Thursday morning past I ordered one from Camera Land. It arrived by Fedex on my door step Friday at 4:30 PM. Excellent service!
I note that on the title to this thread that I have not specified that I will be reviewing the 8 x 42 Terra ED. There also is a 10 x 42 version.
It was packaged in a tall plastic transparent container displaying the binocular in a vertical position. Very nice! It does put bubble wrap to shame! After taking the top off the container I took out the binocular and removed the rain guard and objective covers from it. The strap, warranty, registration, instructions and a fancy pouch with a drawstring closure were enclosed in the bottom of the container. It did not come with a case.
I put a spare strap on it and took it out on my deck to vet it out. Everything worked; there was no collimation problem so I sat down to examine it.
It has a heavy black rubber coating exterior similar to the coating on my 7 x 42 Victory FL. In short, it looks like a Zeiss binocular.
It is made in China. On the bottom of the left Objective Tube, next to the hinge it shows, in extremely tiny letters, the serial number along with the single word "China." The top of the Focus Knob has "Designed by ZEISS" printed on it.
The eye cups have 3 positions which stay firmly in place when extended. They don't operate as smoothly as the ones on my 7 x 42 Victory but they work well enough.
The oculars are set deep enough in the eye cups to accommodate eye glasses without keeping them too far from the lenses to affect the FOV. The 18mm eye relief appears to be accurate, both from what I could measure and from my own personal use. I found the eye cups to be very comfortable. I note here that the external width of the oculars are quite wide. About 23mm, which is wider than the oculars on my 7x42 Victory FL. The oculars also showed a number of small "false pupils" which I found did not show up in the view or affect it in any manner. Coatings are magenta.
The diopter ring is on the right ocular. It is commendably stiff but still easy to set. I found it to be "right on" my personal -1 setting.
The Focus Wheel turns clockwise to infinity. It focuses smoothly but it is quite fast. It only turns 360º beginning to end. Closest focus is 5.3 feet. Focus at infinity is about a 240º turn. There is plenty of accommodation past infinity for nearsighted users who want to use the binocular without wearing glasses. Personally, I would like the focus wheel to be just a bit stiffer in use but I had no problem with it because I am used to Nikon's very fast LX L focusers.
The objective lenses are set deeply into the barrels which have heavily blackened interiors. The lens coatings are green. I could see no other color reflections in them. Here is a quote from Zeiss about the coatings: "Care and maintenance The binocular lenses come standard with Zeiss MC coating. This protective coating noticeably reduces contamination (such as water, dirt and debris) of the lenses with a special smooth surface beading effect. Contaminants adhere less and can be quickly and easily removed, smear free. The Zeiss MC coating is also durable and abrasion resistant."
There is no built in tripod mounting thread. Zeiss recommends using it's Universal Tripod Adapter.
The Zeiss Limited Lifetime Warranty applies.
In use I found it to be remarkably resistant to glare, especially veiling glare when looking near the sun, and remarkably, even with the sun behind me. It is as good as any binocular I have in that respect and I am including my Nikon 10 x 32 EDG I and 10 x 42 SE.
The FOV of 375' @ 1000 yards is accurate. It has a generous sweet spot of at least 75% with a slow tapering off to the edges. Moderate pincushion distortion shows on horizontal and vertical edges.
It is very bright for a binocular in this price range. It is much brighter than my 8 x 42 Diamondback and my 8 x 42 Zen Ray Vista which I won here on Bird Forum. The last 2 evenings between 700PM until past 800PM I used it with my 7 x 42 FL on my deck until after the sun went under the horizon. The FL was brighter but when I compared the 2 of them on Cedar Waxwings perched high on dead branches in a maple tree about 100 feet away I could see the same detail on the birds with both although the Terra's birds were larger. Looking deep into the near canopy off my deck the FL was brighter but the Terra was also very good. I had no trouble seeing good color and detail on a house finch with it at 8:15 PM.
On CA I have to be careful because I am not affected by it but when looking at brightly lit edges and at the top of a mountain ridge I see very little coloration at all. What I see is the same as what I see in my best binoculars.
Colors, I note, particularly reds are very brilliant. At 8:15PM last night an American Flag waving in the wind was particularly bright with the Red and Blue standing out.
It does not come with a case but one can get a free binocular pouch from Zeiss for the cost of postage only.
I like this binocular.:t: It is easy to use and well built and better than I expected it to be. I'll keep it as my car binocular at least through winter so I can really vet it out!
Bob
PS: I think that I should make a brief comment on it's size since somewhere Zeiss describes it as compact for an 8 x 42. I'm not going to look that comment up either.
In comparisons with some similar binoculars I own it is shorter and somewhat more narrow than my Vortex 8 x 42 Diamondback; my Zen Ray 8 x 42 Vista and my Leupold 7 x 42 Cascade BX-2 and my Swift 8.5 x 44 Audubon 828. It fits loosely into their cases.
Mind you, ive already informed him that he will be holding the binoculars for me, as I browse the red deer and naked flashers on my country estate. :smoke:
