Let's talk PORROS! (1 Viewer)

[WJC]

"There is no problem water proofing a porro binocular and the strongest; shockproof; water proof model
to pass through my workshop was a porro model."

What porro model was that?

Denny, thanks for the kind words. But please remember that while my test was performed 1) within 5 or 10 minutes, 2) used the same eye, 3) in a controlled environment, and 4) averaged the 3 median results, that only “debunked” the performance at a distance of 30 feet. As I pointed out in the book, the results MIGHT have been different had the target been moved back 10 feet or more. Having owned 2 Prostars, I still say edge sharpness was a little better than the Fujinons ... the test didn’t bear it out. Perception is reality to the masses. To the no-nonsense, scientific thinker it is not.

Last week, my 13-year-old granddaughter was visiting. She looked out the backdoor at the moon and said, “Hey, Grandpa, look at the full moon.” I did. And seeing the tell-tale missing tiny sliver of moon that ran from 9 to 6 o’clock, I said, “Honey, the moon will be full tomorrow night.” I’m sure she thought I was nuts. But that was just the difference in the understanding of a 13-year-old girl and a guy who spent a large part of his life looking up—being 5’ 4” I did that a lot!

As far as Richard’s, “strongest, shockproof, waterproof”... he might have been speaking of “The BINOCEROS” ... the Swift Stormking, which is also half a dozen other models, including the short-lived Celestron Waterproof and the Tamaya BIFR, which I BELIEVE was manufactured by JB 2, Katsuma Kogaku Kikai Co. Ltd.

By the way, although “shockproof” is bandied about quite a bit, that too is a matter of perception. I put 3 kids through school repairing and collimating “shockproof” binoculars!

The first photo attached is of a 1990s MTR-SX. The second is of the so-called MTR-SX-2. As you can see, the exposed backplate is slightly curved and the rubber on the diopter ring is twice as wide and slightly curved.

My diamond saw did a job on that first one from Cloudy Nights, huh?!

Bill

 

[WJC]

"There is no problem water proofing a porro binocular and the strongest; shockproof; water proof model
to pass through my workshop was a porro model."

What porro model was that?

Denny, thanks for the kind words. But please remember that while my test was performed 1) within 5 or 10 minutes, 2) used the same eye, 3) in a controlled environment, and 4) averaged the 3 median results, that only “debunked” the performance at a distance of 30 feet. As I pointed out in the book, the results MIGHT have been different had the target been moved back 10 feet or more. Having owned 2 Prostars, I still say edge sharpness was a little better than the Fujinons ... the test didn’t bear it out. Perception is reality to the masses. To the no-nonsense, scientific thinker it is not.

Last week, my 13-year-old granddaughter was visiting. She looked out the backdoor at the moon and said, “Hey, Grandpa, look at the full moon.” I did. And seeing the tell-tale missing tiny sliver of moon that ran from 9 to 6 o’clock, I said, “Honey, the moon will be full tomorrow night.” I’m sure she thought I was nuts. But that was just the difference in the understanding of a 13-year-old girl and a guy who spent a large part of his life looking up—being 5’ 4” I did that a lot!

As far as Richard’s, “strongest, shockproof, waterproof”... he might have been speaking of “The BINOCEROS” ... the Swift Stormking, which is also half a dozen other models, including the short-lived Celestron Waterproof and the Tamaya BIFR, which I BELIEVE was manufactured by JB 2, Katsuma Kogaku Kikai Co. Ltd.

By the way, although “shockproof” is bandied about quite abit, that too is a matter of perception. I put 3 kids through school repairing and collimating “shockproof” binoculars!

The first photo attached is of a 1990s MTR-SX. The second is of the so-called MTR-SX-2. As you can see, the exposed backplate is slightly curved and the rubber on the diopter ring is twice as wide and slightly curved.

My diamond saw did a job on that first one from Cloudy Nights, huh?!

Bill

 

[WJC]

Each of 3 times when I have tried to post the above, the program has entered it TWICE. Then, when I try to delete one—so as to be a good neighbor—it has deleted both. Sorry 'bout that.

 

[henry link]

Denny, thanks for the kind words. But please remember that while my test was performed 1) within 5 or 10 minutes, 2) used the same eye, 3) in a controlled environment, and 4) averaged the 3 median results, that only “debunked” the performance at a distance of 30 feet. As I pointed out in the book, the results MIGHT have been different had the target been moved back 10 feet or more. Having owned 2 Prostars, I still say edge sharpness was a little better than the Fujinons ... the test didn’t bear it out. Perception is reality to the masses. To the no-nonsense, scientific thinker it is not.

