New 20-75x eyepiece (1 Viewer)

Hi everybody just received my mew eye piece today and wow i'm still speech less. I am not even using it on a new body I have the original diascope body with pre lotu-tec coatings. The edge fuzziness has gone and is still very sharp at 75x and the light here is terrible at the moment. This is a contender for top spot and i have had a Kowa 883 which I have sold on Bird fourm so i have tried out the very best. So God knows how good it is on a new body with new coatings etc. Any questions please ask as I don't think there are many people with this combination. The best deal with postage is at uttings outdoors which is £460 delivered. I am also in no way biased toward Zeiss. This combo is excellent.

Cheers,
Alan.

Would you mind posting a more in depth review? I am interested to know if Zeiss fixed the changing eye relief problem (as you switch magnification). Congrats on your new glass.

Today I was able to get a (unfortunately very short) look through the new Zeiss 85 with 20-75x eyepiece. I just used it from 60x to 75x. FOV was very good and so was the sharpness, clearly better than the old Zeiss scopes I know. I was very impressed with it. But I would like to hear "real" reviews, especially in comparison to the Kowa 883.

Today I had another look through it at a local dealer.

Sharpness didn't go up to the extreme corners (at every magnification) but that wasn't a big problem for me. Imo it's a lot better than on the old zeiss. IQ was very good up to 60x, beyond that it was still good but the "clearness" got worse (you may know this; it looks as if the motiv is just slightly out of focus but you can't get any better sharpness). Colours were imo too yellow.
The body has a nice feeling with the rubberised surface and ergonomics are good. But I really don't like the new focus system. You turn 270°, then there's a small "stop" and if you go over it, it focuses a lot faster. There's no play.

The price is the other thing I don't like about it ;-) my dealer asked 3000€, best internet deal I found was around 2550€.

I thought this could be of interest for some as there are not a lot of reviews around.

berryns said:

Would you mind posting a more in depth review? I am interested to know if Zeiss fixed the changing eye relief problem (as you switch magnification). Congrats on your new glass.

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That's never going to happen: all zoom eyepieces change ER as they change focal length.

e.g. see this ER graph from tvwg.nl

http://www.tvwg.nl/testrapporten/telescoop/images/eyerelief-tabel- tsn-773+883.jpg

You might wish for more ER but variable ER is a fact of life. You might hope for a smaller dip but there will be one in the middle of the range.

Did Zeiss add more ER in this design?

Is the color bias (the yellow you mention) the same as the previous versions or different in some way? It seems Zeiss really is designing this in.

How does this description match up with say the 60x to 75x performance of the

Is there any hint of longitudinal CA at 60x and above. I noticed with a high contrast target (white letters on a black background) at 60x on my non-lotutec 85FL that I can see that "change of color" in the white edges from yellow to purple as you shift through the focusing point. If you've used older achromatic scopes at high magnification you'll know what mean as you move the focus either side of the focus point the image color bias changes. It's subtle on the FL (not like the older scopes where you could pick you color bias using longitudinal CA) and you can only get an idea that it's there at 60x but it is just there. I suspect that's where the Kowa just doesn't. I wonder if longitudinal CA is limiting the sharpness at the top.

tvwg.nl saw a similar sort of thing when comparing variations in individual 85FL with a Kowa.

http://www.tvwg.nl/testrapporten/telescoop/Spreiding in optische kwaliteit bij telescopen.htm

zeiss 20-75x

I know alot of people are on about the eye relief but if you twist the eye cup up to maximum height and start at 20x zoom and zoom to 75x you don't have do adjust eye position like most scopes and it is also very comfortable to look through. I am going to make a new camera attachment when I get chance and post some pictures. It will be easier to gauge eye relief with a camera attached.

Cheers,
Alan.

edge sharpness

With note to above about edge sharpness. When I tested one of the prototypes at bird fair their was considerable edge fuzziness with the new body. My eye piece shows no edge distortion of any sort. I tested this by focusing on different objects and using only the outside edge of the field of view. As I said above I will post some pictures when I can.

alanrobinson1981 said:

With note to above about edge sharpness. When I tested one of the prototypes at bird fair their was considerable edge fuzziness with the new body. My eye piece shows no edge distortion of any sort. I tested this by focusing on different objects and using only the outside edge of the field of view. As I said above I will post some pictures when I can.

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To clarify, do you mean with the previous model (silver/green) 85FL plus the new 20x-75x Vario EP you get good edge sharpness but with the new (prototypes?) model (black) 85FL plus the new (prototypes?) 20x-75x Vario EP you saw poorer edge sharpness?

Poorer than the previous model (silver/green) 85FL plus the previous 20x-60x Vario ?

How do you find the color bias on the previous model (silver/green) 85FL scope with the new EP compared to the old EP?