Review of the Linet Imperial 7x35 WA 13.5 degree Porro Prism (1 Viewer)

[[email protected]]

I like the vintage porros too! It's a little funny to me how wide-field went out of style, then came back in style, but only if you pay $2500+. For a couple of the "modern" brands, you also must pay $2000 to get a decent smooth focuser, which is amusing to me. There's definitely a cult-like mentality to "alpha" bino phenomenon. Not everybody got onboard that train. In fact, most people would consider us crazy to be spending this much on binos!

If you really want to get into what makes a sensible purchase for most consumers, you don't want to go down the road of comparing some of these vintage porros to modern "alphas" IMO. I was just able to buy several pairs of the absolute cream of the crop vintage Nikon E's on ebay, get them serviced to perfection at best bino servicing shop in the US, and the bill for three of them came to less that one new pair of Leica Retro's or even a Nikon Monarch HG.

Yes, and they are better too, aren't they. I say bring back the SWA porros. They will put Swarovski and their crumbling armor out of business.

 

[Paultricounty]

I like the vintage porros too! It's a little funny to me how wide-field went out of style, then came back in style, but only if you pay $2500+. For a couple of the "modern" brands, you also must pay $2000 to get a decent smooth focuser, which is amusing to me. There's definitely a cult-like mentality to "alpha" bino phenomenon. Not everybody got onboard that train. In fact, most people would consider us crazy to be spending this much on binos!

If you really want to get into what makes a sensible purchase for most consumers, you don't want to go down the road of comparing some of these vintage porros to modern "alphas" IMO. I was just able to buy several pairs of the absolute cream of the crop vintage Nikon E's on ebay, get them serviced to perfection at best bino servicing shop in the US, and the bill for three of them came to less that one new pair of Leica Retro's or even a Nikon Monarch HG.

I like the vintage porros too! It's a little funny to me how wide-field went out of style, then came back in style, but only if you pay $2500+. For a couple of the "modern" brands, you also must pay $2000 to get a decent smooth focuser, which is amusing to me. There's definitely a cult-like mentality to "alpha" bino phenomenon. Not everybody got onboard that train. In fact, most people would consider us crazy to be spending this much on binos!

If you really want to get into what makes a sensible purchase for most consumers, you don't want to go down the road of comparing some of these vintage porros to modern "alphas" IMO. I was just able to buy several pairs of the absolute cream of the crop vintage Nikon E's on ebay, get them serviced to perfection at best bino servicing shop in the US, and the bill for three of them came to less that one new pair of Leica Retro's or even a Nikon Monarch HG.

I will say there’s a lot to like with the vintage SWA bins, and if I would’ve bought a few of these vintage SWA before I went down the road of the modern roofs and classic porros , I will admit my equipment collection would be smaller. But it has to be the right ones, some of these have an awful distracting yellow or green hue as well as some horrible pincushion distortion, especially the very super wides over 11°. And the some with low quality bk7 prisms were a joke by todays standards. The amber and violet coatings in my opinion are horrible. They can still be fun because of the immense FOV and DOF of the 7x, but then image wise they really don’t compare to modern high quality options. Another thing is that the majority, probably 80-90% of the vintage super wides were not too good.

I don’t know too much about a cult following of alpha binoculars , I think if you have the resources to buy the best they are certainly a positive evolution of optical quality as well as function as an optical tool. I’m pretty sure that if they made modern day SWA 7X binoculars with very large prisms with modern glass and coatings they would be even better than the vintage ones. OK maybe that covering my peel after a few years 😲.

Something I think people don’t realize is that these high end vintage SWA were very expensive and were the alpha’s of their time. If you look at the catalog for the Bushnell range master in 1955 , I believe they were $150, that’s the equivalent of almost $1700 today.

Im not taking anything away from the Nikon E’s or any other of the more classic porros, but I don’t think they’re on the level of the vintage SWA or the high end roofs of today.

Today there are phenomenal binoculars in the $500 range that in most ways are superior to the vintage high quality super wides , they just lack in the characteristic of very large prisms and low magnification DOF.

 

[Binocollector]

But it has to be the right ones, some of these have an awful distracting yellow or green hue as well as some horrible pincushion distortion, especially the very super wides over 11°. And the some with low quality bk7 prisms were a joke by todays standards. The amber and violet coatings in my opinion are horrible.

