black crow
Well-known member
Hey pechelman, great idea and you reminded me I want to buy a microscope. Thanks. Now someday if I live on and on I'll get that swaro and need those eye cups so I'll buy them and just keep them on hand.
About the brightness of the Habicht. Gijs van Ginkel measured 96% transmission and that is why the Habicht eats the E2 for breakfast. Makes it look dull, despite the good edge contrast. Plus, with my 47 years old eyes the 8x30 Habicht with 4mm exit pupil is as bright as the Zeiss Victory FL 7x46. Always. Even in twilight (probably the Stiles-Crawford effect..?). And the Leica 7x42 HDPlus is much darker. Always. That hurts.
Really hurts if you realize that in the 800g class we are no longer getting the best possible bins, that is AK roofs or porros.
And makes a SF 8x42 suck pretty bad IMO
Quit saying the EII is dull guys, you're bumming my trip.:-C Say instead that "the Habicht makes most other bins look dull". I can live with that.
You shouldn't have to go looking for eye cups to put on it so you can use it comfortably. Swarovski could have modified them by now if they had wanted to do so.
And chances are that most of the time you wouldn't notice how bright it is compared to the E2 anyway:smoke:.
I doubt if Swarovski sells enough of the Habicht's to make it worthwhile to design a new eye cup or update it in anyway. Their focus now is on their roofs EL's, SLC's and CL's which are their major sellers. In fact if you want one you better get them why you can. They could go the way of the Nikon 8x32 SE.
The people have voted for roof's because of their compactness and because they are easier to make waterproof and a lot of people think the porro's are simply old fashioned looking so that is where the market went but you are right in that the manufacturers make more money on roofs so that is where their focus is. An updated porro could match the alpha roofs but since the manufacturers aren't updating them with new coatings and features they are losing ground IMO. When you compare your EII's to the Zeiss SF Roof 8x42 tomorrow really look at contrast. When I had my last EII I know it is unpopular to say because a lot of people love their EII's and rightly so but I feel the EII is losing ground in the area of contrast compared to the alpha roofs. Hermann is right about using the GA eye cups on the 8x30 Habicht W. It solves the eye cup issues on the Habicht and Swarovski will send them to you if you ask. I had them on my Habicht when I had it. The Habicht is brighter and it does have better contrast than EII. The Habicht has amazing transmission. I had both binoculars at the same time. My issues with the Habicht were glare and a tight focuser. But you can deal with the focuser and you may not experience glare because it seems to vary between people and how you use your binoculars.
That seems to make good sense. There have been enough testimonials that I have little doubt that the Habicht is the superior optic to the EII. Should be as it costs over twice as much, wouldn't you agree?
Good points for sure. I have really no sizeable complaints about the Nikons. I had a chance to view mine up against a Zeiss Victory 8x42 today which costs $2600 and to my eye there was no noticeable difference dead center outside of brightness and contrast. They put the Zeiss to the test. The Zeiss won of course but it was very close to a tie in dead center sharpness and detail. Those Zeiss rock. The EII also rocks. I'll have the 10x in a few days and my friends Zeiss Victory 10x42 arrives then also so I'll get to compare those. I'm very very happy with the EII. I'm not buying anything new for awhile.
It makes sense that the Zeiss would beat the EII at contrast and brightness. Bigger aperture and more modern coatings.Good points for sure. I have really no sizeable complaints about the Nikons. I had a chance to view mine up against a Zeiss Victory 8x42 today which costs $2600 and to my eye there was no noticeable difference dead center outside of brightness and contrast. They put the Zeiss to the test. The Zeiss won of course but it was very close to a tie in dead center sharpness and detail. Those Zeiss rock. The EII also rocks. I'll have the 10x in a few days and my friends Zeiss Victory 10x42 arrives then also so I'll get to compare those. I'm very very happy with the EII. I'm not buying anything new for awhile.
There's an easy solution to the eye cup issue: Use the green rubber eyecups of the 7x42 GA/10x40 GA. Problem solved.
The difference in clarity and contrast is quite obvious in ANY light.
Hermann