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

Zeiss SF - Allbinos review (1 Viewer)

jremmons

Wildlife Biologist
http://www.allbinos.com/index.php?test=lornetki&test_l=304

I like allbinos reviews in a general sense. I'd agree with the idea that the SFs have a distinctly yellow/green hue. I've seen it in both pairs of 10x42s I've viewed through. Allbinos does love minimal distortion and their rankings of the SF, SV, and EDG support this. The review is nothing particularly new but corroborates what a lot of users have seen - minimal distortion, a bright, CA free image with a distinctive color cast.
 
The 10X42 SF had considerably more CA than the 10X42 HT with my eyes looking through them, I do agree though with the yellow-green hue to the image in certain circumstances.
 
The 10X42 SF had considerably more CA than the 10X42 HT with my eyes looking through them, I do agree though with the yellow-green hue to the image in certain circumstances.

SF has considerably more CA than HT? I was comparing these two on holiday only a couple of weeks ago and SF does have a tiny amount of CA if you look for it in the field edges. Since HT has virtually none I suppose you might call that 'considerably more' but its a bit like calling a drop of water on a table top 'a flood' compared with a similar table top without the drop. :smoke:

Strolled along the chalky-white beach in the photo looking through the SFs for the yellow-green tint but didn't find it. :-O

Lee
 

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The 10X42 SF had considerably more CA than the 10X42 HT with my eyes looking through them, I do agree though with the yellow-green hue to the image in certain circumstances.

Interesting, I didn't notice much more CA than the FLs, although conditions may not have been the best. There is definitely a color hue, but some people won't see it and that is fine. I also found the FLs to have a slight yellow hue.
 
These CA sensitive eyes saw a good bit more in the SF, but both still quite a bit less than any of the SVs in the same magnification, note that I'm stressing-(through MY eyes). I saw a very strange yellow cast in the SF image that was totaly absent in the 10X50 SV one evening with the sun beind me and nearing the horizon. The SV was showing pretty much what my naked eyes saw, the SF, very yellow, again, my eyes. I guess what puzzles me the most is the 7.6 CA rating for the HT, 8.7 for the SF, both in 10X. I realize CA is an individual thing, but that rating is INCORRECT IMO.
 
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I guess what puzzles me the most is the 7.6 CA rating for the HT, 8.7 for the SF, both in 10X. I realize CA is an individual thing, but that rating is INCORRECT IMO.

SD

On this point I can only agree with you: they got the scores the wrong way round!

Lee
 
Again, reason to distrust these reviews - transmission actually greater than the HT? We know this to be false. And, what's all this talk about reflections behind the eyepiece aperture? Has anyone else mentioned this or seen anything from this in actual viewing?
 
Hi Lee

I'm glad that yourself and many others are enjoying the SF, finding what you personally enjoy using is what it's all about. I have found many good traits in all the Alphas I've used so far, now if I can just settle on one. As much as I love nearly everything about the SV series, if I was forced to choose one today, It would have to be an HT. A Zeiss Lee, a Zeiss !:-O:king::t:


SD

On this point I can only agree with you: they got the scores the wrong way round!

Lee
 
Again, reason to distrust these reviews - transmission actually greater than the HT? We know this to be false. And, what's all this talk about reflections behind the eyepiece aperture? Has anyone else mentioned this or seen anything from this in actual viewing?

I wondered about their HT review ; it seemed very underwhelming and I don't see how they'd be worse than the FL in my admittedly limited comparisons. I would like to know how many times they run the tests and would like for them to try more than 1 pair of binos, but I'm not sure any of the objective testers do this

I've always wondered about that as well. I assumed it related to glare/flare/ghosting/reflections in some manner or another.
 
I found the HT view to be overwhelming, in a positive way.

I wondered about their HT review ; it seemed very underwhelming and I don't see how they'd be worse than the FL in my admittedly limited comparisons. I would like to know how many times they run the tests and would like for them to try more than 1 pair of binos, but I'm not sure any of the objective testers do this

I've always wondered about that as well. I assumed it related to glare/flare/ghosting/reflections in some manner or another.
 
Hi Lee

I'm glad that yourself and many others are enjoying the SF, finding what you personally enjoy using is what it's all about. I have found many good traits in all the Alphas I've used so far, now if I can just settle on one. As much as I love nearly everything about the SV series, if I was forced to choose one today, It would have to be an HT. A Zeiss Lee, a Zeiss !:-O:king::t:

There are lots of fine bins around these days and they don't all come with a blue badge, but the ones that do suit me just fine.

Lee
 
Lee, post 3,
What puzzles me is that the SF 8x42 is, when looking at a white surface: reproduces that in the eye as white. That is in accordance with the transmission spectrum we measured which is practically flat in the spectral region 500-600 nm and slowly drops to lower values below 500 nm and above 600 nm.
That is, when I compare it with the spectra published by Albinos from the 10x42 SF, very different, since that shows a pronounced maximum around 575 nm (green-yellow and has a very high light transmission of more than 93%, which we did not find for the 8x42. Moreover such high light transmissions in Schmidt-Pechan roof prism binoculars are fairly rare if I look at our data.
So what must we conclude: that the SF 8x42 has a much better color reproduction than the SF 10x42?
If that is true we have to ask Zeiss for an explanation.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
Lee, post 3,
What puzzles me is that the SF 8x42 is, when looking at a white surface: reproduces that in the eye as white. That is in accordance with the transmission spectrum we measured which is practically flat in the spectral region 500-600 nm and slowly drops to lower values below 500 nm and above 600 nm.
That is, when I compare it with the spectra published by Albinos from the 10x42 SF, very different, since that shows a pronounced maximum around 575 nm (green-yellow and has a very high light transmission of more than 93%, which we did not find for the 8x42. Moreover such high light transmissions in Schmidt-Pechan roof prism binoculars are fairly rare if I look at our data.
So what must we conclude: that the SF 8x42 has a much better color reproduction than the SF 10x42?
If that is true we have to ask Zeiss for an explanation.
Gijs van Ginkel

Hi Gijs

Actually it was a 10x42 SF that I had with me on that very white beach. And I really find that transmission figure hard to believe even if it was at the lower end of Allbino's tolerances at 92.7%. I have used SF 8x and 10x side by side and have not detected a difference but I have to admit that this is not the same as a scientific measurement.

