeiss, nothing wrong with it, but if a person is so closely involved in all aspects of design, production and work organisation as Gerold Dobler was at Swarovski and Leica some companies make arrangements that these employees are forbidden for a limited period of time to use their knowledge and information to the benefit of the new company. Was that at stake here? We do not know and actually I find it not very important would it not be that we are now confronted with a kind of image formation that may have nothing to do with reality and we are tempted to jump to conclusions on false grounds.
Gijs
Click to expand...

Gijs

As stated already the court case was brought by Swaro because they wanted compensation for Gerry leaving the company. I do not know on what basis they brought this case. During this case Gerry's job at Swaro was discussed in some detail. Thats the only reason for quoting the court documents.

Lee
 
Gijs van Ginkel said:
Lee,
Reading the interview with Gerold Dobler about a court case I get a strong feeling that we are looking through a key hole in history, since it is not at all clear why this court case took place and what was at stake. When Gerold Dobler left Swarovski he went to Leica to work there. During his work period there there was a rifle scope developed and this rifle scope induced Swarovski to go to court since the Leica rifle scope violated patents filed by Swarovski. Was this the reason that Gerold Dobler was heard by the court? We do not know. It is not of major importance for us but now the suggestion arises that the court case was about the design of the EL and that I never heard of.
From Leica Gerold Dobler moved to Zeiss, nothing wrong with it, but if a person is so closely involved in all aspects of design, production and work organisation as Gerold Dobler was at Swarovski and Leica some companies make arrangements that these employees are forbidden for a limited period of time to use their knowledge and information to the benefit of the new company. Was that at stake here? We do not know and actually I find it not very important would it not be that we are now confronted with a kind of image formation that may have nothing to do with reality and we are tempted to jump to conclusions on false grounds.
Gijs
Click to expand...

AFAIK ruled the court in favor of Swarovski and Leica was forced to pay a substantial amount of money to Swarovski.

This has nothing to do with Zeiss in any way! It only shows that Dr.Dobler is an (even in the eyes of the court) well respected man!!

So Swarovski defended their rights and were granted for that.
Nikon violated the patent rights of Swarovski and got slapped on the wrist. It is IMHO the other way around to blame Swarovski for defending their patent rights:king::king:, like some poster here wants it to look like.
Some people stay in denial:-O:-O

Jan the....
 
Me, I don't find Dobler's response about the blue ring insulting.

So you really can't see this blue ring unless you tilt the binocular? Why do you want to tilt the binocular in the first place?

Reminds me of the old vaudeville joke:

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Don't do that.

Actually it reminds me of a few other odd gripes people have around here, mostly self-inflicted. ;)

Thanks for the interview Lee. :t:

And remember: "No good deed goes unpunished."

Mark
 
Lee, post 32,
OK, but how must I understand that Swaro wanted compensation because Gerold Dobler left the company, that does not seem reasonable. Something else is that Swaro may have tried to prohibit that Doblers inside knowledge of Swarovski would be used for the construction of Swarovsky type Leica/Zeiss optics. Something like that happens frequently in The Netherlands, that through legal actions a company tries to provide that its inside knowlege is used by a strong competitor. Not a strange idea I think.
Gijs
 
Troubador said:
Hi Brock

Read my history of the birth of the EL on the Swaro pages and IMHO all is made clear there.

I don't propose to add anything further to the EL history or the interviews.

Lee
Click to expand...

I guess this means there will be no Part III in which we get to hear Frau Schnitzel-Swarovski's side of the story. ;)

Rather than let this backstage story sink into oblivion in the BF archives, I would encourage you to combine both interviews (sans the lawsuit saga) and post it on Wikipedia's history of Swarovski Optik, which is skeletal. Wiki is inviting you to improve on what little they already have:

"This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (July 2012)"

Wickedpedia_Swarovski_Optik

Seriously, your contribution to Swaro history needs a permanent home.

Brock
 
jan van daalen said:
AFAIK ruled the court in favor of Swarovski and Leica was forced to pay a substantial amount of money to Swarovski.

This has nothing to do with Zeiss in any way! It only shows that Dr.Dobler is an (even in the eyes of the court) well respected man!!

So Swarovski defended their rights and were granted for that.
Nikon violated the patent rights of Swarovski and got slapped on the wrist. It is IMHO the other way around to blame Swarovski for defending their patent rights:king::king:, like some poster here wants it to look like.
Some people stay in denial:-O:-O

Jan the....
Click to expand...

I think it is a good thing they are so vigorous in their defense of the intellectual rights. They won the court case so I would say it wasnt a frivolous suit. If everyone were able to pursue it in all the countries there would probably be a lot fewer importers out there.
 
I never suggested I was tilting the SF or any other binocular, if you`re all willing to take Mr Doblers word that it can only be seen by tilting, ok, me I saw it in two samples the way I use every binocular, maybe I`m a natural tilter, maybe more will see the blue ring as more people try an SF.
 
Gijs van Ginkel said:
Lee,

When Gerold Dobler left Swarovski he went to Leica to work there. During his work period there there was a rifle scope developed and this rifle scope induced Swarovski to go to court since the Leica rifle scope violated patents filed by Swarovski.
Gijs
Click to expand...

Gijs

Please check the final result of this court case concerning the rifle scope.

Lee
 
Warning! This thread is more than 9 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

mgp13
ZEISS Victory SF Appreciation Thread
4 5 6
Replies
101
Views
9K
Scott98
S
M
Zeiss SFL 8x40 Eyecup Stray light issue!
Replies
16
Views
1K
Mac198
M
J
Brief reviews about Zeiss victory SFL 8/10 x40
2 3
Replies
41
Views
5K
Declan Joseph Deasy
D
J
My First Experience Purchasing Birding Binoculars. Part 2 first anniversary
Replies
2
Views
635
Scott98
S
P
8x42 FL comparisons
Replies
6
Views
1K
Patudo
P

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top