Nikon SE vs Everything. (1 Viewer)

I am fortunate to own both, as well as a few pairs of alphas. To my eyes, I prefer the EII over the SE by a very narrow margin. The wide FOV and center sharpness win it for me. I am still wowed by them every time ai use them. Very few binoculars offer such a brilliant and immersive view for me, but the EII, along with the Swift 10x50 Kestrel and Leica 8x32 BN rank right at the top.

OK, thanks, I wanted to hear from those who own and use both. I like the EIIs for the reasons you gave and they are important to me. Especially a large fov and the EII have that in spades. Even the 10x is one of the very best fovs on any alpha 10x that I've seen.

I know many others will not agree but after comparing to my SV and Ultravid I proclaim the EII an alpha binocular. And who would know better than me? Or is it "I"?8-P

I'll stay with the EII because I don't think I'd be any better off owning the SE.

BTW I enjoyed this thread very much. You guys own some great binoculars and I love to hear you talk about them.:t:

black crow said:

OK, thanks, I wanted to hear from those who own and use both. I like the EIIs for the reasons you gave and they are important to me. Especially a large fov and the EII have that in spades. Even the 10x is one of the very best fovs on any alpha 10x that I've seen.

I know many others will not agree but after comparing to my SV and Ultravid I proclaim the EII an alpha binocular. And who would know better than me? Or is it "I"?8-P

I'll stay with the EII because I don't think I'd be any better off owning the SE.

BTW I enjoyed this thread very much. You guys own some great binoculars and I love to hear you talk about them.:t:

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BC:

When I bought my SE, only a few thought of it as an “ALPHA”—after all, it wasn’t a roof. But, to me, it’s definitely an “ALPHA”—if such a category has to exist. But then, not only do old dogs know they need not chase every car that passes, they also know the verbiage that keeps bino forums alive is largely scientifically unsubstantiated opinion. That makes the knees of the well-heeled observer quiver. But, after you’ve been inside a few thousand binoculars, and had lunch with movers and shakers in the optics industry, most will just make you yawn. And that’s not being arrogant; it’s just dealing with realities.

And speaking of movers and shakers: Last week, I was having lunch with a Magpie, a Eurasian Collared Dove, a Killdeer, and a rather stand-offish Prairie Falcon. When the topic of binoculars came up, the consensus was “Nobody gives a (the hind end of a medium-sized rodent).” The Falcon had a potty-mouth!

So, we just sat back and enjoyed our Spotted Owl—extra crispy.

Some people get wrapped around the axle at my BB stacking comments, but the Falcon was right; the birds couldn’t care less. I found it to be like selling opera glasses. We sold dozens for Christmas at Captain’s. I did my best to try to get folks to buy the Nikon 6x15, which is MUCH bigger on the inside than the outside with superb optics. I explained that most of todays “opera glasses” could be bested by those of a hundred years ago; it did no good.

It seems that most ladies were more interest in BEING SEEN at the opera or concert LOOKING THROUGH OPERA GLASSES than they were in the actual crummy view they would have. This thread bears out what has always been said about such threads: WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT WANTS, NEEDS, VISUAL ACUITIES, AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACCOMMODATIONS. And, as long as we do, the threads will be like—stand by, here it comes—stacking BBs. As has been pointed out some quintillion times ... it’s all subjective. For example, some people don’t care for the SE’s slower focus. That, however, was a prime selling point for me; I don’t like having to repeatedly focus because the focus wheel moves with a gust of wind.

As Aristotle said: “Whatever floats your boat.” :cat:

Bill

Here are my two BBs, just kidding Bill, I understand the parallel.

Put both viewing a resolution chart the SE wins. I use them quite often, and the only thing Nikon should have done regarding the SE was to make a 8X45 and a 10X50. Under most of my viewing the SE can resolve more objects at distance with more edge sharpness than my new black EII.
I also enjoy the EII for the wider FOV and when scanning a wide landscapes. Under a clear dark night sky, they are a blast.
They are both great glass.

Andy W.

dries1 said:

Here are my two BBs, just kidding Bill, I understand the parallel.

Put both viewing a resolution chart the SE wins. I use them quite often, and the only thing Nikon should have done regarding the SE was to make a 8X45 and a 10X50. Under most of my viewing the SE can resolve more objects at distance with more edge sharpness than my new black EII.
I also enjoy the EII for the wider FOV and when scanning a wide landscapes. Under a clear dark night sky, they are a blast.
They are both great glass.