Hey Bill,

I certainly agree with the above. I wonder if you would have noticed a difference between the two if you had used a smaller group/element on the USAF 1951 chart. I set up my Prostar (spellcheck wants Prostate!) at 32' just now and found that 1 line per mm (group -1/element 1) was resolved at the edge a bit too easily to show what the binocular is capable of (did you mean one line pair per mm?). I could resolve line pairs down to group 0, element 4 and with a 2.5x booster pointed at the field edge I could see that the binocular itself does considerably better.

It's been a long time since I compared the Prostar to the Fujinon, but I recall the Prostar having better sharpness both on and off axis, which is why I didn't keep the Fuji.

You've probably seen the illustration below. It shows 2 diopters of astigmatism present at the field edge of the 7x50 FMT after correction, which must be why I preferred the edge performance of the Prostar. I can't detect ANY significant astigmatism at its field edge and only a small fraction of a diopter of field curvature.

Henry

 

[Patudo]

You have just described the Nikon SE range.
Nikon should start producing them again, they would fly out the stores.

You say that, but if there really was such demand for the SEs, they would not have been discontinued - whereas the EIIs for instance continue to be produced.

There probably is some demand for SEs now - but how much of it is driven by the fact that they are "unobtanium" and how many would pay RRP or close to it as opposed to secondhand prices? If there was significant demand for what the SE series offer, it seems to me that something similar would have been produced - Kamakura and indeed our "friends" from the PRC (APM and other manufacturers) are well capable of making quality porros.

There have been a couple of threads in the "Other" subforum discussing Vixen porros and maybe that is where the sweet spot, in terms of price v performance, for today's modern porro sits.

 

[WJC]

Hey Bill,

I certainly agree with the above. I wonder if you would have noticed a difference between the two if you had used a smaller group/element on the USAF 1951 chart. I set up my Prostar (spellcheck wants Prostate!) at 32' just now and found that 1 line per mm (group -1/element 1) was resolved at the edge a bit too easily to show what the binocular is capable of (did you mean one line pair per mm?). I could resolve line pairs down to group 0, element 4 and with a 2.5x booster pointed at the field edge I could see that the binocular itself does considerably better.

It's been a long time since I compared the Prostar to the Fujinon, but I recall the Prostar having better sharpness both on and off axis, which is why I didn't keep the Fuji.

You've probably seen the illustration below. It shows 2 diopters of astigmatism present at the field edge of the 7x50 FMT after correction, which must be why I preferred the edge performance of the Prostar. I can't detect ANY significant astigmatism at its field edge and only a small fraction of a diopter of field curvature.

Henry

 

[WJC]

Hi, Henry,

You are one of the people I would expect to let me express my opinion without thinking the worst of me.

Therefore ... I truly don’t give a rat’s butt. I created the test to keep a friend from pooping his pants and didn’t care to pursue it further. And I have much less impetus to do so, today. I have much to do before my expiration date. Some will be valuable to my family, others to my wallet.

I see so many tests, graphics, and screenshots that I find totally useless, subjective, and easily manipulated. * Differences in those tests, graphics, screenshots, although they usually can’t be seen by the average observer, are great conversation starters and that’s about it. But members of binocular forums eat that stuff up like 3rd-graders who just discovered a new toy on the playground. That’s why those who really KNOW what they are talking about very rarely come to bino forums and have chided me for years for doing so.

The solution:

If, for whatever reason, you think you don’t like your binocular, the solution will not be reached by screenshots, flashlights being shot—backwards—through it, but by:

BUYING ANOTHER BINOCULAR ... Amen, the end, period!

Collimation error is the only anomaly the consumer can correct themselves, but although I have been lecturing and publishing on that subject for 44 years, there are still so many who have just crawled out from under their rock or act like they have just invented a collimation method that doesn't even bother with some of the critical points of the situation and then rush to the nearest bino forum to act as they have just invented a sure-fire, 5-minute brain transplant procedure! Please forgive me. My humanism is too close to the surface, today. They miss the big picture.

Example: Lately I have seen various posts comparing Porro prism vs roof prism binoculars. Yet, the posts from Porro prism binocular enthusiasts almost never mention that the roof edges on cheap binoculars can make bright stars or planets SPIKE, causing them to offer dozens of speculations why it’s happening.

Okay, Henry, are you still speaking to me?

Cheers,

Bill

* Several years ago, after one of my articles in a national magazine, a rep for an “Alpha” bino manufacturer took me to dinner to tell me that writing another article extolling his company’s AR coatings could be financially beneficial to me. I thanked him for the meal but declined the offer. It takes years to build a good reputation, but only a moment of weakness to wash it all away.

