Kowa 8.5x44 Genesis ED (1 Viewer)

Indiana J said:

The greenish color cast I have noticed with this XD is very annoying. It makes the image look plain and flat, and lack the ‘vivid feel’ that I enjoy with the ultravids and FL.

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Indiana,

I think I know what you mean. However, my advice would be to hold on to your Kowa XD's a little longer and see what exactly is bothering you. I mean, it may not be the binoculars, i.e. their bias from color neutrality, but reality itself. Have you ever noticed how green the natural world really is? And how plain and flat as well (on lots of occasions)? Walk up to a tree trunk, a branch, and observe it's clad in green all over. There's more green to nature than leaves alone!
On this forum we start from the assumption that we see things more or less the same. Well, we don't. Just try to reach an agreement with someone on what (shades of) colour you see and you're in great, great trouble. Try to reach consensus on colour neutrality in binoculars and you're in trouble even more.
When I say that the Kowa XD transmission of colour is very, very good, i.e. very close to reality, this is, unavoidably, a personal opinion. And if you won't agree, it is too. Also, I won't hold it against you, or anyone, to choose a binocular because it presents the world even better, more vivid than it really is. But let me tell you, there's nothing wrong with green.

Renze

Renze,

Your comments are very insightful. So much in human perception is relative.

Renze de Vries said:

Indiana,

I think I know what you mean. However, my advice would be to hold on to your Kowa XD's a little longer and see what exactly is bothering you. I mean, it may not be the binoculars, i.e. their bias from color neutrality, but reality itself. Have you ever noticed how green the natural world really is? And how plain and flat as well (on lots of occasions)? Walk up to a tree trunk, a branch, and observe it's clad in green all over. There's more green to nature than leaves alone!
On this forum we start from the assumption that we see things more or less the same. Well, we don't. Just try to reach an agreement with someone on what (shades of) colour you see and you're in great, great trouble. Try to reach consensus on colour neutrality in binoculars and you're in trouble even more.
When I say that the Kowa XD transmission of colour is very, very good, i.e. very close to reality, this is, unavoidably, a personal opinion. And if you won't agree, it is too. Also, I won't hold it against you, or anyone, to choose a binocular because it presents the world even better, more vivid than it really is. But let me tell you, there's nothing wrong with green.

Renze

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Renze;

I am glad that you have brought this up, and very tactfully at that. This is something I have seen for years and one of the reasons I check color with one eye looking through the bino and one eye unaided, so I can see the color I am actually looking at and overlay the binocular image over it.

I have noticed the correlation between color temperature and perception at various times and have mentioned it to others, but the subject is usually dismissed. It has always bothered me that reviewers will relate a colorcast but not mention the conditions. I am sure they see exactly what they report but I would wish to know the conditions also.

Just to illustrate a little I have attached some thumbnails of a building across from my office taken at different times of the day (different color temp.). If I ask anyone who works with me what color the building is they will tell me it is solid white.

Thanks for you insight.

Ron

Thanks Ron, you're right on target. So this is what's really happening (pictures). These are facts. We're just talking taste.

Renze

I read here on another thread to look at a sheet of white paper, in bright light, through the objective, and compare with the unaided eye to get a good idea of any color difference. Works great!

Surveyor said:

Renze;

I am glad that you have brought this up, and very tactfully at that. This is something I have seen for years and one of the reasons I check color with one eye looking through the bino and one eye unaided, so I can see the color I am actually looking at and overlay the binocular image over it.

I have noticed the correlation between color temperature and perception at various times and have mentioned it to others, but the subject is usually dismissed. It has always bothered me that reviewers will relate a colorcast but not mention the conditions. I am sure they see exactly what they report but I would wish to know the conditions also.

Just to illustrate a little I have attached some thumbnails of a building across from my office taken at different times of the day (different color temp.). If I ask anyone who works with me what color the building is they will tell me it is solid white.

Thanks for you insight.

Ron

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I'm not sure your illustration is accurate for what color cast really is (from the binocular side anyway). Color cast affects the perception of what you see. It's real.

What you're showing by your building photos is how the sun affects the color of the building at different times of the day. Early morning and late afternoon when the sun is filtered by thousands of miles of atmosphere haze changes the color (mostly warmer) Like color cast on camera lens filters. This is a color cast... but not from your binoculars. It's from your light source. And yes... it affects everything you see.

Notice how your sky color in the photos really does not change as much as the building?

Now for color cast (from your binoculars) if you looked at that sky with Swaro 8.5 els you would see the blue sky change to a little teal. Because you're adding yellow to the blue sky.