Andy W.

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Bing—bloody—go!

Bill

I was using the EII the other night for stargazing and after that I'll likely never use my 11x56 Oberwerk astro bins again. Who would have thought 30mm could bring the night sky alive like that. The only thing better are my Oberwerk 25x100s which really can show some stars in a dark sky. We have pretty dark sky in my little town. It's the only good thing about insomnia.

black crow said:

I was using the EII the other night for stargazing and after that I'll likely never use my 11x56 Oberwerk astro bins again. Who would have thought 30mm could bring the night sky alive like that. The only thing better are my Oberwerk 25x100s which really can show some stars in a dark sky. We have pretty dark sky in my little town. It's the only good thing about insomnia.

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I hope you're out looking tonight. Jupiter is BRIGHT!

So is everything on the east coast, best night this spring so far. BC enjoy the dark sky.

Andy W.

Over the past 8 years or so I've spent thousands searching for a waterproof match for the SE's, most recently settling on a Zeiss HT. On and off its been a bit of an obsession and completely futile as the SE's still reign.

The SE and EII have a hyperreal solidity and natural sharpness to the image you just don't get in a roof prism no matter the price. It really bugs me that as a hard up birder and optics nut I'm forced to spend £1500 or more for an inferior image.

On the subject of EII V SE it's just a matter of preference really, as a glasses wearer I much prefer SE's purely from an ease of use perspective.

tenex said:

After all these measurements, what about the aesthetics of the view? I haven't seen an E2, but tried out SEs some years ago and had an odd sense of "dullness"... even the 10x42 wasn't exactly bright, and the colors seemed a bit off somehow. (Maybe the trouble was that I was comparing with a Habicht!) Anyway, would anyone care to comment on this and is the E2 similar in this respect also?

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Hi,

yes the aesthetics of the view is why we use those old porros. Don't get me started on the 3d view at close distances...

Regarding color rendition, it's a matter of taste. Nikons and some Leicas have a slightly warm aka reddish color rendition, just as Zeiss has blue and old Swaros had yellow (current Swaros are middle of the road).

Especially the SE with their 90s coatings might be a few percent behind the current top dogs in a lab transmission test. Not sure if it's possible to see it even in a side by side test.

In my opinion it more than makes up for this by having good baffling and thus delivering great contrast in situations when others are showing a washed out mess.

Joachim

mulligatawny owl said:

Over the past 8 years or so I've spent thousands searching for a waterproof match for the SE's, most recently settling on a Zeiss HT. On and off its been a bit of an obsession and completely futile as the SE's still reign.

The SE and EII have a hyperreal solidity and natural sharpness to the image you just don't get in a roof prism no matter the price. It really bugs me that as a hard up birder and optics nut I'm forced to spend £1500 or more for an inferior image.

On the subject of EII V SE it's just a matter of preference really, as a glasses wearer I much prefer SE's purely from an ease of use perspective.

Click to expand...

OK then I'm not the only one who sees this. The Image in the EIIs equals easily if not betters some of the best roof alphas. This is exactly why I must include this $500 Nikon with the Alphas. Maybe more so for the SE. I didn't want to see/acknowledge that at first and I had to get away from them and soak in the SV and Ultravid for awhile and then come back for a good look to see that this little EII had easily as amazingly good optics as those models costing up to 5 times as much. Wow, pretty impressive and more reason to admire them.

I like hearing you can use the SE with glasses. That maybe good news for my future and a reason to acquire one at some point.

jring said:

In my opinion it more than makes up for this by having good baffling and thus delivering great contrast in situations when others are showing a washed out mess.

Joachim

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Hi, all:

One thing I have never seen on such threads relates to the “non-existent perfection in manufacturing.” Having worked with Zemax-EE for years, and watching it go through its iterations in an effort to learn about the engineer I was never smart enough to be, I did note that when you are dealing with glass types, thicknesses of glass, kind and thickness of coatings, curvature of elements, knife edges, baffling and more, even the most minute deviation from the engineer’s computer-based design can lead to problems in the real-world image.

