Review of the Celestron Outland LX 8x40 porros (1 Viewer)

I'm posting this review in both places on my pair of Celestron Outland LX 8x40 porros so everyone can see it.

I also bought a pair of the Celestron Outland LX 8x40 porro prism binoculars. They arrived today. There are some very good things about these binoculars and so far some very bad things about them.

First of all here is the Celestron factory link to their page about this exact binocular

http://www.celestron.com/c2/product...D=23&ProdID=170

This page is not properly linked inside the Celestron website so I put it here because it will allow anyone to access this group of product info. But I called Celestron directly and spoke to a few people who assisted me and one of their engineers will be calling me back, again.

First of all when I get a pair of these that work, this may be the best binocular value I've ever seen. They have a nice feel and finish (that's two votes from birders in favor of the feel and finish). The eye relief is excellent although the fold-down rubber eyecups are low-end. The eye cups may be a price point problem, because they only cost me $50 incl shipping. The 21mm wide eye lenses seem to allow about 19mm of eye relief to see the entire FOV, which is excellent. The eye lens cover fits on the strap and won't get lost but the objective covers are like Nikon and could be lost easily as they are unattached.

Sadly the field of view is only 6.8 degrees which is reasonable but not the 8 degree that would provide a real panoramic view (and I have 8x binocs with wider FOVs than 8 degrees). This binoc comes with Celestron's No Fault ($25 covers anything and everything forever) warranty, which is also amazing. The most incredible feature for me was the super-wide interpupillary spread of about 80mm. I had to narrow the IP distance from the max to get perfect alignment which is very unusual. The feel of the focuser and the joint is firm but not stiff, which is also good. These bins are a tiny bit heavy, but not too bad and the close focus distance of 8-9 feet is good but not great.

I mounted the bins on a tripod by using the tripod mount threading on the back of the joint. The tripod mount cover pops on and off and is sure to be lost quickly. A Screw-on tripod mount-hole cover would be much better, but we are looking at an outrageously inexpensive binocular here. Looking through the binocular on a tripod mount the view was extremely sharp all across the field of view of the LEFT EYE. The right objective lens had been cross-threaded when it was screwed into the binocular body and when I got it the threads had broken and so the objective lens on the right side FELL OFF when I took it out of the carton.

But lets get back to the view in the left eye for a moment. It seemed to be super-sharp all the way across 90-95% of field. I think that as with the Outland LX 10x50s I saw for 3 hours, this is a perception situation involving the color correction. The color correction is exceptional, maybe even the best I've ever seen rating right up there with the Zeiss FL bins. So as cheap binoculars go, this one is incredible. So since I had a free look inside the binoculars (binoculars.com is replacing these in 3 days), and I was upset enough to talk to the Celestron factory people directly, I took a close-up look a this binocular. Obviously Celestron does not check each binocular in California before they send them to retailers, but for this price how could they?

So let's get right to the point of contention. Does this binocular have a 4 element objective as claimed. The answer is, "It seems to." It certainly has at least a triplet in the objective. There seem to be 2 sets of cemented elements in the Celestron objective system in my 8x40. The engineers confirmed that there was a true 4 element objective in this 8x40 porro. They will have the actual Celestron engineer in charge of blueprinting the design calling me back within a week so he can discuss the blueprint while we are on the telephone. It IS possible that one of the 4 elements is plastic. They are arranged as two different sized doublets (larger diameter doublet on the outside of the objective and another doublet about 2mm narrower in diameter in the back of the quad arrangement). While the edges are not blackened for superior contrast, they are cemented with dark cement to the outer fine-threaded edges of the objective cell and this cuts down on edge flares and ghosting by an amazing amount.

The objective cell has a step between the 2 doublets cutting off about 1+mm of the outer lens all the way around. It is astounding that this kind of a 4 element cell objective is possible at this price, even if one of the elements IS optical plastic. There is a new kind of eyeglass plastic developed that allows for a very special grind of eyeglasses without "flipping" prescriptions and it can be ground pretty thin. We might be seeing it in a bin like this. Almost all of this eyeglass plastic is made in China. In any case the color correction and perceived sharpness are superb all across the FOV. I cannot figure out how this is possible unless this price is designed to test the market or give a boost to the porro market for Celestron.

I have another really unpleasent comment about this binocular. The specs say it is "fully multicoated". Both the engineer and other person I spoke to at Celestron confirmed that the BAK-4 prisms should be multicoated. But in the bin I have the left side prism is absolutely not multicoated. This will reduce a bit of the light transmission and cause a tiny bit of dispersion and possibly some internally reflective flaring, but it really seems like this was another Chinese factory defect if the Celestron people are to be believed. I would have been hard pressed to assert myself on this issue because the view through the bins was excellent, but with the objective cell falling out due to breakage, the prism was right there to inspect. It wasn't even coated let alone multicoated. On a percentage basis 50% of the Outland LX bins I've tested have had problems and with 2 major defects out of two pairs of bins, the major defect ratio would be considered HIGH @ 1:1.

