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Leica Ultravid 8x20, Nikon 8x30 E II or 8x30 Habicht? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Severin
- Start date
Thotmosis
Well-known member
Thotmosis
Well-known member
Beautiful 🤩 don’t look for glare just use it in good health!
Paultricounty
Well-known member
Dennis, didn’t you have the 30 unusable glare monsters twice, or was that the 7x42 nighttime zombie spotters. Im just asking because I can’t keep up with what day of the week it is. 😆🙏🏼.
What do you think of the eye placement / eyecups? Comfortable? Not al all? Just fine?
Beautiful bins...
Thank you
For me they are very comfortable. I prefer them to hard eye cups. Eye relief (I don’t wear glasses, deep set eyes) is almost perfect. I don’t have to press the binos against my face like many others with a short eye relief. I got AA1315881A. Got it from a local store for 1100 €.
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hopster
Well-known member
How does the 8x30 Habicht compare to an old (probably mid-1970s) 8x30 W Carl Zeiss Jena Jenoptem? It was my fathers but he dropped it many years ago so I got it renovated as a birthday present. It says multi-coated but the image is pretty yellow. Other than that it's easy on the eye and relaxing to look through with the usual Porro transparency and 3D although it does glare pretty badly if pointed towards the sun. I guess there must be 8x30 Habichts from the same period and from what I have heard they were also yellow-tinged.
Paultricounty
Well-known member
The Jena (East German) Jenoptems are nice glass , I have that 8x30 and just recently sold a 10x50. I think the Habicht’s of the same era were similar in optics. I had tried an old (maybe late 1960’s) green armor Habicht a while back, but didn’t do any side by side comparisons. Both are very nice under good lighting, but become very dim in poor lighting. But still very usable and enjoyable binoculars. My wife really like them as well as the Nikon E2.
The newer Habicht’s are high end porros with modern glass and coatings. Imo they are probably the best porros on the market today. The are very sharp, very bright, neutral in color , and did I say they are sharp 😄. They do have their faults like any other binoculars. For me the Habicht and the Nikon SE’s are my favorite modern porros.
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Is the CZJ in the picture a 10x50 Dekarem? It was my first pair of binos - sold it unfortunately. The only pair of binos that gave me the „Wow-Effekt“ cause of its extreme FOV.
I used to own a Jenoptem 8x30W (NB. if multi-coated it'll likely be very late 1970s or newer) but have never tried a Habicht of that vintage. Reviews, incidentally, differ as to the quality of the latter. My brother tried one of the old 10x40s in an optical shop in Vienna and his verdict was: sharp, but having a yellow tint (as many single-coated binoculars do). The current Habicht will be noticeably brighter (as you would expect given modern coatings), truer in colour, and is much better built than the Jenoptem, although the latter is still useful - I often wish I had kept mine.
I found none of the old 8x30s I've owned/tried are that great against glare. They are enjoyable in many other ways, but something like the 8x30 SLC mark II I used to own was distinctly superior if having to contend against glare.
Paultricounty
Well-known member
No , it was the Jenoptem.
I could probably print you one if rigid plastic is good enuff
Binocollector
Well-known member
@hopster
If you're looking for a good 8x30 porro from yesteryear -- look for a Hartmann bino, either the "Porlerim" or "Bernina". I like the Porlerim so much that I have 4 or 5. The only issue they have is that all of them had hazy prisms on arrival. But they have one of the most genius systems to fix and adjust the prisms, so taking them apart and cleaning the prisms is easy. They are very color neutral, have a wide FoV, are mechanically solid and the Porlerim came in two versions, a normal and a wide angle. The normal version has a pretty decent FoV, too however. I'd guess (by comparing with other binos) about 8.1 or 8.2°. The "Weitwinkel" version is even better. They were also sold under the brand name "Hanseat" in Germany.
If you're looking for a good 8x30 porro from yesteryear -- look for a Hartmann bino, either the "Porlerim" or "Bernina". I like the Porlerim so much that I have 4 or 5. The only issue they have is that all of them had hazy prisms on arrival. But they have one of the most genius systems to fix and adjust the prisms, so taking them apart and cleaning the prisms is easy. They are very color neutral, have a wide FoV, are mechanically solid and the Porlerim came in two versions, a normal and a wide angle. The normal version has a pretty decent FoV, too however. I'd guess (by comparing with other binos) about 8.1 or 8.2°. The "Weitwinkel" version is even better. They were also sold under the brand name "Hanseat" in Germany.
Paultricounty
Well-known member
Never tried one of these, heard a lot of good things about them, highly praised by collectors. Beautiful!
Paul
Binocollector
Well-known member
Gijs has a lot of info about them on "houseofoutdoor".
The pictures I took through the bino don't do them justice. The field curvature looks worse in the pics.
I also have a Zeiss Jena 8x30 from the 50's (pre-multicoating) -- it might not be a fair comparison as my Hartmanns are all a bit younger (so they have newer coatings) but I prefer the "Porlerim" over the Zeiss Jena 8x30. I do need a Zeiss Oberkochen 8x30 one day however. I wonder how those compare to the Hartmanns.
Just looked at the material from "houseofoutdoors" and it seems the normal Porlerim has 7.7° FoV and the wide angle version 8.5. But the difference doesn't seem all the great when looking through them and comparing the "WW" to the normal version.
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Paultricounty
Well-known member
Excellent article and its translated.
I figured part of the edge falloff was the camera.
I have a 1960's Jena 8x30 Jenoptem, FC. Nice glass. Cant find the darn thing, looked everywhere. I haven't had much of a chance to tryout many of the vintage German glass, but I know they're highly praised by many.
Paul
Binocollector
Well-known member
Found all of them. Stacked according to the serial number. Oldest one on the bottom.
The very oldest version I have, does have a slightly similar yellow tint to the Zeiss Jena from about the same period.
The very oldest version I have, does have a slightly similar yellow tint to the Zeiss Jena from about the same period.
Paultricounty
Well-known member
Philipp, great collection, all pristine as well. I think you convinced me, after the new year I'm going to search out a few out. My collection needs more German components. I believe theres also 7x35 models. Any info you can share about models , and what to look out for is always appreciated. You could PM at your convenience, no rush. We don't want hijack the OP. 🙏
Paul
