Which one do you like better, the SLC or the SV. (1 Viewer)

[elkcub]

Interestingly some of the most interesting modern binoculars of the past decade were designed by Gerold Dobler, himself a birdwatcher. And AFAIK Leica enroled the services of Nanette Roland, who is also a birdwatcher. If you want to sell binoculars to birdwatchers you'd better ask the birdwatchers what they need ...

On the subject of ED glas in binoculars: Interesting quote from Antony Kay that shows how little he knew about the history of binoculars at the time. AFAIK the first well-known binocular that used ED glass was the Zeiss West 10x50 with its "semi-apochromatic" objectives, as Zeiss called them. It was made from 1957-1969. Later Zeiss made another 1000 pairs, marketing them as the "binocular of the century". A huge field of view (130m/1000m), definitely not suitable for eyeglass wearers with its Erfle eyepieces and, by today's standards, low contrast due to its single coatings, but no CA, at least none I can see.

Hermann

Thanks for that, Hermann. I had been thinking that Swift was first to enter the arena, but Zeiss had already been there. Not too surprising. For Porro implementations the 820ED Audubon seems to be the only one in current production. Is that right?

Incidentally, I've had a related thought running around in my head for some time that the upsurge in ED glass is historically linked to the advent of multicoatings, which makes CA more "visible." Prior to multicoatings, only extremely wide-field quality binoculars, such as the Zeiss West 10x50 you mentioned, would have had objectionable CA effects, essentially because lateral CA increases exponentially with field angle. Along that line, note that the 804 Audubon (also with a wide field) didn't get ED glass until the company employed full multicoating the the mid-1990s.

Incidentally, I'm not convinced that camera technology adequately mimics visual perception of CA, so unfortunately proof isn't easily come by. Nonetheless, I find the evolutionary sequence and widespread implementation of multicoatings, followed by ED glass, rather compelling. After all, as the Zeiss exampe suggests, there was nothing to prevent ED glass from widespread use before multicoatings.

Regards,
Ed

 

[ceasar]

Increasing the distance from the eyepiece glass to my eye. If I get too close all sorts of interesting things happen. My SE taught me there's an eye relief sweet spot I should not ignore. On the SV's I could just unscrew the eyecups but I'd rather simply "back off" a tad.

PS
A "tad" is whatever works for you.

I do that by slightly adjusting the location of where I brace them just under my eyebrows.

Bob

 

[Troubador]

Interestingly some of the most interesting modern binoculars of the past decade were designed by Gerold Dobler, himself a birdwatcher.
Hermann

Hermann

If Gerold Dobler was here with us, he would immediately say that it was Konnie Seil who took Dobler's ideas and turned them into optical systems.

Konrad Seil died a couple of years ago, having translated Dobler's concept of a slimline doublet objective with the focusing lens functionally grouped with them, a field flattener and governed by the principal of weight taken out of the objectives and a strict maximum weight: ie the optical system of the SF.

Lee

 

[Troubador]

I do that by slightly adjusting the location of where I brace them just under my eyebrows.

Bob

Since acquiring my current spectacles I need a bit more adjustability myself and have achieved the same effect by fitting suitably-sized rubber o-rings under the eyecups.

Lee

 

[Gijs van Ginkel]

Herman, post 180.
Dobler is not the only birder in a binocular design team (now working at Zeiss). Swarovski also has, as far as I know, in its quality teams birders and hunters, so they can hear directly from the work floor what is desired from binoculars for birders and hunters. I think that in that respect Swarovski does a very good job and perhaps better than its colleague binocular producers. Some years ago I was invited by Zeiss to comment on a certain line of binoculars, which I had investigated and at that (very pleasant and useful ) occasion the man who was in charge of guarding the overall quality of the binocular line asked me what Zeiss could do better and my suggestion then was: listen better to your main group of customers like birders, outdoor etc. since Zeiss seemed at that time very much focussed on hunters.

Lee, post 203,
Very good that you mention the key role Konrad Seill has played in the design of the SF. I met him once at Swarovski and apart from his high professional skills he was a very nice man.
Gijs

 

[jan van daalen]

Herman, post 180.
Dobler is not the only birder in a binocular design team (now working at Zeiss). Swarovski also has, as far as I know, in its quality teams birders and hunters, so they can hear directly from the work floor what is desired from binoculars for birders and hunters. I think that in that respect Swarovski does a very good job and perhaps better than its colleague binocular producers. Some years ago I was invited by Zeiss to comment on a certain line of binoculars, which I had investigated and at that (very pleasant and useful ) occasion the man who was in charge of guarding the overall quality of the binocular line asked me what Zeiss could do better and my suggestion then was: listen better to your main group of customers like birders, outdoor etc. since Zeiss seemed at that time very much focussed on hunters.