This is not a subtle thing and it is very easy to see. The "white sheet" is a good example. If it turns a certain "cast" of any color... there you go.

Cheers,

Artists, photographers (pros) and illustrators understand color and how it interacts. Mostly because it's the language we work in.

Hello Oleaf;

What I have seen over the years is that some binos have a definate cast, other times the color temperature affects what we see. I have not tried the paper test much but if you looked at the paper inside under 2800K to 3400K lighting you will probably see a slight brown cast. If you take that same paper outside around noon, I think it will show a lot more neutral than earlier. If you wait and put it in the shade in mid-afternoon, you may even see a slight greenish tint and if cloudy, maybe even blue. But if you look with one eye unaided, you are probably seeing the true cast.

I do have an LXL that has a redish brown cast all the time and have seen many with a yellow tint at all times. But I have some that are very neutral around noon (Ultravid, Swaros). An example of when I first noticed this was when I had my white work truck parked on a woods road one afternoon and it was in the bino view, it had a green tint to it and I knew the truck was white, but when I looked at the truck without the glasses, it actually had a green tint.

My point is by looking with an unaided eye you can make sure you are looking at a color cast and not just assuming something is one color when it may actually appear as something else.

FWIW, I have measured the bandpass colot temp of several examples of the big three and also looked at the info from the Carson Optical test somewhere on BF and the range averages from 4800K to 5400K with 5100K being more prevalent.

I am not denying that some binos have a very real cast to them, but more trying to reconcile the reports where one says he sees a red cast and someone with the same model sees a green-blue tint.

I am very open for discussion about this. Chromaticity is not one of my strong points.

Ron

PS. Oleaf, I have just gone and looked at a couple of my test results and thought I would post here. I measured a Ultravid and a Nikon LXL and the relative figures I generally look at are:
Ultravid:
CCT=5124K
CIE Whiteness 66.1
CIE tint -0.50

For the LXL that shows a very real cast:
CCT=4798K
CIE Whiteness 41.3
CIE tint -5.07
Note this bino also peaked at 685 nm.

There are a lot of data on these that I have no idea what they mean.

Since I am very much an amateur in the optics field there is a very good chance that I am misinterpreting this whole area badly. If you would like, I can email you the data and discuss areas that you think I may be going off track.

I think that's what is great about the white-sheet-of-paper-test. All you are comparing is the color through the binoculars backwards through the objective, and the straight view of the paper. Any color difference is the actual color of the binocular view, yes?

Nyatt;
I believe that would be correct as long as you can see the paper aided and unaided at the same time for direct comparison.
Ron

Hi Surveyor,

Yes, I agree that light sources at different units Kelvin will produce different colors.
But this is the light source and it will affect the actual color of the object you are viewing.

Your white work truck parked in the woods was picking up a green tint from reflected light off the surrounding trees. White will do that. A photographer will bounce light from gold or colored cards to make an object look warmer.

I have a Meopta bin that has a slight yellow warm cast. A good way to see this is look at a early evening sky at the subtle blues, pinks and amber tones just above the horizon. By noticing what color these shades turn after you look through your binoculars gives you a clue as to what color cast your bin produces. These colors you are looking at are very slight, much like the cast in your binocular, so you can easily see the result of the layering of the colors.

One of the reasons you don't notices this effect in bright sun light is the strong colors you are viewing are overpowering any slight color cast your binos have. And this is exactly why you do notice it on overcast and gloomy days (color cast).

It's really easy to understand when you know how colors react... with a cast your really just mixing color with what you're viewing.

Nyatt, Ron has a point about checking with the unaided eye. But of course if your checking at 7pm on a beautiful summer evening your white sheet will be warm orange!

If you're struggling to see a color cast... wouldn't worry about it.

Cheers

In general I think it's a good thing for binoculars to transmit colour as faithful to reality as possible. However, in my experience some bias (as all binoculars have) is not necessarily detrimental to the view. Provided that other important aspects are excellent. It's well known that warm colours like yellow and red can enhance contrast, and so resolution. For instance, the reddish cast found in Nikon E2's and SE's (and in XL's?) is probably not at all bad. Another example is the strong yellow found in the infamous KOMZ BPO 7x30, a Russian military binocular with a yellow lens in the ocular assembly. This is the sharpest binocular I've come across, displaying superb contrast and, surprisingly, really excellent transmission of fine gradations of colour.

