New Horizons II (1 Viewer)

I wrote an inspirational post here a few days ago but it has been removed (don't know why?) So, here I write a new one:

I have been a member of Birforum since 2004. I joined just to read and participate in the binoculars discussions. I still remember the day I joined the form nearly 15 years ago: It was a cold depressing day in Toronto and I was a newly employed "junior scientist" at a high-tech company. My academic background is electrical engineering but I have diverse interests in optics, photography, nature, hunting and astronomy as well. Over the years and thanks to reading posts in this forum, my knowledge of optics and binoculars improved. I also moved to Palm Beach in Florida which was sunny, nice and much more inspiring than Toronto. One night, about 10 years ago, I was lonely and bored and was just browsing through the book "Optics" by Hecht (a well-known Optics text book), it then occurred to me that it could be possible to use a fiber optic plate in a telescope. This idea inspired me to make some tests and it turned out that I was right. I then started learning about patents and how I could write and submit an application. It took me a year to write my first patent application. After I submitted it, it took 4 more years and a lot of correspondence with the patent office to get the patent approved. But the exercise was worthwhile: it encouraged me to think about other ideas ad as months and years past I become more productive in coming up with new and innovative ideas pertaining to binoculars, spotting scopes and rifle scopes.

Fast forward to 2019: Now I live in Los Angeles, California and have 9 granted patents in optics. Since about two months ago, I have made "inventions in optics" my full-time job. I feel excited and I hope I can make useful and meaningful improvements to visual optical instruments.

Birdforum has been a great source of inspiration for me and I am very thankful for several constructive discussions that I had with highly knowledgeable members such ad Dr. Holger Merlitz on the topics related to binocular vision.

So, here I am: Electrical engineer turned optical inventor! Optics is an infinitely vast field. I encourage you to think and consider ways where binoculars could be improved. It is no longer a secrete that image quality of binoculars have reached their peak and the new SV, HD, ED, HT, 4K and ... lines represent "marketing innovations" rather than a significant change in performance. But image quality is not everything about binoculars: binoculars are a "visual interface" between the human eyes and the outside world so there is still room for R&D

I hope this forum continues to be a source of constructive discussions and inspiration.

Cheers to you all from Playa Vista, CA,
-Omid

Now a little bit about what I have done in sports optics so far:

The bulk of my work has been related to riflescopes but I do have inventions pertaining to binoculars too. One of my designs is a telescope with expanded exit pupil. The exit pupil in this invention does not follow the fundamental rule (EP Diameter = Objective-Diameter/Magnification). It is much larger, practically as large as the diameter of the ocular (see attached picture).


The position of the exist pupil is not always well-defined in this invention but we could assume that eye-relief is infinite since the exact position of the eye behind the eyepiece is no longer critical. If this invention is incorporated in binoculars, it will make it much easier for the elderly and children to use them.


In another invention, I have designed binoculars whose "binocular field of view" is more than their "monocular field of view". In conventional binoculars, the binocular field of view is more than monocular field of view of one barrel only if it is used to view objects at short distances (say a few meters). When looking at distant objects, the two-barrel field of view of roof-prism binoculars is the same as the field of view of only one barrel + 65mm.

Binocular vision in humans is a vast and yet somewhat unexplored subject. There is still room for improving the binoculars "for use by humans".

Sure there is lots that could be done with an optics component catalogue, zemax and some machine learning. We want some lightweight bins with decent eye relief and massive wide angle, flat and pinsharp field and fully waterproof and we don’t want to pay loads for it. Old Porros got us some of these, Nikon has shown many things are achievable, but $$/kg!! Maybe you could design it with wide tolerances so that we could 3D print the housings and make our own? Keep us posted with your latest innovations, look forward to seeing what you can come up with.

Peter

Thanks Peter! I'll report here if I make any significant progress.. The Nikon WX was a fantastic exercise in futility if we look at it from the usability point of view or a grand achievement if we see it with the eyes of a romantic sculptor. In either case, it taught us (and Nikon) some valuable lessons..

Going back to your question: "lightweight bins with decent eye relief and massive wide angle, flat and pinsharp field and fully waterproof ". Why exactly do you need a field of view which is sharp all the way to the edges? If you are a bird watcher or a hunter (practically any user other than amateur astronomer), you do not need a sharp field in the peripheral areas. Peripheral vision is just what it is: an area where the eye does not see with high resolution but uses to detect movement. As you know, the fovea is responsible for sharp central vision which is necessary in humans for activities where visual detail is of primary importance. The acuity of human vision drops sharply away from the foveal region (which is very narrow actually, just a couple of degrees). This whole flat-field thing is more of a marketing trick than a significant advantage in my opinion.