 

[[email protected]]

Denny, thanks for the kind words. But please remember that while my test was performed 1) within 5 or 10 minutes, 2) used the same eye, 3) in a controlled environment, and 4) averaged the 3 median results, that only “debunked” the performance at a distance of 30 feet. As I pointed out in the book, the results MIGHT have been different had the target been moved back 10 feet or more. Having owned 2 Prostars, I still say edge sharpness was a little better than the Fujinons ... the test didn’t bear it out. Perception is reality to the masses. To the no-nonsense, scientific thinker it is not.

Last week, my 13-year-old granddaughter was visiting. She looked out the backdoor at the moon and said, “Hey, Grandpa, look at the full moon.” I did. And seeing the tell-tale missing tiny sliver of moon that ran from 9 to 6 o’clock, I said, “Honey, the moon will be full tomorrow night.” I’m sure she thought I was nuts. But that was just the difference in the understanding of a 13-year-old girl and a guy who spent a large part of his life looking up—being 5’ 4” I did that a lot!

As far as Richard’s, “strongest, shockproof, waterproof”... he might have been speaking of “The BINOCEROS” ... the Swift Stormking, which is also half a dozen other models, including the short-lived Celestron Waterproof and the Tamaya BIFR, which I BELIEVE was manufactured by JB 2, Katsuma Kogaku Kikai Co. Ltd.

By the way, although “shockproof” is bandied about quite abit, that too is a matter of perception. I put 3 kids through school repairing and collimating “shockproof” binoculars!

The first photo attached is of a 1990s MTR-SX. The second is of the so-called MTR-SX-2. As you can see, the exposed backplate is slightly curved and the rubber on the diopter ring is twice as wide and slightly curved.

My diamond saw did a job on that first one from Cloudy Nights, huh?!

Bill

Nice photo on the MTR-SX-2. It shows the difference between the two models. Interesting about the Swift Stormking. I have never heard of them. Swift did make some nice binoculars.

 

[[email protected]]

You say that, but if there really was such demand for the SEs, they would not have been discontinued - whereas the EIIs for instance continue to be produced.

There probably is some demand for SEs now - but how much of it is driven by the fact that they are "unobtanium" and how many would pay RRP or close to it as opposed to secondhand prices? If there was significant demand for what the SE series offer, it seems to me that something similar would have been produced - Kamakura and indeed our "friends" from the PRC (APM and other manufacturers) are well capable of making quality porros.

There have been a couple of threads in the "Other" subforum discussing Vixen porros and maybe that is where the sweet spot, in terms of price v performance, for today's modern porro sits.

What Vixen porro would you recommend?

 

[WJC]

Nice photo on the MTR-SX-2. It shows the difference between the two models. Interesting about the Swift Stormking. I have never heard of them. Swift did make some nice binoculars.

Swift had an office in Japan. However, they didn't MAKE anything,
Bill

 

[[email protected]]

Hey Bill,

I certainly agree with the above. I wonder if you would have noticed a difference between the two if you had used a smaller group/element on the USAF 1951 chart. I set up my Prostar (spellcheck wants Prostate!) at 32' just now and found that 1 line per mm (group -1/element 1) was resolved at the edge a bit too easily to show what the binocular is capable of (did you mean one line pair per mm?). I could resolve line pairs down to group 0, element 4 and with a 2.5x booster pointed at the field edge I could see that the binocular itself does considerably better.

It's been a long time since I compared the Prostar to the Fujinon, but I recall the Prostar having better sharpness both on and off axis, which is why I didn't keep the Fuji.

You've probably seen the illustration below. It shows 2 diopters of astigmatism present at the field edge of the 7x50 FMT after correction, which must be why I preferred the edge performance of the Prostar. I can't detect ANY significant astigmatism at its field edge and only a small fraction of a diopter of field curvature.

Henry

Albino supports Bills theory that the Fujinons are sharper on the edges than the Nikon Prostars. Also, the Prostars darken more at the edges than the Fujinons and the distortion and astigmatism on the Fujinons was way lower than the Prostars. In fact, they have the Fujinons ranked almost 10 points above the Prostars overall. I also like the wider FOV of the Fujinons myself because most of these 7x50 binoculars tend to have a narrow FOV anyway.

Binoculars rankings - 7x50 - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Fujinon FMT-SX 7x50 - binoculars review - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Nikon 7x50IF SP WP - binoculars review - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

 

[[email protected]]

Swift had an office in Japan. However, they didn't MAKE anything,
Bill

Who made their binoculars? Kamakura?

 

[WJC]

Who made their binoculars? Kamakura?

Largely.

BC

 

[WJC]

Albino supports Bills theory that the Fujinons are sharper on the edges than the Nikon Prostars. Also, the Prostars darken more at the edges than the Fujinons and the distortion and astigmatism on the Fujinons was way lower than the Prostars. In fact, they have the Fujinons ranked almost 10 points above the Prostars overall. I also like the wider FOV of the Fujinons myself because most of these 7x50 binoculars tend to have a narrow FOV anyway.

