Nikon Monarch HG (1 Viewer)

[Gilmore Girl]

Maybe pick up an old Leica 8x32BN?
They are still pretty decent optically and physically really well built. They would probably give the putative HG 32 a run for their money.

I really wanted ultravid 8x32...that was the one I desired most, but
ER is too short (I wear glasses) and I believe the old BN is short on ER too.
So I'm looking for light and small with good ER. But I don't want to make this thread about my search for mid sized bino when the topic is 42mm HG.
I appreciate the suggestions though.

 

[cycleguy]

Hopefully Nikon sport optics will be a little less cluess in the marketing this binocular, unlike the woeful attempt and failure at marketing the EDG.

I'd agree that Nikon dropped the ball with the "selling" part of the EDG and the Premier.

Hopefully they are clever enough to get this one in the big box and specialty stores where people can actually see them, handle them, and look thru them.!! Wow... what an amazing concept! Who could ever come up with something like that??? Revolutionary, yes.

Its been over a decade and I have never seen an EDG or premier (including prior versions) in any flavor in any store here along the front range.

If they aren't willing to get them in front of the mass of the buying public... it isn't going to matter what you call them... but I do believe the Monarch name is strong here in the states and is a good move. Most here will never realize this binocular has history with a prior model.

I also find it very strange that I've never seen a Conquest HD in any flavor other than 10x42 in any retail stores here either, specifically the 8x32.

This is just wrong... (hope you binocular companies are listening)... but it wouldn't surprise me if this new offering goes the same route and has to be ordered online sight unseen with only birdforum reviews to go off of.

Keep up the good work guys and gals,

CG

 

[The-Wanderer]

See post 61

 

[The-Wanderer]

Binastro,

Post 168

Wonderful wit, congratulations!

 

[Chosun Juan]

The popularity of birding reflects its undemanding entry requirements.
A willingness to look and to listen are enough to enjoy it. Binoculars and stuff are nice to haves, not essentials.
The same characteristics make birders very tight fisted.
Here in the US, hunters buy their duck stamp religiously every year, currently $25. They do so partly because it is part of the duck hunting license, but more because 98% of the proceeds go to acquire and improve habitat.
Birders don't kill birds, so they don't have the same sense of obligation towards making sure that the birds will be around next year. They do not contribute anywhere near proportionately, even factoring in memberships in Audubon and related entities.
The results are correspondingly different, over the past 40 years, the hunted species in the US such as ducks and turkeys are doing much better than the small passerines, whose habitat and insect food sources are impacted by urbanization and pesticide use.

..... A sad but true comment......

I find it is disheartening to read of subject matter like this in these posts ..... what a sad indictment of modern civilization that we no longer regard guardianship of the land as a way of being :-C

How sad that we as a race, treat the earth, its ecosystems, and non-human (well mostly) inhabitants, as something to exploit rather than to nurture.

How absolutely outrageous that the very people who actually have hearts and care about such matters (note: not for the purposes of having something to, and somewhere to, blam away at) are the ones that are constantly targeted (either through suggestion, or actual fees/extra taxation) in blatant additional money grabs :eek!:

I'm all for fixing the place back up with multi-pronged strategies, but have we seriously forgotten that we all pay general taxation anyway? Part of which is meant to address such damage brought through past injustices and ignorance, not to mention for education, health, infrastructure, and funds to invest to cover our retirement, etc, etc, etc ....... :stuck:

Just because Governments have become accustomed to taking the easy option of reaching in through your nostrils, to try and extort your last remaining breath as payment for the toll on your very existence, in preference to curtailing their own wanton excess and inefficiencies ....... :storm:

Have we become so numb and brainwashed that we are blind to the double dipping, the triple, the quadruple, and more dipping ..... The extra sinister taxation on our daily survival? On food, on fuel, on on, and on and on and on ....... :C

Since when have we allowed Governments to become unsustainable spending money pits? Borrowing not only from our environment which they don't own, but having their greedy hooks extracating more than a fair pound of flesh, milking our future blood, sweat, and tears, borrowing from the very future itself to pay for the excesses of today?!

So sad. So Bad. SO MAD ...... :storm:

Some of my most satisfying times in life have been watching the Bower birds, and the Whip birds nesting in my lush yard which I have not watered, nor mown for 20 years, or of watching a Little Eagle hunting introduced feral rabbits from a 20ft high tree --- a tree that I planted as a seedling ....... :t:

Thanks to the lynx GiGi provided, some good info on 'birdifying' your property here: http://www.audubon.org/magazine/july-august-2013/how-create-bird-friendly-yard

Okay, wake up call over, ...... back to normal programing .......


Chosun :gh:

 

[Troubador]

Hey JG,

I didn't think so at first , but after opening that European link Bob
provided it sure looks that way.

But the reason I mentioned Birders is only because that's what I know. I can only guess that Nikon sells ok among your group, hunters. Do you think Nikon sells well with the hunting demographic? Where do you think they sit among other brands from your experience?