Now "massive wide angle" is interesting to me too - if we look at it carefully and achieve it properly. Making classic binoculars with wide-field eyepieces is not the solution


Cheers,
Omid

Wide angle is immersive, you are more aware of context, I like wider ones better. Having reasonable edges is nice, people seem to compare “quality” by squinting at the field edges… even though it’s not needed as you say. I use my binoculars at night so I like tight stars. The old Rangemaster 11degree 7x35 are nice and wide, but heavy and low eye relief. Having a lightweight lowish power binocular that would give “spacewalk” wide views (aim for 80-85 degree) and be friendly to glasses wearers would be a good addition. Using Naglers in some APM binoculars I have is a step up from the 70degree views (but is sadly they’re rather big and heavy)!

Peter

Happy Friday!

As we discussed before, binoculars are not "fully matched" to the physiological characteristics of the human eye. Human eyes are not static photography sensors: The eyes rotate when we try to see objects close to the edges of the field of view. Human eyes are best adapted to look at objects which are close by (say .5m to a few meters) rather than objects located at infinity. They also prefer to look down (~ 15 degrees) rather than straight or up. None of these natural preferences are considered in the design of hand-held binoculars.


When we look at an object, there are [at least] three characteristics that help our brain form a stereoscopic (3D) vision of the object in its surrounding:

a) eye lens accommodation (focus).
b) the convergence angle between the two eyes
c) the parallax between the two images formed on the left and right eye retinas (after the eyes have rotated and focused)

Binoculars do not "scale" all three factors in a way similar to walking "closer" to the object. For example, you can focus the view so that the image of any object appears at "infinity". The parallax clues in the left and right images are unaffected by focus and still tell the brain that the object is at a finite distance.

I would think that Aboriginal Australians eyes are adapted more to see a kangaroo at a mile than a mouse close up.
But they probably can do both.

It is probably the eye/brain system that differs depending what ones priorities are.

Regards,
B.

Yes, it is really interesting how our vision has been developed and how many of the advantages gained over hundreds of thousands years of evolution (e.g. dark adaptation) are getting lost in modern life. Our hunter ancestors eyes - like those of the Australian aboriginals- have evolved with emphasis on nocturnal vision. We did not evolve to read forums and type on the computers..

No back to the problem of widening the field of view: I already discussed that the field of view of binoculars on the objective side is practically the same as the field of view of one barrel. So, the binoculars do not follow the "partially overlapping" nature of our eyes. They provide fields of view that fully overlap.

In the eyepiece side, the AFOV must be matched with a properly enlarged exit pupil so that when the eye rotates "around its center of rotation" the eye entrance pupil (which is about 12mm in front of the center of rotation) does not move off the binoculars exit pupil. In the outstanding book by Smith and Atchison, they work out an example that shows for an AFOV of 70 degrees, an exit pupil diameter of 11.5mm is needed (page 709). I don't think this fact is being considered in binocular deign (yet).

Interesting to be able to explore the sides of wide field binoculars without blackouts, not going to make for especially compact binoculars though!

Peter

I have noticed an interesting visual effect which is common in binoculars, riflescopes and tele-photo lenses: The view of far away objects through a high-power telescope provides a different persepective than observed naturally. More specifically, the distances will be "compressed" by the long focal length of these instruments making objects at distances before and after an object appear at nearlly the same position.

After some reserach, I found that this effect is known to photogaphers and they call it names such as "telephoto effect". As an illustration, consider a tree at 100m and a deer at 200m. If we look at these two objects using 10X binoculars, the view is like having the tree at 10m and the deer at 20m so the brain thinks the deer is only 10m away from the tree. This exact same feeling occurs when looking at scenes through binoculars: objects which are so far way from each other in reality appear very close to each other and the natural perspective is lost.

See this video on youtube: https://youtu.be/afHfMMC-MJE

A few years ago I approached Leica and offered them to license my riflescope inventions. They did not have a riflescope line at that time. They reviewed my inventions but did not adapt them. Then, they introduced their own Magnus riflescope line which had no distinct feature, advantage or innovation whatsoever.

The ad below (from EuroOptics, sent out yesterday) shows how successful this product launch has been.