So how does this binocular rate on a scale of 0 being the worst trash possible and 10 being unbelieveably fantastic? The Chinese QC stinks and rates about a 2. Be ready to check as many of these binoculars as you need to so you can be happy with the one you keep. In fact if possible, go to a retailer and take home the one you actually test. Don't test a demo model and then take one home that is in the box untested. The optical performance rates about a 9 which is unbelievable for US$50. The FOV could be wider but maybe the 4 element design restricts that characteristic. Assuming I get one of these bins that works properly, the overall rating in use would be about an 8. The rating for a properly functional pair of these bins as far as value is concerned would be about an 11. I find it unfathomable how a binocular that has all these features and optical performance can be delivered to my home for US$50.

The color correction and percieved sharpness are incredible and the view is very easy on the eye (using one eye for a test allows for testing some aspects of a bin but obviously not others). the interpupillary distance gets a 10 rating as well because it ranges from 57mm at the narrowest to 80mm at the widest. Collimation and overall alignment have to be just about perfect with such a wide interpupillary range because of the case cannot flex or be out of alignment in the least or you will lose collimation. My thumbs would definitely hit if I used the narrowest IP width so keep that in mind.

This binocular is glued together totally to preserve the nitrogen purging and waterproofing. When the next one arrives I may not be able to check the prisms this closely. But this pair had a pretty gross problem. The objective lens being cross-threaded when it was screwed in, and then snapping off its plastic housing so the lens cell falls out, is a QC multi-problem of enormous proportions. It indicates that NO ONE is QC-ing these bins even in China.That is truly spooky. In fact the way the cell snapped off its rear threading would seem to indicate that this bins is being made in a fully enclosed, nitrogen atmosphered, computer-controlled, assemby machine with no human hands involved until the boxes get packed in the master cartons. One thing I did not credit the Chinese with in a previous post was that they seem willing to invest allot of their money into computers and computer controlled assemby machinery so human workers only feed parts into the machines that do the assembly totally. When this happens there are some remarkable outcomes.

First of all it becomes possible to make a nitrogen purged totally glued together, waterproof binocular with 4 element objectives for an unbelieveably low price. AND the price leadership this plant is demonstrating may continue for a very many years considering the advantage it gives those kinds of factories and the Chinese penchant for investing in machinery that will keep them as world leaders in any field they begin to dominate. So get ready for more spectacular products with unbelievable prices. If Celestron actually owns or jointly-owns this factory, that could also reduce the cost of each unit Celstron makes (they spoke to me at Celestron like they owned or jointly owned the manufacturing plant and they said they designed all the new binocular products on some new CAD sytem). The Outland LX roof prism models are not phase coated, so we don't really know what's ultimately possible, but watch out for Celestron's Noble and Regal lines lowering their prices dramatically when they incorporate this 4 element objective into their phase-coated roofers.

The downside is that while a huge, atmospherically enclosed machine may make a binocular from housings and lens cells and prisms etc. these machines don't multicoat parts. So if a bad set of prisms or lens cells with no coatings at all is put into the parts hoppers, then with no QC, there is no one who can stop this error during production. It also means that if the machine screws an objective cell into a housing slightly canted and the rear threads break off, that bin will be packed into a box and master carton like all the others and then shipped to Celestron, then to the dealer and finally to the end user. Keep all your Celstron utland LX reciepts. Buy from retailers in your country who are trusted. At least Celestron's No Fault warranty helps, but there is no way to know how many bins you'll need to get until you get "a good one". But only by returning defective items can you make the Chinese manufacturer pay more attention to QC. On the other hand if you buy from a trusted retailer, and you don't give up until you get a pair of these bins that meet spec, you will be getting a truly remarkable optical device, with a lifetime warranty for next to no cost (at least in the USA). US$50 doesn't buy much now, but it does buy this incredible binocular (at least now it does).

ksbird/foxranch,

Now you've got me intrigued for sure. I had a fortuitous phone call from a local college professor looking for two pairs of very cheap binoculars for a class. I suggested the 8x40 Celestrons might be just the thing, so two of the 8x40's should be arriving here about the middle of the week. Hopefully at least one of them will have an objective lens that will obligingly fall off, so I can get a good look at it.

I'm not sure I followed your description of the objective. Is it 4 elements cemented into a single monoblock or 2 cemented doublets with an airspace?