Too much of a generalization IMHO. There are differences between binos that seem to have the same type of coating and still one is almost perfectly color neutral and another one has a noticable tint.
I have one of the skeleton super wides, the 6x24 with 11.5° FoV (and I am sure that number is pretty close to the actual FoV as I compared it to a lot of other binos on which the specs seem to be valid) -- that one has amber coatings but it is very color neutral. And I have some with the "UV"-coatings that are awesome, like my "Scope" EWA 7x50 (BaK4 prisms). In general I think the 7x50 EWAs are optically better as they are sharper towards the edge. But they are not as insanely wide. They are more or less similar to the Kowa BDII 6.5x32 in how wide they are, just without the rolling ball effect that the Kowa has.
The BK7 models are not a "joke" as I have both -- EWA with BK7 and BaK4. My best EWA 7x35 when it comes to edge performance is my "Adler", 11°, JB113. The one application where you can clearly see the BaK4 outperform the BK7 models is for stargazing. Here my BaK4, JB22, 7x35 "Olympia" outperforms the "Adler". But not during the day.
The differences between all those old porros are sometimes subtle. I think a generalization that "one type of glass is always better" or "one type of coatings is just bad" it not very useful. You always have to look through them and compare.
Sometimes a certain "tint" to the image or rather a blocking of certain wave-lenghts is intentional. Like the yellow coatings that make the image brighter but also give it a blueish tint. Or the glass of the old military binos that eliminates some of the blue to make the bino perform better in twilight and to eliminate the UV portion of the light and increase contrast.

 

[Paultricounty]

Too much of a generalization IMHO. There are differences between binos that seem to have the same type of coating and still one is almost perfectly color neutral and another one has a noticable tint.
I have one of the skeleton super wides, the 6x24 with 11.5° FoV (and I am sure that number is pretty close to the actual FoV as I compared it to a lot of other binos on which the specs seem to be valid) -- that one has amber coatings but it is very color neutral. And I have some with the "UV"-coatings that are awesome, like my "Scope" EWA 7x50 (BaK4 prisms). In general I think the 7x50 EWAs are optically better as they are sharper towards the edge. But they are not as insanely wide. They are more or less similar to the Kowa BDII 6.5x32 in how wide they are, just without the rolling ball effect that the Kowa has.
The BK7 models are not a "joke" as I have both -- EWA with BK7 and BaK4. My best EWA 7x35 when it comes to edge performance is my "Adler", 11°, JB113. The one application where you can clearly see the BaK4 outperform the BK7 models is for stargazing. Here my BaK4, JB22, 7x35 "Olympia" outperforms the "Adler". But not during the day.
The differences between all those old porros are sometimes subtle. I think a generalization that "one type of glass is always better" or "one type of coatings is just bad" it not very useful. You always have to look through them and compare.
Sometimes a certain "tint" to the image or rather a blocking of certain wave-lenghts is intentional. Like the yellow coatings that make the image brighter but also give it a blueish tint. Or the glass of the old military binos that eliminates some of the blue to make the bino perform better in twilight and to eliminate the UV portion of the light and increase contrast.

Very true, I Generalized and lumped them all into the same boat. I was mainly thinking of some of the cheaper SWA/EWA where those coatings made for a very unpleasant image quality especially when you have all the distortion. Same with the Bak4 and Bk7, i’m generalizing because the majority of the Bk7’s were not to good. I have a Swift sportking with bk7 which is phenomenal, just as good as some Bk4’s. I also have a Swift imperial Bk7, not so good.

I think as you had said a lot of the military glass had specific criteria and reasoning for the coatings, they worked very well in their application, but don’t crossover well into a general birding or scenic optics.

 

[[email protected]]

I will say there’s a lot to like with the vintage SWA bins, and if I would’ve bought a few of these vintage SWA before I went down the road of the modern roofs and classic porros , I will admit my equipment collection would be smaller. But it has to be the right ones, some of these have an awful distracting yellow or green hue as well as some horrible pincushion distortion, especially the very super wides over 11°. And the some with low quality bk7 prisms were a joke by todays standards. The amber and violet coatings in my opinion are horrible. They can still be fun because of the immense FOV and DOF of the 7x, but then image wise they really don’t compare to modern high quality options. Another thing is that the majority, probably 80-90% of the vintage super wides were not too good.

I don’t know too much about a cult following of alpha binoculars , I think if you have the resources to buy the best they are certainly a positive evolution of optical quality as well as function as an optical tool. I’m pretty sure that if they made modern day SWA 7X binoculars with very large prisms with modern glass and coatings they would be even better than the vintage ones. OK maybe that covering my peel after a few years 😲.