Lee, post 203,
Very good that you mention the key role Konrad Seill has played in the design of the SF. I met him once at Swarovski and apart from his high professional skills he was a very nice man.
Gijs

Gijs,

Watch out for what you are saying.
There are people out here who, if they don't like what you're saying, will call you a armchair specialist, a amateur, a biassed with a hidden agenda

Jan

 

[Gijs van Ginkel]

Jan,
Thank you for warning me and, since we now have a private conversation I can tell you something that is for your eyes only. The past week I have been visiting a top secret optical project company, that is specialised in all kinds of glass production etc. It is located on the German-Austrian-Czech border (I am not allowed to tell more). The people there are working on a so-called HR-SBB-NF project that will change the world completely as far as binoculars is concerned. One of the top-secret developments is their SE-coating line which blows away (every BF reader knows now that something very important and highly interesting is now at stake) every instrument made until now even the more than 10 million binoculars Zeiss has produced probably between 1894 and now.
Gijs
PS. I forgot to mention what HR-SBB stands for, it is Highest Resolution-Super-Bright-Binoculars. SE stands for Stimulated Emission coatings, this is a special coating in which every photon hitting the coating is multiplied by a factor of at least 1000, but many more is possible. It is a process that is working like a laser and in that way light transmissions far over 100% can be realised. NF stands for No Flare and the research company is very far by blackening the prisms to some extent and I hope that you will understand that this information can not be shared with every body, so, again for your eyes only

 

[kestrel1]

So these coatings will need some pump source to enable this amplyfying...
Ruber armoring needs to be replaced by solar array armoring...
These birders in 2050+ will really really have unseen possibilities /if the birds will survive of course.../

 

[Gijs van Ginkel]

Kestrel, post 208,
A femto pump is already incorporated in the coating layer, so no trouble and the pump works mainly on solar cells and even moonlight will be enough to bring it to work, so hunters can have the same vision as lions in the dark. The designers have really everything under control, but you were not supposed to know.
Gijs

 

[kestrel1]

If the body of binocular can be designed as some Lithium battery, to store energy while providing light weight and metal housing it will be even better...
Hope that I will live long enough to try this technical wonder.

 

[Troubador]

Lee, post 203,
Very good that you mention the key role Konrad Seill has played in the design of the SF. I met him once at Swarovski and apart from his high professional skills he was a very nice man.
Gijs

Thanks Gijs

I will be sure to mention this to Gerold.

Lee

 

[Troubador]

Kestrel, post 208,
A femto pump is already incorporated in the coating layer, so no trouble and the pump works mainly on solar cells and even moonlight will be enough to bring it to work, so hunters can have the same vision as lions in the dark. The designers have really everything under control, but you were not supposed to know.
Gijs

Gijs
I think you will find that piezo crystals are embedded throughout the armour and eyecups so that every squeeze and every slight bit of pressure charges up the batteries too.

After only 3 hours in the field there is enough surplus energy in the batteries to grill two hamburgers on the accessory cooking and GPS navigation console that is an optional extra.

Lee

 

[Gijs van Ginkel]

Lee,
I did not know, that you were also informed about these new developments. Glad that you joined the club.
Gijs

 

[Troubador]

Lee,
I did not know, that you were also informed about these new developments. Glad that you joined the club.
Gijs

AFAIK this knowledge is only available to those who have visited the Tivoli Bar in Amsterdam.

I am still paying the bar bill, 25 years later :eek!:

Lee

 

[jan van daalen]

AFAIK this knowledge is only available to those who have visited the Tivoli Bar in Amsterdam.

I am still paying the bar bill, 25 years later :eek!:

Lee

Ahhh, Tivoli Thorbeckeplein in the 80s :gh: + B = :smoke:

Weren't those the days!

Jan

 

[Troubador]

Ahhh, Tivoli Thorbeckeplein in the 80s :gh: + B = :smoke:

Weren't those the days!

Jan

Indeed they were Jan and their like will not be seen again! :gh: + B = £££££

Hopefully :eek!:

Lee

 

[elkcub]

...
And that proves what? Given some of "test results" they published over the years coming out on top in an Allbinos "test" doesn't necessarily mean all that much.

Hermann

Rankings are derived by summing independent component scores. My company uses that method to rank people by carefully measuring gender, height, weight, eye color, and blood type. We add up the component scores to calculate an unbiased composite percentage score.

Gender: hermaphrodite = 3, male =2, female =1, trans=1 .5
Height: giant = 3, tall =2, short =1, little = .5
Weight: light =2, heavy =1, obese = -2
Eye color: blue =2, brown =1, green =1.5, gray =1, red =0
Blood type: A = 2, AB =1.5, B =1, O =0

Max score = 12
Min score = 0
My score = 2+2+1+2+1.5 = 8.5 or 70.83%

What? Did you say that Intelligence was left out? Too bad, not important. :smoke:

Elkcub Revlis,
CEO & Chief Scientist, ALLPEOPLE

 

[PeterPS]

Ed:

I hope your scores are fictitious, otherwise you have provided us with more info about yourself than we needed to know....

I believe that somebody (maybe you?) should start a new thread about Allbinos tests. Savvy people use their tests to gather technical info that's not easily available on other websites. Of course their ranking method can be criticized: just as an example, simple features that are very important to users, such as "is it likely that I will get blackouts when looking through this set?", are not even taken into consideration. A separate thread about Allbinos (maybe one already exists?) will give them a chance to defend their approach, and also a chance to this forum to suggest improvements of it.

Peter

 

[PeterPS]

I should add that, while the method of averaging is questionable, in order to obtain a global score one has to use some form of averaging. The features whose scores are summed up indeed are rather different, yet by using a different maximum score for each of them, averaging their scores boils down to weighted averaging which in my mind would be a sound approach, Of course the way the maximum scores are assigned is the delicate part, and it sure can be improved upon.//Peter.

 

[ceasar]

Using a binocular is a particularly personal undertaking. The perfect example of this is the Nikon SE. Some people see partial blackouts using the Nikon SEs and can't use them. Others did not see these blackouts at all. Others learned how to accommodate their eye placement in using them to eliminate the blackouts.

I don't know how any method of testing a binocular could determine its propensity to give blackouts to potential users considering all the individual methods people have in using them.

Bob