I was at Photokina yesterday, where Nikon was one of the few remaining manufacturers exhibiting sports optics. They had a few examples of EDGs there, so it doesn't look as if they are to be discontinued soon and there was also a cutaway 8x42. All I could detect was an air-spaced doublet objective, a single focussing lens, a Schmidt-Pechan prism and four discreet elements in the eyepiece, no field-flattener. It's conceivable that the matt ground edges of the lenses were concealing a cemented doublet here or there, but I was struck by the relative simplicity of it all.
Nikon had two WXs there, a 10x50 for hand-holding and the 7x50 on a tripod!! Maybe the floor was unstable, but as I approached the tripod-mounted example it was oscillating with a substantial amplitude due to a very flimsy tripod adapter. I'm sure a simple platform adapter such as those from Leica, Swarovski or Berlebach would have been ten times better.
I couldn't see the field stop of the 10x50 with my glasses but with perhaps 80° of the available 90° AFOV, who cares? It was simply breathtaking and not even approached by anything else I have seen.
Nevertheless, I was rather impressed by the 8x30 and 10x30 Monarch HGs (the latter not a format I like). They had adequate eye relief, wide fields and good edge sharpness all in an amazingly compact and light package.
John
Nikon had two WXs there, a 10x50 for hand-holding and the 7x50 on a tripod!! Maybe the floor was unstable, but as I approached the tripod-mounted example it was oscillating with a substantial amplitude due to a very flimsy tripod adapter. I'm sure a simple platform adapter such as those from Leica, Swarovski or Berlebach would have been ten times better.
I couldn't see the field stop of the 10x50 with my glasses but with perhaps 80° of the available 90° AFOV, who cares? It was simply breathtaking and not even approached by anything else I have seen.
Nevertheless, I was rather impressed by the 8x30 and 10x30 Monarch HGs (the latter not a format I like). They had adequate eye relief, wide fields and good edge sharpness all in an amazingly compact and light package.
John
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