Henry

Based on the sample I received and viewing from the front and the back (due to the objective lens coming off) it seems to be a pair of different sized doublets cemented together into one single monoblock and then all cemented into a plastic cell.

henry link said:

ksbird/foxranch,

Now you've got me intrigued for sure. I had a fortuitous phone call from a local college professor looking for two pairs of very cheap binoculars for a class. I suggested the 8x40 Celestrons might be just the thing, so two of the 8x40's should be arriving here about the middle of the week. Hopefully at least one of them will have an objective lens that will obligingly fall off, so I can get a good look at it.

I'm not sure I followed your description of the objective. Is it 4 elements cemented into a single monoblock or 2 cemented doublets with an airspace?

Henry

Click to expand...

The Celestron “8x40” Outland LX bins arrived yesterday. Both pairs were out of collimation straight from the boxes. One was too far off to even attempt using with two eyes. The other was bad but possible to use if you don’t mind headaches.

I agree with ksbird/foxranch about the very poor QC and we are at least partly in agreement about the optics. The prisms in both of these pairs are uncoated. I suspect that’s probably normal rather than an aberration in spite of the claim of full multi-coatinig. I’ve read that the Celestron Skymaster binoculars and many other inexpensive “fully multi-coated” Chinese binoculars frequently have uncoated prisms. It appears to be something they figure they can get by with because it's not very easy to see from the outside.

As to the question of the “4 element” objective, I can only report that I see no evidence of it. I tried every trick I know to coax extra reflections from the objectives, but all I could see were the standard 3 reflections of a cemented doublet: 2 coated reflections from the front and the back and 1 small dim internal reflection from the cementing between the elements. I could see the stepdown in the baffling tube behind the objective that ksbird mentioned, but that appears to me to be a simple aperture stop which brings me to the next serious misrepresentation Celestron has made about these binoculars. They are sold as “8x40”, but just behind the 40mm objective lens there is an undersized tube which stops down the aperture to about 32mm. I confirmed this by measuring the exit pupil (4mm) and by placing a ruler across the objective and sighting through the binocular with a magnifier (32mm from edge to edge of the stopped down exit pupil). It also became obvious from magnifying the view through the binocular’s innards that the prisms are so undersized that they wouldn’t allow an exit pupil much larger than 4mm even without the objective stopdown.

I did my usual measurements and star tests with magnification boosted to about 48x. Resolution was around 7 arcseconds in the right barrel and about 8 arcseconds in the left. Those are very poor results for a 32mm binocular. The best 32mm bins have resolution around 4 arcseconds. Longitudinal chromatic aberration was abundant as it always is in conventional binoculars, no better and no worse than other achromatic 32mm bins. Star testing revealed a large amount of spherical aberration (also typical for most binoculars), which was difficult to see clearly because both barrels had a full array of assembly defects: misaligned optics, pinching and astigmatism. The last was worse in the left barrel which probably explains it’s slightly lower resolution.

If there is a bright spot in the optics it’s the eyepiece, which is clearly more complicated than a simple Kellner and has pretty decent off axis performance. Lateral color is OK, similar to most other eypieces at the same distance off-axis except toward the very edge where it suddenly blooms. There is more pincushion distortion than usual for such a narrow field, but field curvature and astigmatisn are reasonably well controlled. Taken together, they cause a gradual loss of sharpness away from the center that looks similar to the behavior of the Zeiss 8x42 FL. Of course off axis performance is the worst thing about the FL, while it's the best thing about the Outland.

Reading the above probably makes these binoculars sound optically worse than the image actually looks. 8X binoculars can have some very nasty optical defects and still produce an image that looks pretty good. Low magnification is very forgiving. My biggest gripes are with the very poor build quality and bogus specifications. There’s nothing wrong with binoculars having 32mm objectives and these are surprisingly bright given the handicap of uncoated prisms, but there is really no excuse for Celestron’s misrepresentations of the coatings and the true aperture. I can understand ksbird/foxranch enthusiasm for the view through them, especially at $50, but they are so poorly made that I have serious doubts that it’s possible to get a properly collimated pair and since the prisms are held in place by nothing other than some very sloppy glueing I wouldn’t expect them to survive even a gentle bump.

Hmm, doublet objectives multiplies by two barrels, maybe that is where they got "4 element" sort of like a "pair" of pants. Tis a stretch though. Your findings may be why they were being sold off for quite a discount.

Sounds like another cheap porro with useless optics. How did it generate such enthusiasm?

John Traynor said:

Sounds like another cheap porro with useless optics. How did it generate such enthusiasm?

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60% markdown price and a claim of a 4 element objective.