Omid said:

I have noticed an interesting visual effect which is common in binoculars, riflescopes and tele-photo lenses: The view of far away objects through a high-power telescope provides a different persepective than observed naturally. More specifically, the distances will be "compressed" by the long focal length of these instruments making objects at distances before and after an object appear at nearlly the same position.

After some reserach, I found that this effect is known to photogaphers and they call it names such as "telephoto effect". As an illustration, consider a tree at 100m and a deer at 200m. If we look at these two objects using 10X binoculars, the view is like having the tree at 10m and the deer at 20m so the brain thinks the deer is only 10m away from the tree. This exact same feeling occurs when looking at scenes through binoculars: objects which are so far way from each other in reality appear very close to each other and the natural perspective is lost.

See this video on youtube: https://youtu.be/afHfMMC-MJE

Click to expand...

This effect is present in binoculars too and reduces as magnification is reduced and this contributes to the spaciousness of the view through 7x binoculars because not only is there a bigger depth of field, there is a bigger perceived space between objects positioned one behind the other.

Lee

Hi Lee,

Very interesting point about 7X binoculars! I hadn't paid attention to that aspect before. This effect (background objects appearing very close to the subject and to each other) has very important implications in the type of devices that I design. To study this effect for myself, a few days ago I took several pictures at a public shooting range using my Nikon D3 SLR camera with 17mm, 50mm and 200m lenses. The range includes rows of targets at uniform distances of 100, 200, 300, … , 600 yards so it offered a good location to test this effect. The pictures with 200m lens clearly show the targets appearing very close to each other. This is about 4X magnification. Clearly, the effect is amplified at higher magnifications such as 10x and beyond..

-Omid

Omid said:

...Why exactly do you need a field of view which is sharp all the way to the edges?...

Click to expand...

Because to look around a "scene", I rotate my eyes first, then I move my body or head if necessary. This is how I operate in everyday life when I am not using binoculars, so I like it to be possible when I am using binoculars. Consequently, for greatest viewing comfort, I like bins that are not sensitive to slightly off-axis viewing angles, that are sharp to the edge, and that have as wide a FOV as possible.

--AP

Omid said:

Hi Lee,

Very interesting point about 7X binoculars! I hadn't paid attention to that aspect before. This effect (background objects appearing very close to the subject and to each other) has very important implications in the type of devices that I design. To study this effect for myself, a few days ago I took several pictures at a public shooting range using my Nikon D3 SLR camera with 17mm, 50mm and 200m lenses. The range includes rows of targets at uniform distances of 100, 200, 300, … , 600 yards so it offered a good location to test this effect. The pictures with 200m lens clearly show the targets appearing very close to each other. This is about 4X magnification. Clearly, the effect is amplified at higher magnifications such as 10x and beyond..

-Omid

Click to expand...

This distortion is also visible regularly in sports broadcasts, especially obvious in baseball when the camera is in the outfield behind the pitcher, aimed towards the batter. It makes the batter look huge, until you get used to the effect.


I think of it as compression of spatial and scale relationships. There are other cues to depth, depending on the optics and the circumstances. Higher magnification means a shallower depth of field, so the refocusing needed to sharpen objects that overlap each other is one. Another is the shift in contrast and color related to atmosphere. Both of these effects are evident in your photos. If you shot the photos on the moon, that cue would be out the window.


There's a fascinating inverse effect, which shows up in film, photography, and painting, which is when a foreground object is eclipsed by a large object behind it, which in turn has an even larger object behind it. it generates the impression of immense scale.

-Bill

As I noted in my presentation in my previous post, the view trough binoculars are analogous to all objects walking closer to the viewer proportional to their distances. This means, if we look at a tree at 100m and the moon behind it, the tree walks in 90m and the moon walks in 342000 kms.

I wonder if we could make an optical device such that it simulates the observer moving closer to a particular object? In the above example, it would be like walking 90m forward and looking at the tree from a distance of 10m. This way, booth the tree and the moon would only walk in 90m

* * *

The study of perspective distortion has been very fascinating for me. As Bill noted above, it can lead to very interesting artistic effects. Another example of deliberate perspective distortion is "fore shorting" which is used in paintings. This is most famously illustrated in the painting "Dead Christ" by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506).

We may argue that the purpose of binoculars are to provide a most natural view as if we had walked closer to the subject. So, it would be interesting if this perspective distortion could have been corrected somehow. On the other hand, it is not the objective of a rifle scope to show a most natural view of the target, the objective is to designate a true and accurate point of aim. So perspective distortion may be used if it can aid with aiming.

