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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Sightron "Blue Sky" II 8x32 (3 Viewers)

Well I wrote it but at my age I might have forgotten to hit send Frank lol. I for one miss your great reviews of lower and mid range binoculars. I've taken a lot of your advice and followed your lead in looking in many corners for great optical deals and it's done well by me. I have at least three favorite pair of binoculars due to your advice and I still have most of my savings. I'm very glad to hear you are doing well and still kicking around optics. I look forward to your next review. You Rock!
 
Dang Frank, all this time I figured you were whiling away your waning years on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean sipping on a fruity drink out of a coconut shell complimented w/mango wedge & miniature bamboo umbrella.


Comped-out naturally from all those Sightron sales.

At least that's what I heard from Brock ... Ha!

I still have mine.
 
I enjoy ribbing Frank, perhaps too much, as he's a good egg. I still remember some that insinuated bins reviewed were cherry picked and/or gifts in exchange for positive review. Some people passed right through implication to accusation. I found such suspicion & pettiness comical. I regard conspiracy theories as little more than fodder for paranoia lacking in facts and common sense.

Frank & others spent quite a bit of their time evaluating/comparing various scopes/bins and then sharing their observations w/BF readers. They were far more honest than some gun rags who, afraid of offending potential advertisers, never was heard a discouraging word.

To me the Sightron was "The Little Engine That Could". Kudos to Frank & his thread of legend.
 
Goodness knows how many years after being the first person to comment on this thread would you believe I finally aquired a pair of these.

Bad news is I don't like them nearly as much as my Nikon SE's but then I don't like my Zeiss HT's nearly as much as my Nikon SE's either! But seriously, these things are shockingly sharp, really one of the sharpest bins I've ever seen. They put one or two alpha's I've owned to shame in the sharpness department, absolutely amazing considering I paid the princely sum of £65 for them.

On the downside they are not that bright, something like the Nikon M7 8x30 is quite a bit brighter if I remember rightly but definitely not as sharp ,there is also a fair bit of edge fuzziness, but once the eyes have adjusted the view is really relaxing.

Did I mention they are sharp?

Anyway, just keeping the legend alive.
 
A good friend of mine who recently purchased a newer pair of 10x30 Swaro CL's found himself using my 8x32 Sightrons for a day of birding (it was a kayak fishing trip that turned into a birding trip). All day long he remarked how my Sightrons were better in the hand than his Swaro CL's , and he went on and on about how sharp they are. I just smiled and nodded. He told me that day he was going to buy a pair. And this is from someone who just bought the new model 10x30 Swaro CL's! LOL I've used brighter and higher magnification binoculars, but I can't say I've ever used sharper ones than the little Sightrons.
 
Sightron

I wonder if there is a significant difference with the Blue Sky 8X32 and these KF 8X32s from Fujinon. They are sharp for $140 at Amazon.

Andy W.
 

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There are several binoculars that are clones of the same basic design: Sigthron blue sky, Fujinon KF, Kenko, Pentax 9x32, and another now that I cannot remember right now. All are made in the Philippines. I owned all binos mentioned above for short periods of time, the Pentax was the only one that I kept for a couple of years.
 
dries1 said:
I wonder if there is a significant difference with the Blue Sky 8X32 and these KF 8X32s from Fujinon. They are sharp for $140 at Amazon.

Andy W.
Click to expand...
I agree they are sharp but first tried Kenko DH II (black) 8x32 and thought it was very good, so ordered Fujifilm (dark green) 8x32 and Sightron 10x32 (dark green) versions, to see how they compared:-

Kenko Ultraview OP DH II 8X32 Amazon UK, from EU, £213.67 incl.
Fujifilm/Fujinon KF 8x32 Amazon US, £165.77 incl.duty etc.
Sightron SIIBL1032 10x32 Amazon UK, from US, £150.25 incl.duty etc.

Except for the style and colour of the armour they were identical, including the tint of the lenses, although those in the eyepieces of the 10x Sightron had an outer less colourful zone, which was probably just due to its different magnification. The Fujifim had an extra line of ribs and more covering around the strap loops which made its shoulders a bit fatter, then the Sightron, then the Kenko which felt slimmest in the hand. The accessories were all the same.

The covering was the usual fine textured fairly hard rubber, neither sticky, nor shiny and plasticky, with no defects. Any seams were well disguised and the details were neatly done e.g. good darkening inside, excellent focus action, and four clicks for the eyepiece covers, so the impression was that they were well built rather than 'cheap'. In each case dioptre adjustment needed no more than one or two degrees and they performed to the same high standard, so quality control had evidently been reliable too.

For the 10x Sightron cf. the 8x versions there was the expected reduction of FoV and DoF/focus-snap but eye relief was still sufficient for wearing glasses, and with its smaller exit pupil it was still easy to use. In the text of a label set up at 50ft a few more words could be deciphered. All very satisfactory - thanks to the forum.

PS Mulligatawny Owl, re. post #1506, I wouldn't have guessed that the Nikon M7 8x30 could be quite a bit brighter, and thought that sharpness was quite well maintained across the view, but then I haven't seen the M7!
 
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Chris,

The information you provided is helpful to others looking for a decent 8X32 for low $$.
Thank you for the comparison. They are a better value than the Nikon M7 8X30 IMO, and will likely go without "issues".

Andy W.
 
I agree it's a much better value but it's not a better optic imo. The Nikon I looked though was IMO quite a bit better optic than my Sightron. But no one I've talked to has had any issues with blackouts looking though a Sightron.
 