I'm sure Vortex and Leupold and some others do well with hunters based on their websites. There's a lot of hunting imagery on those. Down the street from me is a sport shop with a hunting section where they have a small display case of bins and it's only Bushnell and Nikon, so I always assumed Nikon has a foothold in that democraphic along with other brands.

But I do know that Nikon is seen everywhere I go birding. They are very popular among the birding crowd and I think the HG will do well for those who want to spend that much. There are other brands I see when out of course, but I see lots of Nikon.

I believe the birding and general nature observation demographic has surpassed hunting now from what I've read. So it has become a big business and now you see more marketing towards birders these days (than used to be).

Market Leaders among hunters are Bushnell and Nikon. No reason to suppose that this is different among regular birders in the States.

Lee

 

[Troubador]

I find it is disheartening to read of subject matter like this in these posts ..... what a sad indictment of modern civilization that we no longer regard guardianship of the land as a way of being :-C

How sad that we as a race, treat the earth, its ecosystems, and non-human (well mostly) inhabitants, as something to exploit rather than to nurture.

How absolutely outrageous that the very people who actually have hearts and care about such matters (note: not for the purposes of having something to, and somewhere to, blam away at) are the ones that are constantly targeted (either through suggestion, or actual fees/extra taxation) in blatant additional money grabs :eek!:

I'm all for fixing the place back up with multi-pronged strategies, but have we seriously forgotten that we all pay general taxation anyway? Part of which is meant to address such damage brought through past injustices and ignorance, not to mention for education, health, infrastructure, and funds to invest to cover our retirement, etc, etc, etc ....... :stuck:

Just because Governments have become accustomed to taking the easy option of reaching in through your nostrils, to try and extort your last remaining breath as payment for the toll on your very existence, in preference to curtailing their own wanton excess and inefficiencies ....... :storm:

Have we become so numb and brainwashed that we are blind to the double dipping, the triple, the quadruple, and more dipping ..... The extra sinister taxation on our daily survival? On food, on fuel, on on, and on and on and on ....... :C

Since when have we allowed Governments to become unsustainable spending money pits? Borrowing not only from our environment which they don't own, but having their greedy hooks extracating more than a fair pound of flesh, milking our future blood, sweat, and tears, borrowing from the very future itself to pay for the excesses of today?!

So sad. So Bad. SO MAD ...... :storm:

Some of my most satisfying times in life have been watching the Bower birds, and the Whip birds nesting in my lush yard which I have not watered, nor mown for 20 years, or of watching a Little Eagle hunting introduced feral rabbits from a 20ft high tree --- a tree that I planted as a seedling ....... :t:

Thanks to the lynx GiGi provided, some good info on 'birdifying' your property here: http://www.audubon.org/magazine/july-august-2013/how-create-bird-friendly-yard

Okay, wake up call over, ...... back to normal programing .......


Chosun :gh:

A very good friend of mine, a manager of a hotel in southern Scotland, was once reading about the plans to 'develop' an area around a mountain in Scotland.

He turned to me with a look of outrage on his face and said 'This man thinks he owns a mountain! A mountain! How can a man own a mountain? How can a man who lives for 80 years and can't see any further than his grandchildren if he has any, own, really own a mountain? Its a disgusting and dangerous and short-sighted idea!'

Never forgotten the passion in his voice or how right he was.

Lee

 

[Chosun Juan]

Chosun,

"along with reasonable 17mm+ ER". Your four eyes might work but mine may not, and therefore would be unreasonable.

Hey Wanderer, I agree that 17mm may be marginal or worse for some. All ER requirements are not created equal (facial features, prescription, glasses frame design, etc), just as all ocular diameters, and eye cup designs respond differently .....

Strangely, I have to open the eye cups out by the exact same smidgen on the 20mm ER SV, as on a 16mm HT :h?:

I'm hoping that the ER on this new MHG can similarly defy some laws of physics, time and space! and be 'reasonably suitable' :-O for most folk o


Chosun :gh:

 

[[email protected]]

Are the new Nikon 8x42 HG's available for anywhere in the US at a good price yet?

 

[Chosun Juan]

...... The EWA Porroprism binoculars have rather poor edges, but at least my edge vsion is also poor, but you pick up things that most binoculars miss. I also mainly use them at twilight or night.

I don't wear glassses so eye relief doesn't really matter. Usually modern binoculars have too much eye relief for me. Do 50% of people use binoculars sans glasses? If so there is a large market for EWA .......