Binoculars rankings - 7x50 - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Fujinon FMT-SX 7x50 - binoculars review - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Nikon 7x50IF SP WP - binoculars review - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Now, Denny, is that what I really said?

I said, multiple times, that I had long thought the Prostars had better edge performance, BUT That the test did not bear that out. I also said that the results might have been different if the distance to the target had been longer.

Henry, I WAS using the Air Force chart—or at least a duplicate of the appropriate part..

Cheers, all,

Bill

 

[Paskman]

The Fujinon 10x50 FMTR-SX , weight 1470 gr, we have investigated in 2013 had a close focus of 15 meter, Individual Eyepiece focussing and eyerelief of 20 mm and foldable rubber eyecups. It suffered from color diffraction and was not terrible expensive (almost 1000 euros).
Gijs van Ginkel

Good grief, to think how people get so worked up over over the new reduced close focus ELs

 

[Hermann]

For those readers, who are interested in the scientific backgrounds of phase-coatings: read the paper by Adolf Weyrauch and Bernd Dörband in Deutsche Optikerzeitung, nr 4, 1988 entitled "Abbildung bei Ferngläsern durch phasenkorrigierte Dachprismen". In this paper the authors describe the effects of this phase shift both in words as well with some illustrations. Without phase coating on roof prisms an image point is split into two points (sharpness problem), see their figures 6a-6c and with phase coating the image point is pictured as one point. <snip>The topic has been discussed on this forum before and the phase shift problem had been observed already some decades before 1988 and a remedy was proposed by one of the Zeiss coworkers, but it never was realised. The first roof prism binocular with phase correction coatings was probably the Zeiss Dialyt 6x42 from 1988.

"Die Dachkante hat auch einen Nachteil: In den Teilbündeln werden die Polarisationsebenen in verschiedener Richtung gedreht. [...] Die Dachkante bewirkt also eine für das Auflösungsvermögen ungünstigere Intensitätsverteilung [...]. Das bedeutet eine Bildverschlechterung besonders bei hohen Vergrößerungen und kleinen Austrittspupillen." (König, Albert & Horst Köhler (³1959): Die Fernrohre und Entfernungsmesser, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Verlag).

Hermann

 

[henry link]

Now, Denny, is that what I really said?

I said, multiple times, that I had long thought the Prostars had better edge performance, BUT That the test did not bear that out. I also said that the results might have been different if the distance to the target had been longer.

Henry, I WAS using the Air Force chart—or at least a duplicate of the appropriate part..

Cheers, all,

.

Bill, I don't doubt that you were using the USAF chart, but at 30’ I think one line per millimeter was too large to be the appropriate part.

 

[Jessie-66]

Last week, my 13-year-old granddaughter was visiting. She looked out the backdoor at the moon and said, “Hey, Grandpa, look at the full moon.” I did. And seeing the tell-tale missing tiny sliver of moon that ran from 9 to 6 o’clock, I said, “Honey, the moon will be full tomorrow night.” I’m sure she thought I was nuts. But that was just the difference in the understanding of a 13-year-old girl and a guy who spent a large part of his life looking up—being 5’ 4” I did that a lot!

A beautiful story.

Therefore ... I truly don’t give a rat’s butt.

Here I laughed out loud: For a non-native English speaker, the sentence is easy to translate literally and sounds funny - but the real meaning: I don't care at all. It can also be translated into somewhat heartier German.
Bill, stay healthy and tell your (life) stories! Sorry for off topic. Jessie

 

[henry link]

Albino supports Bills theory that the Fujinons are sharper on the edges than the Nikon Prostars. Also, the Prostars darken more at the edges than the Fujinons and the distortion and astigmatism on the Fujinons was way lower than the Prostars. In fact, they have the Fujinons ranked almost 10 points above the Prostars overall. I also like the wider FOV of the Fujinons myself because most of these 7x50 binoculars tend to have a narrow FOV anyway.

Binoculars rankings - 7x50 - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Fujinon FMT-SX 7x50 - binoculars review - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Nikon 7x50IF SP WP - binoculars review - AllBinos.com

The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.

www.allbinos.com

Dennis, once again you’re using Allbinos without understanding their tests. They don’t test for off-axis astigmatism at all and the only distortion they recognize is pincushion, so their idea of low “distortion” actually means high angular magnification distortion.

 

[Jessie-66]

... means high angular magnification distortion.

Hi Henry, what do you mean by that? Do you have a link to a good explanation? I know only the popular terms to distinguish the distortion: pincushion (intended design), barrel (unpopulary for bins) and combinations thereof (for instance unpopulary "mustache" shape). Jessie

Verzeichnung – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

In this context, it is worth noting what und where baffles do:

Verzeichnung – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org