BVD Review of the new Swift Ultralites (1 Viewer)

http://betterviewdesired.com/01-06/Swift UltraLite.htm

It's a good review -- pretty much what I said.

Wayne Moynes likes the styling more than I do, but I agree that the armoring is soild and makes the binoc feel good in the hand.

One mistake in the BVD review. It is said that the 8x42mm roof has a 6.5 degree view that translates in 328 ft./1000 yds. My calculations and Swift's specifications make that 341 ft. Multiply by 52.5 to get the feet/1000 yds. Moynes goes on to say that he wishes the Ultralite roof had a better field of view. My impression is that the FOV is better than most comparably priced roofs and better than some more expensive ones.

Good review, though. I had hoping that BVD would get around to covering the new Ultralites.

Moynes also touches on the new Ultralite porros.

Note: BVD shows the Ultralites in their Blue-Black armoring. Fortunately, a Grey-Black version is also available.

Another boo-boo is that her name is spelled Alison (not Allison) Swift. Details, details. I'm also not sure why it was necessary to include a confession about being "... prejudiced in favor of Swift products." That seemed gratuitous.

Anyway, I also found this a welcome review, and hope that BVD will continue with objective comparisons of similarly priced products. As we move into the future there will no doubt be more and more Chinese manufactured products, and I already feel the race will be down hill for the "big four" to justify their increasing costs.

Although I'm skeptical, it would surely be nice if we could keep track of which manufacturers produce the different brands. Somehow I suspect this will tend to be shrouded in even more mystery than Japanese made products. The need for information and objective reviews is ever increasing.

Ed

I would like to congratulate Swift on producing what have to be some of the ugliest binoculars I have ever seen. Three colors, all of them god-awful, and the chicken pox to boot.

Why put good glass in a housing this repulsive?

Adam

Ain't gonna mistake them babies for Leica's and Zeiss's; that's fer sure. They're almost as ugly as Swaro's and Optolyths, you betcha.
Bob

Blackstart,

Harold Pinter made some excellent points in addition to the one you quote:

"There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false."

A binocular can be both beautiful and ugly at the same time. Take my Nikons, for example ...

Ed

I have a pair of these and the review-other than the field of view -points out the same positives and negatives that I have noticed about them.

elkcub said:

A binocular can be both beautiful and ugly at the same time. Take my Nikons, for example...

Click to expand...

I suppose that's true, and I can think of a few binoculars where that might be the case, but these Swifts are just ugly. I was afraid my screen would crack when the big picture loaded. They look like props from a science-fiction movie, and a B-movie at that.

Adam

Well, I'm looking at the picture on my desktop right now. The standard H-pattern roof design has two-tone grey and blue armoring that's stippled with progressively smaller holes, which are aligned in four columns of five dots each on either side of the hinge. The inner sections of the tubes are blue, and from what I recall from my trip to Swift, they are designed to be somewhat more spongy than the outer grey area. The focus control is conventionally located, and the low-tech diopter control is on the right eyecup. Personally, I think they are rather cool looking, — distinctive if not even distinguished. The ladies may identify with their tailored designer look, and I can definitely visualize my daughter going for one. Perhaps the only thing I don't care for are the metal strap buttons on the sides, but the BVD review already pointed that out. I don't recall if they have thumb grooves on the inside, but I think properly designed ones are ... groovy. The basic idea is to eliminate hard points of contact at the first joint of the thumb. Yes, I have handled these (the 8x and 10x) and found them to be satisfying to hold and look through, properly collimated, and with a nice view. As mentioned on a different thread it was only a quick introduction, but nonetheless they qualify for consideration.

Ed
PS. Uh, oh. Is there something wrong with the BVD web site again?