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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kevin Purcell" data-source="post: 1265402" data-attributes="member: 68323">Day 1 part 2The "Out of the Box Experience"Most reviews don't mention the out-of-the-box experience. That feeling that you get as you open the box for the first time and pull the product out and start to use it. It's a weird mixture of perceptions and expectations and involves a lot of the sense: smell, touch, and sight for bins.Vortex Hurricane 8x28I opened the Vortex Hurricane's first. Smallest box and lightest bin of the four. Pulling the bin case out of it's plastic bag and pulling the bin out the case in it's plastic bag. The smell of the rubber hits me when I open the bag. The touch of the slightly sticky rubber armor is interesting though I'm not sure about the roughened patches of armor on the sides of the tubes. Those patches aren't were my fingers land. Perhaps for grip against gloves? Or are they just "manly" decoration?These are a "blemished" pair. At least that's what the Eagle Optics web page said. Cosmetic problems are not an issue for me - they're going to get dinged in use. I insoect the bins. I can't see any blemishes. I don't even see any molding marks. Oh, is that a little pit? And that one. I can't say I see anything I'd call a blemish. Do people just not like the color? The color is darker than on the web page but it's a non-descript light-brown not as sand colored as I thought it might be. It won't stand out. The only blemish I can see is a couple of scratches on the Fastex connector and the embroidered Vortex logo is looking a bit fluffy.Pull the rainguard off (snug fit) and flip the tethered objective covers off and look through the bins.Wow! Binoculars have come a long way in the past decade. Big occulars. I can almost see the whole FOV with eyeglasses on. A little fiddly to get the IPD and exit pupils lined up. The hinge isn't very stiff rather easy to move. Some of this setup is just me. I have the same problem with a lot of bins. My dominant left eye is set up just right but the right eye has problems getting set just right. But with the first look bright (a lot brighter than my Minolta Compacts) and sharp image. Pull the focus in to look at the blinds 3m or 4m away inside the apartment. The focuser action is smooth and perhaps just not quite stiff enough. The view looks reasonable. A hint of stray light when looking at the sunlit blind. Some stray light scatter around the exit pupil. I check out the diopter adjustment ring. Very, very stiff. Takes a finger and thumb to turn it. Move it back and forth and it loosens a little but it still rather stiff. With my corrected eyesight the best position is at zero.Looking in the objective in the right barrel I see imperfections on the objectives, oculars or prisms. But the roof prism's ridge is visible when looking from the objective. Perhaps the roof ridge isn't as sharp as it could be. This would degrade sharpness and contrast.The twist-up eyecups have soft(ish) rubbery edges but with rather little give to them (compare with the Diamondbacks).The Vortex logo in silver letters on black is stylish. Underneath the bins they have "Vortex Optics USA" molded into the rubber and a "Made in China" stick on label.Collimation may be slightly off. I need to check this against an target at infinity not one inside the apartment.Bins go back in their case. Not a bad weight. Not too light and not too heavy.Leupold Yosemite 6x30Open the Leupold and I'm greeted with a blast of vinyl chloride monomer. The case is padded but looks rather plastic. Open the Velcro closure (ripppp). And pull out the Yosemites.Cute. Cute. Cute. Now this is the binocular that should have a Saw-whet Owl in faux woodcut on the box. Small but perfectly formed porro bins. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw-whet_Owl" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw-whet_Owl</a>In their Natural color (a sort of greenish tan) they look like a cross between a kid's toy and something Ernst Rommel might have used in the Western Desert. The surface is very slightly roughened. Pop the ocular cover off (nice fit) and grasp the binoculars to bring them up to my eyes. What a great fit for my largish hands: thumbs don't collide on the bottom of the case; ring and little finger wrap around the top of the objective "tube" and the first and index fingers fit nicely on the top of the prism housing. What a solid, natural grip for a small bin. I look at the top of the bin. There is an IPD scale. Set it to about 65mm.I look into the bin. Nice. I can easily see the whole AFOV. IPD scale seems about right. Image is bright. Brighter than the Hurricane, I think? Very little shake apparent too so x6 does make a difference. The focuser is big and the action is good. Not too stiff but doesn't drift. I find myself using my middle finger rather than my first finger to turn the focus as it naturally lies on top of it. I wonder how the works for kids? A slight modification to the grip and I can use my first finger too.Diopter adjustment is stiff but usable with a finger and thumb. With my corrected eyesight the best position is at zero.The twist-up eyecups have hard rubbery edges with no give to them.The weight feels very nice. Rather light, in fact it feels lighter than the Hurricane (but it's 3oz heavier). That's probably due to the way the weight is spread out on my hands and not concentrated on the fingers and thumbs with the compact roof.Check the exit pupil. Round with no intrusions. Pointing at the sunlit blind I can see rings and diamonds around the exit pupil. So there is some stray light bouncing around in there. Collimation looks good.Very pleasant product. I can see why people like this bin.Celestron Ultima DX 8x32Reach over and grab the box. It's clearly heavier. Open the lid. Another blast of VC monomer. Pull out the faux leather case (more leather looking than the Leupold). It seems big and floppy. I has a belt loop which doesn't seem very sturdy but no way of removing the should straps. I suspect the belt loop is just to