Optics is an immense ocean yet to be explored..
-Omid

A narrow field of view that is magnified can exhibit perceptual distortions vs a normal field as mentioned earlier. However, here's an example of a near/far relationship, viewed through a narrow field that is closer to a wide angle 'normal' view, such as a full figure standing in front of a mountain in the distance, where the viewer is only a few feet from the figure. The figure will appear much larger than the mountain, which is the case here. This is a view of the globular cluster, M13, in our own Milky Way galaxy, with the galaxy ngc 6207 in the background.

-Bill

Bill, interesting galactic picture! The astronomical scales are so beyond human comprehension that there is no point discussing what a "natural perspective" might be when observing galaxies.

Coming back to earth, I have made another observation with regards to the effect of magnification and perspective: When objects at various distances are viewed through a telescope, the background objects are usually out of focus therefore they appear slightly larger than their "correct apparent size".

The combination of all these effects make precise stadiametric rangefinding difficult.

As the market becomes satured with nearly identical and undistingwishable products, marketting personel need to invent features and charactristics to discribe products with. Similarly, us -users, forum members, fans - need a new talking point every once in a while.

The folowing two features are now dead:

a) Light transmission: If a binocular's light transmission is 95% and another model, being equal in other aspects, has only 90%, then it seems that the first model has an advantage in providing a brighter image. In field use, the first binocular has ZERO advantage over the latter model. Not only 5% more light intensity is hard to discern by the human eye, the intrinsic brightness difference is easily masked by other factors such as a few speckles of dust or mist on the lenses, a slightly more or less than ideal IPD setting, looking into the binoculars at an angle (holding them at a slight tilt), etc. So, comparing modern (i.e. latest models by Zeiss, Leica, etc.) binoculars based on light transmission is pure BS. This is an irrelevant measurement.

b) Twilight Factor (also called Relative Brightness): This stupid measure used to be quoted for binoculars but fortunately has been omitted from binocular specifications in the past 10 years or so. It simply meant nothing and had no useful purpose in choosing or using a pair of binoculars.


Time is ripe to create new quantitative metrics for describing the upcoming "better" binoculars. I suggest the following new metrics:

c) Front to back weight distribution: Determine the balance point of the binoculars and see how far from the geomtric middle-point of the binoculars it is. Then we can descide how front-heavy or back-heavy our binoculars are and talk about them B

d) Glass to metal weight ratio: We can detrmine how much of the weight is due to glass and how much is due to body and frame weight. More glass would be prefered.. o

Creative forum members can come up with other metrics to be used during product reviews..

Omid said:

As the market becomes satured with nearly identical and undistingwishable products, marketting personel need to invent features and charactristics to discribe products with. Similarly, us -users, forum members, fans - need a new talking point every once in a while.

The folowing two features are now dead:

a) Light transmission: If a binocular's light transmission is 95% and another model, being equal in other aspects, has only 90%, then it seems that the first model has an advantage in providing a brighter image. In field use, the first binocular has ZERO advantage over the latter model. Not only 5% more light intensity is hard to discern by the human eye, the intrinsic brightness difference is easily masked by other factors such as a few speckles of dust or mist on the lenses, a slightly more or less than ideal IPD setting, looking into the binoculars at an angle (holding them at a slight tilt), etc. So, comparing modern (i.e. latest models by Zeiss, Leica, etc.) binoculars based on light transmission is pure BS. This is an irrelevant measurement.

b) Twilight Factor (also called Relative Brightness): This stupid measure used to be quoted for binoculars but fortunately has been omitted from binocular specifications in the past 10 years or so. It simply meant nothing and had no useful purpose in choosing or using a pair of binoculars.


Time is ripe to create new quantitative metrics for describing the upcoming "better" binoculars. I suggest the following new metrics:

c) Front to back weight distribution: Determine the balance point of the binoculars and see how far from the geomtric middle-point of the binoculars it is. Then we can descide how front-heavy or back-heavy our binoculars are and talk about them B

d) Glass to metal weight ratio: We can detrmine how much of the weight is due to glass and how much is due to body and frame weight. More glass would be prefered.. o

Creative forum members can come up with other metrics to be used during product reviews..

Click to expand...

b) Twilight Factor (also called Relative Brightness): This stupid measure used to be quoted for binoculars but fortunately has been omitted from binocular specifications in the past 10 years or so. It simply meant nothing and had no useful purpose in choosing or using a pair of binoculars.


That's rude ... but oh, how ACCURATE!
:cat: