Steve C
Well-known member
I finally got a chance to meet my Maven contacts personally this weekend at the Central Oregon Sportsman's in Redmond, Oregon.
They had their new $2,100 spotters as well as the new B2 7x45 and B3 6x30. The binoculars retain the $1,000 and $500 price tags as their older siblings.
I know many here will be interested in the new 7x45 B2, as full size 7x binoculars are sort of rare. There have been a couple of posts about them, with some expressed disappointment in the stated 389' fov. I must admit I was hopeful they would have had a wider fov, as well as many here. However seeing is believing and don't believe it unless you see it. Even after you see it, verify it. Looked at another way, people often make a very grave mistake of judgement based on the spec sheet. I confess to having done the latter with regard to the 7x45 B2. Open mouth...insert foot
. The view looks...and most importantly...FEELS a LOT wider than one would expect for 389'. I confess to falling into the trap of...well the thing is only about 52* afov...and it is going to be too blasted narrow. Now I admit to pretty well having checked this off. I think it is no particular secret that selling a full size 7x (or for that matter any size 7x) binocular is going to be no easy task.
So, the thing to do will seem to many...make the fov as wide as you can. Well, maybe not. Let's look at some other 7x glasses to broaden this out a bit. The Zeiss FL had a 450' fov. It was also noted for having poor edge performance. The ZEN ED 2 7x36 has a wider 483' fov fo true wide field afov. But many have complained about what they perceive as poor edge performance. Other alpha class 7x glass has a 420' listed fov, see the Leica and Nikon offerings. If memory serves me correctly, that was also the case with the discontinued Swarovski SLC 7x42. So those are only about a half degree wider than the new Maven. I have not seen either a Leica Ultravid or Nikon EDG in the 7x42 configuration, so I can't personally comment on edge performance, although I'd expect the Nikon to perform pretty much as an edge sharp instrument. So widening the fov, particularly the afov of lower power binoculars becomes (or can become) an engineering problem. A potentially expensive engineering problem, which many may well chose not to wish to pay for. So I took the 7x45 outside for a closer look. I had not verified the 389' fov spec, which proves to be the correct one, by the way. I also had the new 8.3* 6x30 B3.
There are three things that immediately jumped out at me with this big 7x. First it (as I noted above) both looks and feels wider than 389'. It is obviously apparent that the view is much wider than a couple of 7x50 7.5* porro binoculars I have. I feels at least as wide as a couple of 420' (8*) fov 7x 35's I have as well. The second thing is that the 7x has a LOT better edge performance than even some alleged sharp to the edge models to be had from other brands. Note there is no claim made by Maven that this is binocular uses field flatteners. So the sweet spot is all but equal to the entire fov. The third thing is the 3-D effect from the wider spacing of the AK prism setup of this Maven model. Actually, now that I think about this, there is a fourth thing that adds into the total image presentation, that is dof. I assume it is pretty well understood here that dof increases with decrease in magnification. So the effect of the view is initially one that feels like you are looking through a porro glass. What deficit the size of the fov may ultimately have is not what you see at first glance. I figured I had to have been misled by improper website info. I went back and checked and Brendon confirmed it is indeed 389'. So some of this is from memory and all of this is only first impressions. I have a 7x45 on the way for review. I will check out how well the first impression holds up. But I would say I have seen enough to caution everyone who reads this to NOT fall into the spec sheet death trap like I nearly did.
The B3 6x30 is essentially nothing more than a 6x version of the 8x30 I have. If you are interested in a compact roof with excellent optics, then this needs a look. I also have one of these coming for review.
The spotters are of the 25-60x80 iterations, with both straight and angled configurations. The thing that stands out is their compact size. Looking at them sitting on the Manfrotto tripods, I thought they had to be 65 mm glass. They are sharper than two brand new tacks too. Not much else to say about them as I spent most of my limited time with the binoculars.
Speaking of binoculars, they have a new 15x56, which does have my interest, as well as a review specimen in the works. Look for this mid to late summer.
They had their new $2,100 spotters as well as the new B2 7x45 and B3 6x30. The binoculars retain the $1,000 and $500 price tags as their older siblings.
I know many here will be interested in the new 7x45 B2, as full size 7x binoculars are sort of rare. There have been a couple of posts about them, with some expressed disappointment in the stated 389' fov. I must admit I was hopeful they would have had a wider fov, as well as many here. However seeing is believing and don't believe it unless you see it. Even after you see it, verify it. Looked at another way, people often make a very grave mistake of judgement based on the spec sheet. I confess to having done the latter with regard to the 7x45 B2. Open mouth...insert foot
. The view looks...and most importantly...FEELS a LOT wider than one would expect for 389'. I confess to falling into the trap of...well the thing is only about 52* afov...and it is going to be too blasted narrow. Now I admit to pretty well having checked this off. I think it is no particular secret that selling a full size 7x (or for that matter any size 7x) binocular is going to be no easy task.So, the thing to do will seem to many...make the fov as wide as you can. Well, maybe not. Let's look at some other 7x glasses to broaden this out a bit. The Zeiss FL had a 450' fov. It was also noted for having poor edge performance. The ZEN ED 2 7x36 has a wider 483' fov fo true wide field afov. But many have complained about what they perceive as poor edge performance. Other alpha class 7x glass has a 420' listed fov, see the Leica and Nikon offerings. If memory serves me correctly, that was also the case with the discontinued Swarovski SLC 7x42. So those are only about a half degree wider than the new Maven. I have not seen either a Leica Ultravid or Nikon EDG in the 7x42 configuration, so I can't personally comment on edge performance, although I'd expect the Nikon to perform pretty much as an edge sharp instrument. So widening the fov, particularly the afov of lower power binoculars becomes (or can become) an engineering problem. A potentially expensive engineering problem, which many may well chose not to wish to pay for. So I took the 7x45 outside for a closer look. I had not verified the 389' fov spec, which proves to be the correct one, by the way. I also had the new 8.3* 6x30 B3.
There are three things that immediately jumped out at me with this big 7x. First it (as I noted above) both looks and feels wider than 389'. It is obviously apparent that the view is much wider than a couple of 7x50 7.5* porro binoculars I have. I feels at least as wide as a couple of 420' (8*) fov 7x 35's I have as well. The second thing is that the 7x has a LOT better edge performance than even some alleged sharp to the edge models to be had from other brands. Note there is no claim made by Maven that this is binocular uses field flatteners. So the sweet spot is all but equal to the entire fov. The third thing is the 3-D effect from the wider spacing of the AK prism setup of this Maven model. Actually, now that I think about this, there is a fourth thing that adds into the total image presentation, that is dof. I assume it is pretty well understood here that dof increases with decrease in magnification. So the effect of the view is initially one that feels like you are looking through a porro glass. What deficit the size of the fov may ultimately have is not what you see at first glance. I figured I had to have been misled by improper website info. I went back and checked and Brendon confirmed it is indeed 389'. So some of this is from memory and all of this is only first impressions. I have a 7x45 on the way for review. I will check out how well the first impression holds up. But I would say I have seen enough to caution everyone who reads this to NOT fall into the spec sheet death trap like I nearly did.
The B3 6x30 is essentially nothing more than a 6x version of the 8x30 I have. If you are interested in a compact roof with excellent optics, then this needs a look. I also have one of these coming for review.
The spotters are of the 25-60x80 iterations, with both straight and angled configurations. The thing that stands out is their compact size. Looking at them sitting on the Manfrotto tripods, I thought they had to be 65 mm glass. They are sharper than two brand new tacks too. Not much else to say about them as I spent most of my limited time with the binoculars.
Speaking of binoculars, they have a new 15x56, which does have my interest, as well as a review specimen in the works. Look for this mid to late summer.
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