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

Recently purchased the Leupold Yosemite 6x30 (1 Viewer)

Revisiting an older thread. I do like to collect, and I have not had a 6X so I just
received my 6x30 Leupold Yosemite.

First off I agree with most of the posts above, that these are just a nice little gem.

They are a nice small size, I do like porro handling, and present a nice, bright and clear to
the edges view.

In the under $100.00 price range, these I would highly recommend.


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The best 6x porros I've had were the Fuji 6x30 FMTR-SX. I compared them with the Yosemite Sams, and found that the Fujis were brighter, sharper, more contrasty and color saturated, and had a noticeably better 3-D effect.

But the Fujis had a "fatal flaw" for birding, which was their IF EPs. For users with very good accommodation, they might be able "set and forget" beyond the close focus of 24', but for me, I had to fiddle with the EPs at various distances.

They were a bit awkward to hold too since the bulk of the weight was in the oversized prisms, the barrels were stubs like the 8x30 EII, and the bottoms were rounded so there was no flat base to rest my thumbs.

At the time I didn't know about the HarperHyperDrive ™, which enables you to focus both IF EPs at the same time. Otherwise, I might have kept them.

The Yosemite Sams were very good for their price point, but I couldn't use them w/out experiencing blackouts (much worse than the SE).

I had to hold my eyes back from the eyecups to avoid this, which even at 6x didn't make for stable views since they weren't resting on my face.

I felt the eyecups needed to be longer for my eyes. I'm surprised that I have not heard complaints from Yosemite Sam owners about this issue. I had planned replace the Fuji with the Leupold, but the blackout issue was a deal killer.

I might try out Steve's (mooreorless) sample again and add some rubber eyecups to the end of the twist ups to see if I can avoid the blackouts while not losing too much FOV.

Btw, here's a tip for SE owners. I found I can minimize the blackouts in the 8x32 SE by adjusting the IPD slightly larger than my normal setting, which is 67*-68*, depending on the viewing distance. At 70*, I can sink my eyes into the cups and experience only minimal blackouts when moving my eyes around the FOV. As the French tightrope walker on the TV commercials used to say: Wider is better.
 
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