Hey Bin :hi:

Yes, but only if what is lurking in the fuzzy edges actually moves, otherwise I find those subjects to be about as visible as a 400lb Gorilla in the middle of a ball throwing experiment! :-O

There are various figures floating around, and I did have in mind (filed somewhere in the recesses of my increasingly dodgy memory :brains: that the proportion of glasses wearers was around ~40% with the notion that it would be climbing ..... However a rudimentary (and superficial) look would indicate that currently that figure may be ~60% or more (jeez the Sabre-toothed Tigers of old would be having a field day! :eek!: , though for binocular use I would think you could rule out a lot of the reading glasses wearers. With the increasing ubiquity of all manner of screens and screen time from toddlers onward, a rise in myopia could be expected (along with an increase in elbow-jointed necks! :-O

Regardless of the actual figures, it is not commercially sustainable to exclude something like half your potential market :cat: ....... whether your EWA view of that is glasses half full , or not ! 3


Chosun :gh:

 

[Binastro]

I agree with you Chosun.
The 8x40 Minolta Standard MK is 500ft at 1000 yards field. This is 30% larger area than the Monarch HG 8x42.
It is only moving objects that are seen off centre but the field for me is a natural size not some restricted cut off view.
You only need to start running when the 400 lb gorilla moves if he is at binocular viewing distance. At least you see him move in the Minolta but he is out of view in the Monarch HG. The gorillas only expect a Monarch HG not a Dude with an old Minolta to spoil their supper.
The weight is 847g. The binocular not the gorilla.
The eye relief for me is more than adequate.
The problem is the Minolta has lousy coatings. It needed full multicoatings, in which Minolta were Japanese leaders.
The glass is good, Minolta made 150 types themselves. They also went sort of belly up, although it is probably the Minolta team still at Sony and still leading the way in many respects.
I looked at a crow this morning at 118m and it was rather dull, with some CA although the white pillars show little CA.

Look at your new Australian creation. Graham. A new man who will survive car crashes. He has no neck and is rather handsome, well to an Alien perhaps.
Created by a sculptress? and a surgeon.
I doubt that he wears glasses but his eye relef requirements might be considerable.

 

[Troubador]

At least you see him move in the Minolta but he is out of view in the Monarch HG.

But Binny, do you apparently see the gorilla or really see it?? :-O

Lee

 

[SuperDuty]

I found the (ease of view) with the 10X42 HT and 10X50 SV to be nearly equal. I've got a gut feeling that the eye relief specs on both may be off a little, the HT more than stated, the SV less. They both work equally well with eyeglasses.

Strangely, I have to open the eye cups out by the exact same smidgen on the 20mm ER SV, as on a 16mm HT :h?:

Chosun :gh:

 

[Binastro]

Lee.
I apparently see the gorilla move with the Minolta 8x40 when you don't see it in the Nikon Monarch 8x42 HG, and you are asking me why I am tying up my shoelaces, as I can't outrun a gorilla.

I only have to run faster than you.

Apologies to Alan Turing. The Imitation Game (2014) on last night Channel 4.
He ran the marathon in 1946 in 2 hours 46 minutes.
1948 Olympic record 2 hours 36min about.

 

[Troubador]

Lee.
I apparently see the gorilla move with the Minolta 8x40 when you don't see it in the Nikon Monarch 8x42 HG, and you are asking me why I am tying up my shoelaces, as I can't outrun a gorilla.

I only have to run faster than you.

Apologies to Alan Turing. The Imitation Game (2014) on last night Channel 4.
He ran the marathon in 1946 in 2 hours 46 minutes.
1948 Olympic record 2 hours 36min about.

Yes, but Gorillas cheat. They use their arms as legs and thats not fair. I think the best idea would be to take the gorilla to one side and have a mammal-to-mammal talk to it about ethics, morals and Russian athletics doping and Brexit. This will reduce it to a whimpering wreck which you can then befriend with tender words and a banana.

Missed the Imitation Game last night as we were watching Season 5 of Homeland on DVD. No Gorillas were harmed in the making of Homeland.

Lee

 

[chill6x6]

I found the (ease of view) with the 10X42 HT and 10X50 SV to be nearly equal. I've got a gut feeling that the eye relief specs on both may be off a little, the HT more than stated, the SV less. They both work equally well with eyeglasses.

Zeiss uses the "16mm" number a LOT. I think that's probably the MINIMUM. The FL 7X42 WAY more...HT 10X42 slightly more. Swarovski uses "20mm" a lot. I'm pretty sure my 10X42/32 doesn't have that much but the 8.5X42 and especially the 8X32 has MORE.

 

[[email protected]]

I found the (ease of view) with the 10X42 HT and 10X50 SV to be nearly equal. I've got a gut feeling that the eye relief specs on both may be off a little, the HT more than stated, the SV less. They both work equally well with eyeglasses.

I found the ease of view of the SV to be a little better than the HT because of the bigger exit pupil on the SV. Also, the SV has more wow factor because of the bigger AFOV.

 

[Binastro]

8x42 Monarch HG.
2 in stock Clifton cameras.

 

[The-Wanderer]

Nikon Monarch 10x42 HG Binoculars @. £849.00 as well!

 

[ceasar]

$1100.00 US Dollars? Is that right? They will have a hard time keeping them in stock!