Lee
 
jremmons, post 15,
Generally I do not read test reports made by others, until after our reports are fully finished and sometimes our results do not match conclusions from these other test reports, but that is life and we can discuss the differences and how they come about. The only thing we want to be sure of is that we did our work properly. Judgments about the quality of or conclusions from the different reports we leave to the readers and I assume that Albinos does the same.

Lee, post 16,
If the 10x42 is just as white as the 8x42, there are two possibilities:
-1- Your eyes deceive you (which I do not believe)
-2- the transmission spectrum from the 10x42 SF published by Albinos is wrong (so we have to ask Zeiss to referee, since Zeiss always measures the transmission spectra of their binoculars, they did it even for me when I visited and brought an historic Zeiss-Togo glass from 1896 with eyepiece revolver with me).
Gijs van Ginkel
 
When I use a ruler on my computer screen to sample the SF transmission at different wavelengths on Gijs' and Allbino's graphs I don't see a huge difference in the shape of the curves. They seem to look so different mainly because Allbinos measures over a wider range and the vertical and horizontal scales are quite different. This is what I get for approximate measured values over the range they share.

450 nm - Gijs 82%, Allbinos 86%
500 nm - Gijs 86%, Allbinos 90%
550 nm - Gijs 90%, Allbinos 94%
575 nm - Gijs 90%, Allbinos 95%
600 nm - Gijs 90%, Allbinos 93%
650 nm - Gijs 85%, Allbibos 86%
675 nm - Gijs 79%, Allbinos 80%

Allbinos measures higher values overall (except in the red), but the loss between 550 nm and 450 nm is similar for both (Allbinos -9%, Gijs -8%). Even in the red Allbinos loss between 550 nm and 675 nm is only about 3% more (Allbinos -14%, Gijs -11%). Overall I would not expect a huge difference in color bias between binoculars with these two transmission curves.
(edit: Gijs pointed out mistakes in my original numbers above, which have now been corrected.)

When it comes to the reflections "behind the eyepiece aperture" that could be explained by a translation problem if what is meant is reflections "behind the eyepiece field stop", which I've seen in a few binoculars. It's caused by reflections between or on the edges of the eyepiece elements and takes the form of a flickering glare in the black area just outside the FOV. Or, I suppose it could mean glare from the area outside the eyelens. Maybe Arek could be more specific.

I certainly saw a very different distortion behavior in the 8x42 SF I briefly evaluated. It showed pronounced mustache distortion. Considerable pincushion developed toward the midpoint between the center and edge and then completely reversed to zero pincushion or even a little barrel distortion at the very edge which generated considerable angular magnification distortion in the last 5º of the field.

Henry
 
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Henry, post 18,
I have here the spectra of the SF 8x42 in front of me and nowhere does it reach 93% transmission, it comes to around 90% at 575 nm and that is practically the maximum of the curve, although you can hardly speak of a maximum, since the curve is fairly flat between 500 and 600 nm. I can not match the values you are listing for the spectra we have measured with the data we found.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
When I use a ruler on my computer screen to sample the SF transmission at different wavelengths on Gijs' and Allbino's graphs I don't see a huge difference in the measured values. The curves look so different mainly because Allbinos measures over a wider range and the vertical and horizontal scales are quite different. This is what I get for approximate measured values over the range they share.

450 nm - Gijs 82%, Allbinos 86%
500 nm - Gijs 90%, Allbinos 90%
550 nm - Gijs 92%, Allbinos 94%
575 nm - Gijs 93%, Allbinos 95%
600 nm - Gijs 93%, Allbinos 93%
650 nm - Gijs 85%, Allbibos 86%
675 nm - Gijs 79%, Allbinos 80%

These look to me to be in pretty close agreement (+/- 1%), except at 450 nm where Gijs measured more loss in the blue than Allbinos.

When it comes to the reflections "behind the eyepiece aperture" that could be explained by a translation problem if what is meant is reflections "behind the eyepiece field stop", which I've seen in a few binoculars. It's caused by reflections between or on the edges of the eyepiece elements and takes the form of a flickering glare in the black area just outside the FOV. Or, I suppose it could mean glare from the area outside the eyelens. Maybe Arek could be more specific.

I certainly saw a very different distortion behavior in the 8x42 SF I briefly evaluated. It showed pronounced mustache distortion. Considerable pincushion developed toward the midpoint between the center and edge and then completely reversed to zero pincushion or even a little barrel distortion at the very edge which generated considerable angular magnification distortion in the last 5º of the field.

Henry

Thanks for this post, Henry. I had composed similar remarks about spectral comparisons, emphasizing the need to report standard errors, but decided to discard it as being too technical. Still, a few comments:

  1. First, using your data a binomial test would show that Allbinos' data are stochastically greater than Gijs', clearly indicating a measurement bias exists.
  2. Second, it would be a lot easier to make these comparisons if we were provided with a table of transmission values that could be read into a program like Excel. Having to digitize with screen tools introduces considerable error of its own, besides being mind-numbing.
  3. Third, scaling and range make a huge difference in the appearance of a graph and the conclusions drawn from it.
Like yours, my conclusion is that once the measurement bias and other likely error sources are considered the two analyses tell much the same story.

Ed
 
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