The color cast is very neutral gives a very 3D effect and colors to me look very natural. I have a quaking Aspen with a white trunk. I can always get any glass I use to show CA and it is hard to find I really have to look through the outter edge to see any at all. While just viewing in a normal fashion I detect none. Flatness is what I would call good my Alpen Rainiers had a serious bow effect when I would look at my back fence. I have metal fence posts and it really looked like it had a bow to it. The Meopta's I don't see that at all. Seems flat to me. Edge to edge sharpness is awesome it's not 100% but you have to be looking in a non natural way to detect it. So for me I see no issue at all. I really like what I got and these are true keepers and I hope to have a life time of use from them :0)
godzilla,
Wow! They sound like the dog's nuts, as they say on the other side of the pond.
I'm surprised you don't see "Cupid's Bow" like Mr. Wilson did in his 10x42 Euro HD. In fact, if the Alpen Rainers had a noticeable "bow" than the Meoptas, the distortion must be off the charts.
The only problem is that Arek wouldn't have rated them #2 in the 8x42 category if the distortion was so bad. Let's go to the review:
"The distance of the first curved line from the field centre compared to the field of vision radius: 74% +/- 5%"
Holy Carp! That's even farther out than the 8x42 Premier, which keeps on "rollin' rollin' rollin', keep those birdies rollin' Alpeeen. That's really low distortion.
http://www.allbinos.com/236-binoculars_review-Alpen_Optics_Rainier_HD_ED_8x42.html
Now let's see what he has to say about the 10x42 Rainer:
"The distance of the first curved line from the field centre compared to the field of view radius: 53% +/- 2%"
Yep, more distortion than the 8x42 version, but still not that bad at 53%. The 10x42 SE has more @ 46%, according to allbinos, and I hardly notice any bowing at the edges unless I use a telephone pole to look for it.
Well, let's see what he has to say about the 10x42 Meopta, which is way down at #29 on the ranking! That can't be a good sign for distortion.
Sure enough...
"The distance of the first curved line from the field centre compared to the field of vision radius: 34%."
That's pincushion, baby. Cupid's Bow in full retraction.
Well, I guess it only goes to show that people's perception of pincushion and what the expert's measure isn't always the same. That's certainly true for me with allbinos' measurement of the 10x42 EDG:
"The distance of the first curved line from the field centre compared to the field of view radius: 88%".
What??? He rates the Premier @ 61%, and that creates enough RB to curve the night sky into a celestial sphere for me, 88% would produce so much RB that I couldn't use the EDG, but I had no tribble at all (and they do tend to multiply).
I think we're going to need Henry to chime in here and straighten this out, so to speak. If AMD and pincushion are polar opposites and you can't add one w/out taking away the other, then severe AMD and severe pincushion are like matter and anti-matter and can't occupy the same space at the same time w/out self-destructing.
I guess in the end, you have to ignore the numbers and go with what your eyes tell you.
Brock