Athlon Midas 12x50, Maven C3 12x50-- real usable eye relief for glasses? (1 Viewer)

On another thread I posted I would get the Nikon Action EX 16x50... well I changed my mind because I don't think I will actually see any more detail
with those slightly dark and mid quality glass 16x50 than I would with a brighter, higher quality glass 12x50.

I have a Manfrotto 3001 tripod coming to mount these, but i also plan to use them in my deck chair with elbows resting on the arm rests. This is for viewing up the coast from my house 1/2 mile from the ocean, 600' up.

Yes it will cost $200-$250 or so more to get the better glass, brighter and more detailed image, but that seem reasonable to me.

I'm asking about real, usable eye relief b/c my pair of Olympus 10x42 EXWP I has a published eye relief of 15mm, and I find this a bare minimum, and possibly too frustrating as time goes on. I hold them with my elbows on the deck chair, but find it frustrating to have to fight to keep my glasses dead center, cuz if they shift 1/8" I lose part of the bino FOV.

So I am on a hunt to:

- Find higher quality glass of 10x42 or preferably 12x50 with more ER than my Olympus
-Spend around $400

As to glass quality, I have read enough reviews to conclude the glass in these is of a higher quality than Vortex Viper, and of equal or slightly better quality than Nikon Monarch 7. That means the glass is worlds better than the Nikon Action EX 16x50, and probably noticeably better than the glass in my Olympus. So this glass is plenty good enough for me.

As to ER, that is more tricky b/c published ER is so often overstated. So, has anyone actually used to 12x50 version of Athlon Midas or the Maven C3 and can report whether you get full FOV and whether there is any room for error if my glasses move 1/8" off of the dead center?

I am sort of thinking both of these are too new in the market, but maybe by chance somebody here will have actually used them.

Thanks.

I thought it would be good to be clear about what does marginally work for me (Olympus EXWP I 10x42)

I was curious so I measured the distance from the curve of the occular lens closest to the viewer (center) and the point where glasses touch against the eye cup fully retracted.

In my Olympus, ER is published as 15. However, distance from lens to eye cup rim is 5.8mm. It could be less but the twistable eye cup itself has some curvature from inner to outer edge. Therefore for me, the Olympus has *usable* eye relief is 9.2mm. That is assuming they are measuring from the curve of the occular lense when they publish 15mm. I am concluding from this that what I actually want is usable eye relief of 10mm, preferably 11.

I would be sure to check out getting the Meopta Meostar 12x50 HD, before the others mentioned.

I got mine last year, and it is very good, and Meopta has been around for many years, so that is an
important consideration, they build optics for many companies. There are some posts on this model
on the Meopta subforum.

I can't comment on eye relief, as I don't wear glasses, but that may have been mentioned on
the posts I referred to.

Good luck with your search.

Jerry

NDhunter said:

I would be sure to check out getting the Meopta Meostar 12x50 HD, before the others mentioned.
Good luck with your search.

Jerry

Click to expand...

Thank you for wishing me good luck, I feel like I need it.

Well I suppose there are a lot of candidates if I up my budget to the Meostar HD -- $900-$1000, and that would include the Zeiss Conquest HD. But neither of those is close to the $400 I'm hoping to spend.

Today I did not bid on a Cabela's non-HD Meostar 10x42 on ebay at $425, mostly because the review at allbinos.com honestly didn't think much of it, owing primarily to distortion.

What I have found is that everybody is uber impressed with something... "just a hair below the Holy Trinity" at half to 60% less" or "unless it's the last 3 minutes of daylight the differences between Monarch 7 and Swaro SLC are irrelevant"

So I decided I would only pay heed to a review or post on this website and also others where:

1) the author has personally lived at the altar of the Holy Three (if you don't have a benchmark, how do you even know what a bino is supposed to look like?), plus (and this is more important to me at this time) owned or used mid priced binos like Nikon Monarch 7 or Bushnell Elite, Vortex Viper, Nikon SE, Leupold BX-4, and can describe exactly how X $400 binocular compares, in detail.

or

2) the author has never owned those, but took a chance on a lesser known bino, is using said $400 bino and hunts or twitches with those that have those mentioned above, binos are exchanged, and everyone's opinion is reported.

Otherwise it becomes frustratingly confusing.

I also pay attention to reviewers who have measured and reviewed binos for years, in other words the reviews at allbinos.com.

As an aside, I have also learned that review for binos that were made in Japan but are now made in China... they are not the same bino so the older reviews are irrelevant.