Something I think people don’t realize is that these high end vintage SWA were very expensive and were the alpha’s of their time. If you look at the catalog for the Bushnell range master in 1955 , I believe they were $150, that’s the equivalent of almost $1700 today.

Im not taking anything away from the Nikon E’s or any other of the more classic porros, but I don’t think they’re on the level of the vintage SWA or the high end roofs of today.

Today there are phenomenal binoculars in the $500 range that in most ways are superior to the vintage high quality super wides , they just lack in the characteristic of very large prisms and low magnification DOF.

"Today there are phenomenal binoculars in the $500 range that in most ways are superior to the vintage high quality super wides, they just lack in the characteristic of very large prisms and low magnification DOF."

And the huge FOV. That is what is appealing to me about vintage SWA porros. You're talking a FOV way bigger FOV than the NL or even the WX. No $500 MIC modern roof can match that, nor can they match the build quality of these vintage MIJ porros. Even though the newer binoculars are technically better in some areas, they don't have the huge immersive 3D FOV of the vintage SWA porros nor the super easy eye placement.

I have never experienced an AFOV this big, and I really like it for birding because I can view a much bigger chunk of the scenery at once. I will tolerate a little field curvature and slightly less image brightness to get that. It is all personal preference. Every binocular gives you a different type of view and each one is enjoyable but perhaps different in their own way.

 

[[email protected]]

Too much of a generalization IMHO. There are differences between binos that seem to have the same type of coating and still one is almost perfectly color neutral and another one has a noticable tint.
I have one of the skeleton super wides, the 6x24 with 11.5° FoV (and I am sure that number is pretty close to the actual FoV as I compared it to a lot of other binos on which the specs seem to be valid) -- that one has amber coatings but it is very color neutral. And I have some with the "UV"-coatings that are awesome, like my "Scope" EWA 7x50 (BaK4 prisms). In general I think the 7x50 EWAs are optically better as they are sharper towards the edge. But they are not as insanely wide. They are more or less similar to the Kowa BDII 6.5x32 in how wide they are, just without the rolling ball effect that the Kowa has.
The BK7 models are not a "joke" as I have both -- EWA with BK7 and BaK4. My best EWA 7x35 when it comes to edge performance is my "Adler", 11°, JB113. The one application where you can clearly see the BaK4 outperform the BK7 models is for stargazing. Here my BaK4, JB22, 7x35 "Olympia" outperforms the "Adler". But not during the day.
The differences between all those old porros are sometimes subtle. I think a generalization that "one type of glass is always better" or "one type of coatings is just bad" it not very useful. You always have to look through them and compare.
Sometimes a certain "tint" to the image or rather a blocking of certain wave-lenghts is intentional. Like the yellow coatings that make the image brighter but also give it a blueish tint. Or the glass of the old military binos that eliminates some of the blue to make the bino perform better in twilight and to eliminate the UV portion of the light and increase contrast.

Exactly. People complain about the Zeiss FL's and SF's having a green tint, but Zeiss does it because are eyes are more sensitive to the green wavelength under low light. The older Swarovski Habichts were tinted yellow for low light resolution for hunters in the same way.

 

[[email protected]]

"Something I think people don’t realize is that these high-end vintage SWA were very expensive and were the alpha’s of their time. If you look at the catalog for the Bushnell range master in 1955, I believe they were $150, that’s the equivalent of almost $1700 today."

That is why the vintage SWA porros are such a good bargain because you can get a lot of them for 200 to 300 dollars in today's money.

 

[CharleyBird]

People complain about the Zeiss FL's and SF's having a green tint

The Zeiss FL were made in two versions. Version two with newer lens coatings gave a slight yellowish/green tint. Version one is neutral.

The Zeiss SF for some people does have a very slight greenish tint, but Zeiss also make the SFL which is widely regarded as neutral.

I have not used an SFL, so please correct the above if wrong.

 

[[email protected]]

The Zeiss FL were made in two versions. Version two with newer lens coatings gave a slight yellowish/green tint. Version one is neutral.

The Zeiss SF for some people does have a very slight greenish tint, but Zeiss also make the SFL which is widely regarded as neutral.

I have not used an SFL, so please correct the above if wrong.

My Zeiss FL 8x42 must be version 2 because it has a very slight greenish tint, which I don't find objectionable. I had the SFL and you are correct in that it is color neutral. For people that don't like the greenish tint of the FL, that is one advantage of the SFL.