This puts not only a comparison of two binoculars of similar design and performance on the border of impractical and foolish (stacking BBs), it makes the comparison of two binoculars of the same model—produced on the same day—impractical and foolish as well, at least to the level so many on these forums want it to be. I’m sorry but reality bites. The photo attached is of a Nikon 7x50 SP. Counting the prisms, it has 24 surfaces, that may deviate ever so slightly in thickness, curvature, spacing, coatings, etc. in each telescope. And then, we must take into consideration that no two batches of glass—carrying the same formula designation—will be exactly the same. Sure, they’re very close; they have to be. But, are they a PERFECT match ... every time? And, how do all these deviations interact?

Finally, we have a piece of the puzzle that most handily recognize; we all have varying degrees of visual acuity and physiological accommodation. So, when you get to THE LEVEL OF “COMPARISON” SO OFTEN EXPECTED ON THESE FORUMS, just who has the eye/brain combination to make an authoritative assessment—optically, anyway?

I don’t pull the heads off baby chicks at Easter, push old ladies in front of busses, and I would like to be among friends. More than that, I know most will have forgotten or ignored my words by morning. But, because of the ½ of 1% of humble truth seekers, I put my head on the block COMMA ... again.

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”—Winston Churchill

Bill

bill, you keep trying to bring reason into threads that are partly hijacked by the individual opinion and experience of the diverse users, therefore consensus may not be obtained but the journey may be instructive, but more unavailable (reason) because the threads are also hijacked or continued by some whose overiding principle is to get in print and see themselves recognised as authorative where in fact they are simply big-headed.
but keep trying, your sense of reason does occasionally penetrate the clouds of illusion.

WJC said:

Hi, all:

One thing I have never seen on such threads relates to the “non-existent perfection in manufacturing.” Having worked with Zemax-EE for years, and watching it go through its iterations in an effort to learn about the engineer I was never smart enough to be, I did note that when you are dealing with glass types, thicknesses of glass, kind and thickness of coatings, curvature of elements, knife edges, baffling and more, even the most minute deviation from the engineer’s computer-based design can lead to problems in the real-world image.

This puts not only a comparison of two binoculars of similar design and performance on the border of impractical and foolish (stacking BBs), it makes the comparison of two binoculars of the same model—produced on the same day—impractical and foolish as well, at least to the level so many on these forums want it to be. I’m sorry but reality bites. The photo attached is of a Nikon 7x50 SP. Counting the prisms, it has 24 surfaces, that may deviate ever so slightly in thickness, curvature, spacing, coatings, etc. in each telescope. And then, we must take into consideration that no two batches of glass—carrying the same formula designation—will be exactly the same. Sure, they’re very close; they have to be. But, are they a PERFECT match ... every time? And, how do all these deviations interact?

Finally, we have a piece of the puzzle that most handily recognize; we all have varying degrees of visual acuity and physiological accommodation. So, when you get to THE LEVEL OF “COMPARISON” SO OFTEN EXPECTED ON THESE FORUMS, just who has the eye/brain combination to make an authoritative assessment—optically, anyway?

I don’t pull the heads off baby chicks at Easter, push old ladies in front of busses, and I would like to be among friends. More than that, I know most will have forgotten or ignored my words by morning. But, because of the ½ of 1% of humble truth seekers, I put my head on the block COMMA ... again.

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”—Winston Churchill

Bill

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Indeed; and sample variation is not confined to optics, as anyone who has bought acoustic musical instruments will confirm.
However, one would expect these variations to be of the 'gnat's nudger' proportions, rather than to fundamentally change the characteristics so lovingly developed by the design chap and his software.
It is perhaps these essentials that are the principal subject of discussion on the forum, rather than the occasional 'cherry' or 'lemon'....

jape said:

bill, you keep trying to bring reason into threads that are partly hijacked by the individual opinion and experience of the diverse users, therefore consensus may not be obtained but the journey may be instructive, but more unavailable (reason) because the threads are also hijacked or continued by some whose overiding principle is to get in print and see themselves recognised as authorative where in fact they are simply big-headed.
but keep trying, your sense of reason does occasionally penetrate the clouds of illusion.

Click to expand...

Jape, IMO nobodies hijacking or trying to hijack this thread. Just folk sharing opinions and it's all opinions no matter who has one.

jape said:

bill, you keep trying to bring reason into threads that are partly hijacked by the individual opinion and experience of the diverse users, therefore consensus may not be obtained but the journey may be instructive, but more unavailable (reason) because the threads are also hijacked or continued by some whose overiding principle is to get in print and see themselves recognised as authorative where in fact they are simply big-headed.
but keep trying, your sense of reason does occasionally penetrate the clouds of illusion.

