New SLC is on the way... (1 Viewer)

[temmie]

My first impression of the new Swarovski SLC 8x42 HD:

http://birddigiscoper.blogspot.com/2010/06/swarovski-slc-8x42-hd.html

Mike M.
www.birddigiscoper.com

from your blog:
Overall, I think the SLC HD is a worthy contender in the super-premium class of binoculars that includes the Nikon EDG, Leica Ultravid HD, and the Zeiss FL.

It seems to be a worthy contender for 3 binoculars that are on the market for years... I really don't want to say they are anything bad, but I am very critical towards marketing talk about the new SLC. I consider the Swarovisions as a real upgrade of the overal package and a clear winner in the x42 top league, especially the edge sharpness.

But the SLC is (disappointingly) expensive compared to its competitors, e.g. Nikon EDG (always very expensive in europe) and Zeiss FL (tipically cheap in Europe). I wonder why they just haven't incorporated the flat field in the SLC, because that is, at least for me, the big :t: about the new Swaro optical design.

I am already saving for the 8x32 Swarovision o

 

[michaelboustead]

I do hope they make a swarovision 8x32. To me it would nearly ideal.

Mike

 

[ceasar]

Ben Lizdas,

From your post #96 above you state: "The optics between the two appear to be identical,..........."

Does this mean that both the SV and the SLC have the same new large Oculars?

Bob

 

[NDhunter]

Sorry if i seem a bit confused here but can someone please explain the advantages the EL's have over the SLC's ? , i was pretty close to buying a pair of EL's but now the arrival of the SLC's have really confused me , it seems the new SLC's are superb but without the rolling ball effect and roughly £150 cheaper so now iam hoping someone here may put my mind at rest ! thank you in anticipation :eek!:

Polly:

From what the posters show above, the new SLC will have the new HD glass and
put them in line with the current Leica Ultravid and the Zeiss FL. The EL Swarovision is different in any of those above, as it has the field flattening lens,
which should improve the edges all the way. The only other premium optic
offering the field flatteners and HD glass would be the Nikon EDG, :t: and they have done these in such a way, to allow a small amount of pincushion, to avoid some of the rolling ball, yet give a great view.

It should be no surprise to anyone here, that Swaro. would not not have the SLC be an equal to the EL, the "Flagship".

The SLC has been the workhorse, available in many sizes, and it is nice it is now
in the 8x42. Other things to check out are differences in eyerelief, etc.
I think it is great to see Swaro. roll out both of these 2 new bins, and within less than 6 months of each other. :t:

Jerry

 

[brocknroller]

Polly:

<snip> The SLC has been the workhorse, available in many sizes, and it is nice it is now
in the 8x42. Other things to check out are differences in eyerelief, etc.
I think it is great to see Swaro. roll out both of these 2 new bins, and within less than 6 months of each other. :t:

Jerry

Workhorse at a racehorse price.

I also disagree with Mike, who said the SLC HD competes with the Nikon EDG.

The EDG has field flatteners like the EL. So the SV EL is its competition, although the 2010 EDG does look like the new HD SLC, at least the version released in Japan, and its priced the same.

I'd like a clarification on the SLC HD's edge performance. Sure it's not as good as the EL, but is it good enough ?

I tried a 2009 8x30 SLC Neu and the sweet spot was quite ample, in fact, larger than the 2001 EL I tried, and it the sharpness fell off gradually at the edges, so I didn't see the fuzz edges in my peripheral vision.

The earlier 7x30 SLC I tried had fuzzy edges that I found a bit distracting - the "Coke Bottle Effect".

Oh, say, can you see the fuzzy edges off-axis in the SLC HD by the dawn's early light, or do you need to move an object toward the edges to see the image blur?

How far from the center do you approximate the image sharpness starts to fall off, percentage-wise????

I realize this is somewhat subjective, particularly if the "fuzz" is due to field curvature, but even a rough estimation would be helpful. Thanks.

Brock

 

[blizdas]

Ben Lizdas,

From your post #96 above you state: "The optics between the two appear to be identical,..........."

Does this mean that both the SV and the SLC have the same new large Oculars?

