chris6
Well-known member
What
Sherman Pro 12x50 is around £118 from Microglobe with £9 p&p.
The binoculars are dark green in colour, nearly black, nicely finished in smooth but grippy rubber, feeling dense but by no means too heavy.
There are nicely fitting eyepiece rain guards and loop-attached drop down objective covers.
Why
Curiosity because some Levenhuk models look almost identical to obsolete Lynx Forester Porros.
(My porro Forester ZR 8x32 WP had the potential to be quite excellent although it needed sorting out, but that's another story
)
For occasional use to see details of distant small birds etc., while avoiding the cost of alphas which would not be reasonable just for this.
Design
Imo there is nothing at all wrong with porros, except when weather proofing is required. In fact the Nikon EII and SE models perform as well, or arguably better than, much more expensive roof prisms, and they even have significant advantages with respect to cost, field of view, brightness, freedom from CA, and 3D effect. In general porros can be easier to hold steadily (possibly making 12x useable hand held) but weatherproofing may certainly render focus functions problematic. Usually it makes this sticky and very heavy with massive free play, but luckily? my Sherman is quite ok in those respects - it really stands out by being reasonably light and smooth, with no play in spite of supposed protection with nitrogen against fogging and water ingress.
QC
A slip of paper was included which indicated that the example had been individually checked. If so full marks, and mine had no functional flaws except that a tiny grub screw securing the setting of the main hinge screw was 2mm too long. This prevented the plastic cap with '12x50' decorative disc stuck to it from being level. Very fiddly but happily it did not get lost in the process of putting it right. It was easily corrected by grinding a bit off the grub screw, before refitting the plastic cap with its central screw and re-attaching the decoration disc with double sided sticky tape. More importantly the focus action and alignment seemed absolutely fine, and for me the dioptre setting was normal at 0 degrees.
Optics
The main thing was that the Sherman was sharp in the centre and e.g. good enough to show more detail than e.g. Nikon EII 10x35.
Obvious distortion at 50% of the view, e.g. more than Nikon 12x50, which was relatively pallid and less sharp at the centre.
Close focus >30ft, not good!
Colour, contrast, brightness: unremarkable at this price i.e. mediocre in comparisons with much more expensive binoculars but satisfactory on their own.
Sherman Pro 12x50 is around £118 from Microglobe with £9 p&p.
The binoculars are dark green in colour, nearly black, nicely finished in smooth but grippy rubber, feeling dense but by no means too heavy.
There are nicely fitting eyepiece rain guards and loop-attached drop down objective covers.
Why
Curiosity because some Levenhuk models look almost identical to obsolete Lynx Forester Porros.
(My porro Forester ZR 8x32 WP had the potential to be quite excellent although it needed sorting out, but that's another story
)For occasional use to see details of distant small birds etc., while avoiding the cost of alphas which would not be reasonable just for this.
Design
Imo there is nothing at all wrong with porros, except when weather proofing is required. In fact the Nikon EII and SE models perform as well, or arguably better than, much more expensive roof prisms, and they even have significant advantages with respect to cost, field of view, brightness, freedom from CA, and 3D effect. In general porros can be easier to hold steadily (possibly making 12x useable hand held) but weatherproofing may certainly render focus functions problematic. Usually it makes this sticky and very heavy with massive free play, but luckily? my Sherman is quite ok in those respects - it really stands out by being reasonably light and smooth, with no play in spite of supposed protection with nitrogen against fogging and water ingress.
QC
A slip of paper was included which indicated that the example had been individually checked. If so full marks, and mine had no functional flaws except that a tiny grub screw securing the setting of the main hinge screw was 2mm too long. This prevented the plastic cap with '12x50' decorative disc stuck to it from being level. Very fiddly but happily it did not get lost in the process of putting it right. It was easily corrected by grinding a bit off the grub screw, before refitting the plastic cap with its central screw and re-attaching the decoration disc with double sided sticky tape. More importantly the focus action and alignment seemed absolutely fine, and for me the dioptre setting was normal at 0 degrees.
Optics
The main thing was that the Sherman was sharp in the centre and e.g. good enough to show more detail than e.g. Nikon EII 10x35.
Obvious distortion at 50% of the view, e.g. more than Nikon 12x50, which was relatively pallid and less sharp at the centre.
Close focus >30ft, not good!
Colour, contrast, brightness: unremarkable at this price i.e. mediocre in comparisons with much more expensive binoculars but satisfactory on their own.
- BAK4 Porro Prisms
- 5-Element/3-Group Eyepiece Lens
- Fully Multi-Coated Optics
- 67° Apparent Angle of View
- Magnification: 12x
- Objective Lens Diameter: 50 mm
- Angle of View: 5.6° (Actual)
- Field of View: 98 m @ 1000 m
- Minimum Focus Distance: 7 m (>30ft!)
- Exit Pupil Diameter: 4.2 mm
- 3 position click up eye pieces
- Eye Relief: 18 mm (probably accurate and i.e. fine with glasses)
- Dimensions: 7.8 x 6.9 x 2.5" / 19.8 x 17.5 x 6.4 cm
- Weight: 980g (but in the hand feels similar to 10x50 roof)