Click to expand...

Bird Forum is a place where people of diverse backgrounds, having had diverse experiences and who are at different stages of learning, can come together and share all of these. Everybody is a beginner at some point. Everybody has thought they had a grasp of something only to find later that they were mistaken or only partly understood. And yes people vary in the size of their egos and also in the extent of how fluent and lucid they are in explaining things. But wisdom is not the sole prerogative of the articulate. All opinions and levels of inexperience and wisdom are welcome here. This is why Bird Forum is such a great melting pot.

Lee

paddy7 said:

Indeed; and sample variation is not confined to optics, as anyone who has bought acoustic musical instruments will confirm.
However, one would expect these variations to be of the 'gnat's nudger' proportions, rather than to fundamentally change the characteristics so lovingly developed by the design chap and his software.
It is perhaps these essentials that are the principal subject of discussion on the forum, rather than the occasional 'cherry' or 'lemon'....

Click to expand...

Hi, Paddy7:

I don’t know about “gnat’s nudgers.” But I do know that when errors in manufacture are off by only .001-inch, the result can sometimes be less than pleasing (in designing optics: A Little Dab’ll Do Ya)—depending on whether the error is in thickness, spacing, or radius of curvature. And, my graphic example had 24 places for errors to creep in, each reacting with all the others. I was in no way throwing stones. But, believe it or not, there are folks on here who would appreciate knowing about such. I believe their needs are valid, too. :cat:

Bill

Troubador said:

Bird Forum is a place where people of diverse backgrounds, having had diverse experiences and who are at different stages of learning, can come together and share all of these. Everybody is a beginner at some point. Everybody has thought they had a grasp of something only to find later that they were mistaken or only partly understood. And yes people vary in the size of their egos and also in the extent of how fluent and lucid they are in explaining things. But wisdom is not the sole prerogative of the articulate. All opinions and levels of inexperience and wisdom are welcome here. This is why Bird Forum is such a great melting pot.

Lee

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Bingo!:t:

If a good firm has good quality control at the final assembly point, it doesn't matter about all the variables in manufacturing.
There will be a variation in the binoculars, but so long as they meet minimum standards that is sufficient.

The problem is that nowadays there are fewer and fewer technicians or quality control experts to ensure minimum standards are met.

That is why I always tried out at least three identical binoculars, sometimes six, and bought the best one.

That is also why I measure what can be simply measured. Weight, field size using star separations, and anything else pertinent.

Then I look for glare, flare and ghosting using standard streetlights.

Being an astronomer I value difference aspects compared to birdwatchers. The colour nuances are lost on me as I don't have the experience to test them.
But I can judge faintest stars visible to 10% accuracy.

A £50 15x70 Revelation, actually about 15x63, will show stars fainter than some of the very top 8x42 binoculars.
The Revelation is likely to go out of alignment, but for £50 another one can be bought.

I think that the largest variation is in observer's eyes, perceptions and experience rather than the differences in examples of the top binoculars.

For me the main problem that I have is that modern binoculars are not designed for non eyeglasses use, and have miserable fields of view and sometimes blackouts.

Binastro said:

If a good firm has good quality control at the final assembly point, it doesn't matter about all the variables in manufacturing.
There will be a variation in the binoculars, but so long as they meet minimum standards that is sufficient.

The problem is that nowadays there are fewer and fewer technicians or quality control experts to ensure minimum standards are met.

That is why I always tried out at least three identical binoculars, sometimes six, and bought the best one.

That is also why I measure what can be simply measured. Weight, field size using star separations, and anything else pertinent.

Then I look for glare, flare and ghosting using standard streetlights.

Being an astronomer I value difference aspects compared to birdwatchers. The colour nuances are lost on me as I don't have the experience to test them.
But I can judge faintest stars visible to 10% accuracy.

A £50 15x70 Revelation, actually about 15x63, will show stars fainter than some of the very top 8x42 binoculars.
The Revelation is likely to go out of alignment, but for £50 another one can be bought.

I think that the largest variation is in observer's eyes, perceptions and experience rather than the differences in examples of the top binoculars.

For me the main problem that I have is that modern binoculars are not designed for non eyeglasses use, and have miserable fields of view and sometimes blackouts.

Click to expand...

I think if you're going to throw in qualified tech and quality control people, you should also throw in understanding and caring.

FAST FOOD: A place where you tell them what you want and they give you what they want you to have.

Bill