Bob

Yes Bob, they do appear to be the same size. Now if they are identical by design, that I can't attest to. I've never had one apart and hope to keep it that way

Ben

 

[henry link]

You can tell a good deal about the differences in the optical designs of the SLC-HD and the EL-SV if you examine the animated internal views on the Swarovski website. The objectives are very similar, 4 elements/3 groups with negative focusing lenses, but the oculars are quite different. The EL-SV appears to be 6 elements/5 groups if you consider the field flattener doublet to be the eyepiece field lenses. The SLC-HD has a more conventional 5 element/3 group eyepiece similar to Zeiss and Leica.

Both the SLC-HD and EL-SV are radically different from their predecessors which had 3 element objectives with positive focussing lenses and 4 element eyepieces.

 

[Mike McDowell]

June 15th, 2010 @ 10:37AM Central Time (US)

I'm at my desk with the following bins:

Nikon EDG 8x42
Leica Ultravid HD 8x42
Swarovski Swarovision EL 8.5x42
Swarovski SLC 8x42 HD
Zeiss FL 8x42

I will do live reviews and answer questions here:

http://www.efnet.org/

Nickname: (choose a name for yourself)

Channel: #bingeeks

I'll try to be on most of the day today.

Mike M.
Eagle Optics Staff
www.birddigiscoper.com

 

[Mike McDowell]

(looking right now)

Performance-wise, the SLC HD competes with the Nikon EDG. The EDG is not sharp edge-to-edge like the SV EL is. The SLC HD has much better center resolution than the EDG, on par with the SV EL. To my eye, the SLC HD is sharper to the edge than the EDG is.

Mike M.
www.birddigiscoper.com

 

[brocknroller]

(looking right now)

Performance-wise, the SLC HD competes with the Nikon EDG. The EDG is not sharp edge-to-edge like the SV EL is. The SLC HD has much better center resolution than the EDG, on par with the SV EL. To my eye, the SLC HD is sharper to the edge than the EDG is.

Mike M.
www.birddigiscoper.com

Mike,

I see your point now. I was thinking in terms of them both having field flattener elements.

Edge performance wise, the SV EL beats the EDG, but I wouldn't tolerate the "rolling ball" in the EL. So that's "makes no never mind" of the EL's field flatteners since they negate the bin's usefulness to me.

However, your comment about the "SLC HD has much better center resolution than the EDG" is a point worth considering.

I'd like to see the experts get out their quantum micrometers and find out how these three bins stack up under controlled conditions. Not that bench tested results always match up to what I see with my own two eyes, but it at least gives me a another basis for comparison.

I would expect the EL to beat the EDG in center field resolution, because of the extra magnification, but if the 8x42 SLC HD also has "much better" on-axis resolution than the 8x42 EDG... then that means its time to buy some more pig's feet in the big, family sized jars, because it's going to take a hellava lot of quarters to save up for an SLC HD.

I'll probably wait for "retreads" from Camera Land or SWFA, otherwise, I might be saving for the rest of my life.

Of course, it's probably premature at this point to give the SLC HD the Good Birdhouse Peeping ™ seal of approval before actually looking through one. Some unpleasant surprise might crop up like the loose focuser cap on the first run EDG or the "rolling ball" on the SV EL.

I'm disappointed Swaro didn't keep the push-in diopter control on the SLC, I really liked that feature.

However, I'm getting used to the pull out cap on the EL. In fact, the other day when I was comparing the 2001 EL to the ZR 7x36 ED2, I tried to pull out the cap on the ED2 to adjust the diopter. Duh!

Btw, when I tried to log on to EFnet, I got the error message: Too many connections.

Well, at least it didn't say: EF you!

Thanks for that info.

Brock

 

[Mike McDowell]

I've closed the chat! A few people were able to get in. Perhaps I'll do something like it again in the future if there is interest.

Mike M.

 

[ingle1970]

it's going to take a hellava lot of quarters to save up for an SLC HD.

Brock

Your right the SLC-HD is an expensive item, which only makes my new Habicht 8x30W seem an absolute bargain, and it really is superb.
I just wish i had got one a lot sooner...