I really liked my old M7 8x30 too, so much better than the 8x42 version I had, that was shockingly mushy in the sharpness department. If the Sightron had dielectric coating it would be quite something.
Then again is this whole sharpness thing a lottery? Maybe I just got a real good one. Anyway, I love the way the eyes can really relax into very fine micro detail with the sightrons. Maybe this is partly the result of it's low brightness browny high contrast sort of view ( sorry I'm completely non technical) and that would be lost slightly with dielectric coatings?
 
Happily the three clones were equally sharp.

Yes, it was because the 'high contrast sort of view' had been the same both for the 8x and for the 10x example, that the clone comparison was most interesting (did you notice I left out 'browny'?!) At least for me, this seemed to demonstrate that, colour and 'contrast' being the same, it was super sharpness, rather than higher magnification, which revealed super detail in the distance.

Re. Colour and Contrast, the clones generally provided a similar view to that of my previous favourite Pentax DCF ED 8x32 which had been preferred because it brought out the natural shine on leaves and berries and the details at medium range. Colour was strong for the clones, as for the Pentax, (but I thought it was 'natural and well saturated' rather than 'browny'!). I had previously imagined that the shine had been due to sharpness rather than colour or contrast, but the Pentax turned out to be less sharp than the clones, so that kind of view seemed to benefit mainly from colour/contrast.

It was because the clones were also better at minimising the dimming effect of distance or misty conditions, that I concluded it was due to sharpness. I had thought that colour/contrast came into that too, but after all the Pentax wasn't so good at distance.

Re. Brightness. The Pentax was tried in very dull conditions and found to be less bright than the clones, in spite of its 'ED' glass and 'dielectric' prism coatings. All were equally stunning in sunlight, 'nice and bright' in the usual overcast conditions, and penetrated shade pretty well, so it did not occur to me that the clones might have had a particular problem with brightness. 8x32 is not likely to be much good at twighlight and would agree if you mean that Sightron is poor in that respect...

Chris
 
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I was probably overstating the low brightness thing, they are about as bright as any decent 8x32 , It's just the lack of dielectric coating I find very noticeable.

Good you find the clones pretty consistent in sharpness, it's handy to know there is always a low cost, high quality binocular available when poverty strikes and I have to sell my more expensive bins!

Talking of which, I just did a quick comparison between my HT 8X42 and the Sightrons looking at very fine foliage details at about a quarter mile away in bright sun. Both are probably equally sharp but whereas the HT dissolves my eyeballs with brightness and washes out a contrast somewhat in bright sun the Sightron was more relaxing and allowed the eye to examine differences in leaf detail and shadings in a more relaxed way.
 
Wasn't sure what binocular that HT might be, but found it was Zeiss Victory HT.
The advert also said it's "the brightest premium binoculars in the world"!!

- maybe it should include a Health and Safety warning "may dissolve the eyeballs in bright sun" |8.|

Had a similar shock when I once made the mistake of trying out a big Swarovski!!
 
mulligatawny owl said:
I was probably overstating the low brightness thing, they are about as bright as any decent 8x32 , It's just the lack of dielectric coating I find very noticeable.

Good you find the clones pretty consistent in sharpness, it's handy to know there is always a low cost, high quality binocular available when poverty strikes and I have to sell my more expensive bins!

Talking of which, I just did a quick comparison between my HT 8X42 and the Sightrons looking at very fine foliage details at about a quarter mile away in bright sun. Both are probably equally sharp but whereas the HT dissolves my eyeballs with brightness and washes out a contrast somewhat in bright sun the Sightron was more relaxing and allowed the eye to examine differences in leaf detail and shadings in a more relaxed way.
Click to expand...

Do you really feel that your Sightrons are equally sharp to your Zeiss HT? I've owned three pair of Sightrons over the years and have one now. I also own a Swarovski EL and a Leica Ultravid and to my eye there is a definite difference in sharpness and detail between them. Same for my Nikon EII. Better sharpness dead center and I can see more detail and the Nikon EII are not known for their brightness. I think my first Sightron was the best but it was too long ago to compare. My second Sightron was not a good sample and I got rid of it. This one seems fine but for me it's nothing like my Swaro, I use the Sightron for a loaner. Maybe this is also not a very good sample.
 
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I think once you get to a certain level of sharpness you would need to do some proper tripod testing to split the differences.
Handheld I can't really tell any difference, they both look razor sharp to me.
I think I can usually tell handheld though when a binocular is not as sharp as it could be, I tend to focus on very small distant detail such as leaves or pebbles and some bins I've had that were far more expensive than the sightrons have turned the detail to mush.
Saying that, I've made some stupid overexcited statements about bins in the past saying they were as sharp as my SE's and I've later changed my mind.
The SE's are still the sharpest and best bins I've ever had, I'm looking forward to properly comparing them to the Sightrons .
 
I'd love to get a look at some SEs. I've been hearing about them for a long time. I agree many of our views are clouded by lots of variables. I know I've been wrong as much as I've been right when it comes to optics. I do think I can see a real difference in the bins i'm using these days and it started with my first Nikon EII 8x30. It was like all of a sudden I could see things that I'd been missing before and with a sharpness and detail that was stunning to my eyes. If I hadn't felt that way I would have never bothered to head into the alpha world and I'd be many thousands richer right now. Am I fooling myself? Anything is possible but it's a beautiful foolery and worth the price of admission.
 
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