Just for the record I have a little more information about the 8x40 Outland LX Porro. It turns out that the eyepiece is a simple 3 element design after all; a cemented doublet and a singlet, presumably a Kellner. For such a simple eyepece the off axis performance is quite good except for a large dose of pincushion distortion and quite a bit of lateral color in the outside 30% of the field. I measured the eye relief at 15mm from the eyelens and 11mm from the rim of the rolled down rubber eyecup (spec is 18mm with twist-up eyecups). Close focus for my eyes on the pair I tested was 13' (spec is 10').

Luckier than you were

henry link said:

The Celestron “8x40” Outland LX bins arrived yesterday. Both pairs were out of collimation straight from the boxes. One was too far off to even attempt using with two eyes. The other was bad but possible to use if you don’t mind headaches.



Hi Henry, :hi:
I really feel lucky now - my sample of the 10x50 is in perfect alignment and shows a better image relative to your 8x40's. I also magnify the image to get an idea of ultimate potential. I temper this with experience, knowing that some really fine binoculars don't fare very well when magnified. I would say that the contrast and resolution of this binocular is quite good - a recent laymans test (caution: some eyes will show abberations with lower power binoculars and therefore large exit pupils) looking at Jupiter showed a nicely defined image of the planet. So despite its other shortcomings - the prism coating and aperture stopdown, it performs quite well. One more thing - when a binocular states 'Fully Multicoated' at a minimum there should be one surface multicoated and the rest at least coated. No uncoated surfaces should be present - I've seen 'light' single coatings before, but the prisms in this bino do seem to be uncoated. Perhaps Celestron will be magnanimous and offer a Regal LX in exchange :-O

Click to expand...

Herb,

I removed the right eyepiece. I thought a quick look with the eyepiece tube capped wouldn't compromise the nitrogen purging significantly. I found the eyepiece construction completely conventional, no special seals. There is nothing between the interior of the binocular and the outside world except some lubricant. My guess is that Celestron will happily replace leaky pairs for $25 because they are paying much less than that to have these things made.

The objective stopdown is a curse and a blessing. It may reduce the true aperture, but it also does an wonderful job of baffling the objective edge and reduces aberrations by increasing the focal ratio from maybe f/4 to around f/5 (and stops your eye down to 4mm instead of 5). That more than anything probably accounts for a good Jupiter image. Prism edge reflections from farther inside I think will be pretty well covered by the eyepiece fieldstop when the eye is positioned at the correct eye relief distance. Most of the unfocused glare and loss of contrast around a central bright object (try a street light) looks like it's coming from the uncoated prisms and the ghosting from back reflections off the eyepiece field lens and the rear prism. Nothing much to do about those.

Coating definitions seem to be pretty flexible. The definition of "fully multi-coated" given by Alan Hale (former president and CEO of Celestron) in his book "How to Choose Binoculars" (1991) is "...all air-to-glass surfaces should have received multiple films." I guess the people who run Celestron now haven't read that book. ;-)

Henry

Okay I give up

Since my last long posts about these binoculars, I've received another pair of these binoculars (the people at Binoculars.com seem very nice). The second pair stayed together but this time the colimation was so far off it was painful to look through them. Ive received a number of call-backs from Celestron customer service people (who pretty much know nothing), but I never got the call-back from the engineer who was supposed to check with China and the design blueprints to explain about the 4 element design information. It's sad the way Celestron handled this. Even if I had sent either pair of binoculars back to Celestron's warehouse because the binoculars weren't right, I was told that no human being in the USA would actually be able to look through my replacement binoculars to be sure they were as specified and I was also told that binoculars are never "fixed" they are only replaced.

It is a sad comment on the whole Celestron sales philosophy that they can't actually look at anything that needs to be fixed or replaced or even sent back to a customer who sends them a defective item. I have allot of Celestron astronomy equipment and it all works well. My 102mm Celestron spotting scope is terrific and in really cold weather it is a joy to view objects at 200m away using 5mm and 4mm wide angle eyepieces (for 100x and 125x) views. I have larger spotting scope set-ups that allow for more magnification, and even better color correction, but conditions rarely allow them to be used at 150x or 200x, although when there is a fresh, heavy snow that can be possible.

So why can't Celestron put the same thought into their non-astronomical binoculars that they put into their astronomy stuff? I eventually exchanged the Celestron binoculars for a nice 20x50 fully multicoated spotting scope that mounts on the top of my Leki Sierra walking stick/monopod. Binoculars are a bit large on this stick/monopod, and the 7x50 spotter I have isn't always enough magnification. I am very disappointed about all the trouble Celestron is causing with the Outland LX 8x40 porros being so trashy. This could have been a fine product if it was what they said it was. I've had problems with equipment from every optics company on the planet including those I worked for or was selling. But Celestron doesn't seem to know what they are doing when it comes to their non-astronomical binocular line. I recommend against buying these products until Celestron does a better job with them.