 

[ceasar]

You can tell a good deal about the differences in the optical designs of the SLC-HD and the EL-SV if you examine the animated internal views on the Swarovski website. The objectives are very similar, 4 elements/3 groups with negative focusing lenses, but the oculars are quite different. The EL-SV appears to be 6 elements/5 groups if you consider the field flattener doublet to be the eyepiece field lenses. The SLC-HD has a more conventional 5 element/3 group eyepiece similar to Zeiss and Leica.

Both the SLC-HD and EL-SV are radically different from their predecessors which had 3 element objectives with positive focussing lenses and 4 element eyepieces.

Henry,
Is it safe to state then that the most important/significant improvement on the EL-SV and the SLC-HD is Swarovski's redesign of their oculars? These oculars must be rather more expensive to make than the older versions I would think.
Bob

 

[henry link]

Bob,

The SLC-HD eyepiece doesn't look too special, but the EL-SV eyepiece is certainly more complex than usual for a binocular.

Also, beyond the ED glass the objectives are completely redesigned. The old SLC (except for the 8x30) and EL were alone among the alphas in using fixed doublets with positive focusers. The new ones now use fixed triplets with negative focusers, like the design Leica, Zeiss and Nikon have been using for many years.

Henry

 

[ceasar]

Thanks Henry!
Swarovski has seen Leica, Zeiss and Nikon's objectives and raised them on the oculars!
Bob

 

[Kevin Purcell]

I've closed the chat! A few people were able to get in. Perhaps I'll do something like it again in the future if there is interest.

Mike M.

If you kept a copy of the chat I'd love to see it posted!

Also, beyond the ED glass the objectives are completely redesigned. The old SLC (except for the 8x30) and EL were alone among the alphas in using fixed doublets with positive focusers. The new ones now use fixed triplets with negative focusers, like the design Leica, Zeiss and Nikon have been using for many years.

Yeap, the didn't want to be seen using the same overall design as the "Chinese EDs" (and Meopta too; they're the only positive focuser designs out there that I know of).

 

[John Russell]

The SLC HD has much better center resolution than the EDG, on par with the SV EL.

How did you gain this impression? Did you use a tripler?

John

 

[henry link]

Maybe Mike meant to use the subjective term "sharpness" instead of "resolution". Certainly all of these binoculars should have resolution around 3-3.5 arc seconds, much too good for anyone to see at 8x and not all that easy for most of us at 24x. My acuity is around 90 arc seconds, so for me to barely discern line pairs at 3 arc seconds requires at least 30x and it's much easier at 40x or more.

Edit: I should have mentioned that the "daylight" resolution of all these binoculars would be reduced by the smaller effective aperture imposed by the pupil size of the eye to something between 4 and 6 arc seconds, depending on the brightness of the conditions. But, even 6 arc seconds is still too good to see at 8x.

 

[brocknroller]

Your right the SLC-HD is an expensive item, which only makes my new Habicht 8x30W seem an absolute bargain, and it really is superb.
I just wish i had got one a lot sooner...

Has Swaro updated the Habicht with SwaroÜberDüper™ AR coatings?

Have you compared the Habicht to an 8x30 SLC Neu?

I tried an 8.5x 2001 EL and a 2009 8x30 SLC side by side, and the coatings are much improved on the SLC. Colors really pop, contrast is noticeably better. The color bias is more neutral, and there is also less CA (not that the original EL had an objectionable amount).

The EL is still be better of the two bins in terms of resolution, DOF, depth of focus, 3-D effect, low light performance, ergonomics, and close focus, but I can "clearly" see the difference the updated coatings (and perhaps more advanced glass) make in the SLC's more "transparent" image.

The EL still holds up quite well, considering the innovations that manufacturers have made over the past decade, but I'm sure a 2009 EL would be even more impressive.

I have an 8x32 SE and 8x30 EII, so I'm covered in the midsized category. When the clouds roll in and don't roll out for week at a time, it would be nice to have a full sized bin with the latest (or next to latest) coatings.

I'm hoping the prices drop on the pre-HD SLCs after the HD's are released. We might see a spate of trade-in refurbs from Swaro.

 

[Fernando np]

In the wide range of specifications of the SLC family there's a product without direct challengers, one time the zeiss 15X60 is out of production, the 15X56. Curious about a new generation. By the way, would ZR people intested in "big eyes"?

Fernando