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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WJC" data-source="post: 3308696" data-attributes="member: 25191">151106Hi SuperDuty:It is very clear you are sensitive to chromatic aberration; a view that would be pleasing to millions around the world—most of whom have never heard the term “chromatic aberration”—drives you nuts. I understand and appreciate your concerns, completely. Stepping out of my screw-turning mode and into my, seldom used, optical engineering mode, I hope to make some points that will make sense to you:—A binocular is not made up of any ONE attribute. It can’t be; there are too many personalities and visual acuities to please. In visiting a friend’s home, recently, I noticed that the painting over the mantle was high on the right side by about an inch. While trying to straighten that painting, I was drawn to paintings and photos around the room. They were smaller, but each was 1/3rd to ½-inch high on the right. A bit later, I was sent to the son’s bedroom to retrieve his jacket. There, I saw his mom had placed posters throughout the room; all were 1/3rd to ½-inch high on the right. It was getting to me the way CA does to you. I light heartedly mentioned my findings to the mom who had hung all the wall hangings. Her response: “I don’t see anything wrong; they look just fine to me.” It blew me away. But, not only was it not my house, in the eternal scheme of things, it was inconsequential. Was this person stupid? No! Was she bad? No! it’s just that her threshold of recognition for certain things were considerably different from that of most people in the picture hanging mode.—There is no doubt the Asian binocular market is catching up, but they have stood on the shoulders of giants to do so. Even so, comparing a product from a recent Chinese startup to a product from a company that CREATED the market and that is respected by those with in-depth optical experience around the world, may not be where you really want to go. —In order to get the CA to the point at which you could enjoy the view, how was field curvature, astigmatism, coma, distortion, or defocus affected? Do you know? Do you care? I’ve seen people go weak in the knees because their bino had some tremendously wide field of view, when field curvature (my pet peeve) was so bad, images started getting soft less than 1/3rd of the way off axis.—Looking back over this thread, I see you have been given some good, heartfelt answers—some more than once. Life is full of inconvenient realities. Years ago, a customer was complaining about his binocular and said it wouldn’t be so bad if the company had used a real “optical” glass. I asked him which one. To make a long story short . . . ER, he didn’t know an objective lens was made of at least two elements. And when I showed him my Schott glass catalog, with dozens and dozens of crown and flint glass types, he got very quiet. What people don’t know about the optical industry can make these forums lively, but very little of consequence emerges.Just know the giants of the industry are not hording secrets. I’ve sold thousands of binos without once referring to any as “Alphas.” I think that’s a term invented right here in bino forum land.—The bottom line: I must support you in your quest for perfection. And, will let you know it is, within reason, out there. But unless you willing to sell your house to get one, I’m afraid you’ll be left wanting. If I ever get to the point of thinking a relatively new Asian company is producing a product to compete with one of the masters on the MANY aspects of bino realities, I’m gonna grab the biggest Eastern Diamondback I can find, and kiss that sucker on the lips. At Pecos, we just had the sissy little things like the one attached.:cat:Good hunting and, more than that, GOOD VIEWING!Bill</blockquote>

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