I would never call the BPO 7x30 neutral (it wasn't meant to be either) and yet, I really love its view. Now, here the subjective element comes in. My point is, and I believe Ron's as well, that although objectively there are billions of fine colour colour shadings (see Ron's pictures) they seem to be largely lost on our perception. We're simply too subjective, we see with our brain. And this brain is a jumble of experiences, preferences, idea's, wishes, hopes, taste and what have you. We can't at all be sure about what we see, we can't even be sure about what we want to see. What we can do however, is give it some thought. Our very subjective way of seeing is worth some consideration.

Renze

Renze de Vries said:

In general I think it's a good thing for binoculars to transmit colour as faithful to reality as possible. However, in my experience some bias (as all binoculars have) is not necessarily detrimental to the view. Provided that other important aspects are excellent. It's well known that warm colours like yellow and red can enhance contrast, and so resolution. For instance, the reddish cast found in Nikon E2's and SE's (and in XL's?) is probably not at all bad. Another example is the strong yellow found in the infamous KOMZ BPO 7x30, a Russian military binocular with a yellow lens in the ocular assembly. This is the sharpest binocular I've come across, displaying superb contrast and, surprisingly, really excellent transmission of fine gradations of colour.

I would never call the BPO 7x30 neutral (it wasn't meant to be either) and yet, I really love its view. Now, here the subjective element comes in. My point is, and I believe Ron's as well, that although objectively there are billions of fine colour colour shadings (see Ron's pictures) they seem to be largely lost on our perception. We're simply too subjective, we see with our brain. And this brain is a jumble of experiences, preferences, idea's, wishes, hopes, taste and what have you. We can't at all be sure about what we see, we can't even be sure about what we want to see. What we can do however, is give it some thought. Our very subjective way of seeing is worth some consideration.

Renze

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Renze,

I agree... neutral is best.

Ron's photos do nothing but illustrate that when you change the light source color... you change the reflected color of the object you are viewing. Photographers have a very solid grip about this idea. Most others have a very nebulus idea of what is really happening.

To write most of it off to perception would be too easy. In every case the bias of a binocular will affect what you are seeing. Easier to tell in haze or overcast weather. I have a friend with older 8.5 EL's and in the overcast weather I don't like the yellow view. To say... well, maybe it's just perception or subjective would be fooling yourself.

Too bad humans can't set their internal white balance to the current conditions

Cheers

Oleaf;
I think we are saying the same thing, just in different terms. Renze follows what I was getting at. In the photos, we understand how the shading happens, but if someone looks at it through the bino and remembers the building as white, he may say it has a red cast in the morning, a yellow cast about mid morning or a slight blue cast in the afternoon shade if he does not take the precaution of looking at it aided and unaided to be sure he is looking a bino cast and not just comparing a remembered color to the current shade. That is my main point.

Thanks for your input, have a good day.
Ron

Nyatt, Ron has a point about checking with the unaided eye. But of course if your checking at 7pm on a beautiful summer evening your white sheet will be warm orange!

The whole idea is you have an instantaneous comparison, regardless of the "hue" given by temp of the ambient light. Even if the paper appears "orange-ish" to your unaided eye, all you are looking for is the difference between the unaided view, and the view reverse thru the objective. You can look at both at once, so it is easy, and shows the difference. This isn't my brain-child, I read it here in some other post. Try it sometime. Pretty interesting.

How about this?

I notice color variation differences between my right eye and left eye, especially in the fall when the leaf colors are changing. One eye (I forget which one, now) sees reds more intensely than the other one.
Cordially,
Bob

Nyatt,

Bingo! Put binos to eye... see things turn yellow... Bino must have yellow tint... go birding!

Cheers!

To resurect an old thread!

oleaf said:

Too bad humans can't set their internal white balance to the current conditions

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Or to phrase it another way human vision does a very good job for compensating for color bias in the light source.

That's why people say that building is white. Even when the light falling on it is not white.

http://birdforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=125662&d=1202782446

This color constancy explained by Edwin H. Land (i.e. Mr Polaroid) in his Retinex theory. And it seems to have some basis in neural processing too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy

It would be interesting to know if, for example, the size of the FOV affects (or other factors) affect chromatic adaptation in binoculars?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_adaptation

Is there less CA in the Kowa's than other quality binoculars? Whilst Im mainly content with my Nikon HGs I find the CA can be annoying.

Thought link to Holger Merlitz' review should be here :
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/kowa85x44.html
:t:

Anyone have anything to add on these bins with the experience of several months' use?
I was very impressed when I tried them at the Birdfair in August.

Sean