stabilize the bag. I wouldn't want this to swing whilst bending over and get hit in the face with 30oz of bins.Open the Velcro closure. A blast of rubber armor smell to go with the monomer. Pull out the bins.Heavy. Dense. There's a sense of gravitas (or perhaps just gravity) with these bins. They feel like very, very solid handful. The black rubber coated prism housing take up most of the binocular with stubby objective tubes. Perhaps Rommel could have used these. Look at the top of the bin and I see 14 and 18 point Helvetica screen printing. Not very stylish. The embedded logos on the top are white and orange. And have a bright orange cap on the front end of the hinge. Rather like the retail box they're a bit retro. At least a hunter won't shoot me by mistake. And it might attract hummingbirds. I pull off the ocular rain cover cover (snug fit) and notice the IPD scale on the hinge. I set the IPD to 65. Urghmpf. The hinge is very, very stiff. The old Bullworker comes to mind. Then raise the bins to my eyes. The weight seems to disappear. It doesn't seem like holding a bag of sugar up to my face. Very odd. Bring them down and they feel heavy away from me. I see the moment they have when I hold them away from like that. But at my eyes they just goes straight down my arms. They feel rather comfortable in my hands though the curvy prism housing don't quite match the curve of my thumbs. More of a whole hand grip seems to work best: it's big enough that there are a choice of grips. The view is good and bright. I can almost see out to the edge of the AFOV but not quite to the field stop. Without eyeglasses I can see to the field stop and see the CA at the edge (yellow fringing).The focuser action seems rather stiff too but I can use it with one finger. The close focus is not quite in the room. The diopter adjustment is rather stiff too but not as bad the the Hurricane. With my glasses on the best position is at zero.The twist-up eyecups have hard rubbery edges with very little give to them.Little bit of an intrusion on both barrels into the round exit pupil. Probably the edge of a prism; I suspect they're oversized and they might be just at the limit of occluding the light path. And one can see stray light outside of the exit pupils when pointed to the sunlit blind. Quite a lot of interesting patterns though if they stay where they are they won't actually get into the eye. I need to check collimation outside on a distant target.Vortex Diamondback 8x42Open the last box; the bigger of the two Vortex boxes. And pull out this odd, squarish, rounded-corner binocular case. The Vortex VX logo is embossed on the front of the case and the back has an odd dimple. No belt strap for these bins but shoulder strap attachments are provided. I've not quite seen anything like this before. The case is closed by a twin zipper around it's equator. Unzip the zipper and the case opens like a clamshell to 45° wide releasing a sweet rubber smell. The case has attachments to prevent it opening further (so the bins can't fall out) with a zipped center divider (for what ... it's very difficult to get things in and out of it). One side contains the bins. The other currently has straps but looks like a field guide might fit in there. What a good idea. I grab a (3rd ed) Peterson, a Kaufmann and a (small) Western Sibley and try to fit them in there. They're all too tall. So a field guide won't fit in there. Hmmm. A notebook then. So it seems the "novel design" is not as practical as I had thought.I pull out the bins. There like bigger versions of the Hurricanes. The same color. I look for the blemishes. I can see some molding lines in the armor. Some of the rubber work around the lugs seems slightly raggedy. But nothing I'd call a blemish. Maybe these are really a closeout?I pick them up. They feel quite dense (rather like the Hurricanes in that regard). Clearly heavier than the Yosemite but lighter than the Celestron. After handling the two porros they feel more cramped in the grip. I've noticed I've assumed an "asymmetric grip" with my right hand closer to the ocular and the left hand a little further down the barrels so the thumbs don't collide under the hinge.I set the IPD. The hinge is stiff enough. Not as bad the over-stiff Celestron or the under-stiff Hurricane.I raise them to my eyes and they seem quite well balanced though the weight doesn't disappear as dramatically as the Celestrons. The view is bright and I can almost see out to the edge of the AFOV but not quite to the field stop. Without eyeglasses I can see to the field stop, which is not that crisp, and see the CA at the stop edge (slight purple fringing).The close focus can easily see the blinds 3m away. The focuser action is very light and fluid. I need to check the collimation outside on a distant target.The twist-up eyecups have soft rubbery edges with significant give to them so they can seal against glasses.Like the Hurricanes they have Vortex logo in silver letters on black is stylish. Underneath the bins they have "Vortex Optics USA" in silver and black and a "Made in China" stick on label.Looking in the objective in the right barrel I see what looks like a very tiny chip off the edge roof prism (perhaps 1mm or less in size) and a tiny dark spot on the prism. The roof ridge is not visible at all when looking from the objective. So far so good.Lessons learnt:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">That inexpensive optics has moved on this the last decade or so. You get a lot more for $100 these days than you used to. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Made in China doesn't seem as bad as bad as some make it out to be. They've been improving rapidly for the past decade. I remember terrible reports 10 years ago: swarf in the barrel, pinched optics, fingerprints on internal optics. But at least on the first view I see no major issues with these bins. And perhaps one minor one with the tiny chip.</li> </ul>Next ... Day 2 - take the bins to Volunteer Park and look through them. And about time too I hear some say.</blockquote>

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