kimsrk
Just a newbie
My binocular addiction continues....
I fell in love with the idea of quality pocket bino's after feeling a little nerdy walking around with some big Kowa Genesis 10.5x44 at a local trail. Compact, powerful enough, and still a great view? Too good to be true?
I grabbed 3, hopefully top end pairs, to compare side by side. A Zeiss and Swaro comparison makes a lot of sense but I wanted to add in Kowa to the mix as they are often touted as near high end, and since they are all priced within about $150 of each other it is a good chance to see, if Kowas were priced the same as Swarovski's and Zeiss, will hold their own optically?
Swaro
In a group of compact bin's these are teeny tiny fun sized binoculars. The other two are not big at all and they still sort of dwarf the Curios. Not surprisingly these weighed the least at about 260g. Right in line with all the Swaros I've put hands on, they feel and look great. Their small size is unassuming, the view is not. They are flat to the edge with a crystal clear, almost shimmering brightness to the image. FOV is great and eye relief with glasses was the best of the 3. I still am a stickler for CA and although these are very good, I still found it easier to get false color out of these compared to Zeiss or Kowa. They are near perfect dead center, but if the view is not perfectly aligned with your pupil (which is considerably more difficult using this style), any tilting or binocular movement produced noticeable CA pretty early in the view. Despite that, the CA suppression is over-all still top tier, just, of the top tier I don't find it to be the best.
Mechanically these hit all the usual top notch Swaro wickets, eye cups extend smoothly and felt comfortable against my eye sockets. The rubber armor feels grippy but smooth. Eye placement is easy enough for this style of bin, but the double hinge design can be annoying and if they are going in and out of your pocket frequently it can get really annoying, not a fault of Swaro, more-so a limiting factor of ultra compact binoculars. The focusing knob is thin knurled plastic, comfortably palced, with a slow precise focus. I personally don't like how slow the focusing is, but I can see why some people do as it allows for the most precise focus. The diopter is OK, nothing special, nothing bad. With all of the models I had to check on it once in a while because they all can be accidentally adjusted. Accessories are slightly lower end for Swaro, but nothing at all to complain about. Standard straps and a nice carrying case.
Zeiss
First noteworthy thing is the off center hinge, and despite it being a little awkward to use at first, it grew on me very quickly. The advantage of only adjusting one hinge, for me, greatly outweighs any slight awkwardness of aesthetics or function. The second noteworthy thing is the armor. I don't like it at all. It has a sticky rubber feel that makes me think it's only going to be good for a few years and it is a fuzz magnet. I got an open box demo so maybe it is slightly worse than normal, but I doubt it. The view through these is great, but the Swaro's view is sublime and somehow seemed just as bright and brilliant as the Zeiss with larger objective lenses. The Zeiss' view is slightly distorted near the outer edge, but not at all distracting and barely noticeable to me. CA suppression was about the same as the Curio's, maybe slightly edging them out. FOV is nice and wide and the extra magnification is really nice. Color brightness and detail were all very good. Weight for these came in at about 288g.
Mechanically everything is tight and smooth. The eyecups suffice but were my least favorite of the three, and eye relief was second, just barely, to Swaro. They were usable with glasses for me, but a little FOV was lost. Another rubber knurled focusing knob that is faster yet still precise, much more to my taste, and falls nicely between the speed of Kowa and Swaro. Nothing really to say about the diopter. Accessories are about the same quality as Swaro, not spectacular, just fine. The case is much bigger and more rugged, which could be a positive or a negative based on your preferences. I would actually like to see a more pouch-like design to carry these in. But that's just me.
Kowa
At first I really liked them. On paper they should be nice and bright and my experience with the genesis line has been good for me so far. In bright day light the Kowas were more than adequate and at first glance seemed to be right up there with the two big dogs. But, because I wanted to prove some people here wrong about Kowa
I was determined to dig and see if they really could hold up. The glass seemed pretty flat with minimal distortion but slightly more than Zeiss, and for my eyes more than good enough to not be distracting. CA suppression was the best overall of the 3, IMHO, but they are all very good. At mid-day I didn't notice any brightness difference between the 3, but there was a very noticeable tint to these when I looked at distant, white-colored objects. I'm not actually sure which was more accurate because the Swaros and Zeiss almost seemed too white, or maybe 'cool', so perhaps the Kowas have a warmer tone; not necessarily bad or any more inaccurate. Going back and forth between these and either Swaro or Zeiss, it was clear (or not so clear ) that something was different with the Kowa glass. At night, lit only by the moon, it stood out that the Kowas were weirdly dark. I could pick out reds and greens of flowers nicely with the Swaros or Zeiss that were muted, dull, and just not good when using the Kowas...but this was under the most extreme use case. The last thing I tried was to use books in a dimly lit room as props to see if maybe there was still hope for the Kowa’s reputation. With poor lighting I used all 3 bino's to try and read small print on some book bindings across the room, maybe 20 feet away. Long story short, the Swaros and Zeiss undoubtedly outperformed the Kowas. Don't get me wrong, the Kowas were fine, but they were darker and less sharp. Perhaps showing that they are not quite in the top tier, especially considering that the Swaro magnification is only 7X yet their view was crisper and brighter.
Mechanically I like the Kowas better than Zeiss, but not really better than Swaro, for me it's about equal. Eye relief was the worst with these, they were the most frustrating to use with glasses; serviceable but definitely sacrificing FOV. Accessories were about on par with Swaro and Zeiss, noting to write home about; adequate. Weight for these is about 320g.
Parting thoughts
Putting these in order of quality was not too difficult, Swaro was the best overall optically, but Zeiss was not far behind, and really only got edged out because the Swaros view just had the 'wow' factor. The Zeiss should not be under estimated here, though. Kowa was slightly disappointing, both me and my SO were the least impressed with Kowas clarity at long distances when we field tested them, and to me the dimly lit room test most obviously showed the flaws in the Kowas. The only thing worth considering between the Victory Pockets and the Curios is the size and hinge design. I really preferred Zeiss for the one hinge and the focusing knob, but the ultra-compact Curios manage to be so much and so small at the same time it is really impressive. As for the Kowas, I think they are still great and deserve a lot of praise, but the issues in low light, and lack of sharpness were evident next to Swaro and Zeiss. I preferred Kowa CA suppression and their fit and finish is also very good. Because these are basically all priced the same, there's really no reason to even look at Kowa in the pocket bino category. 100% get either the Victory Pockets or Curios, or just go a tier lower and save some money. If you want the 10x magnification get the Zeiss, if you want to smallest bino's ever made that still deliver high quality views, get the Swaros. Stay away form the Kowa Genesis 10x22's.
**I'll still leave it out there that these could just be a bad pair from Kowa but I don't feel like going through any back and forth to find out.
I fell in love with the idea of quality pocket bino's after feeling a little nerdy walking around with some big Kowa Genesis 10.5x44 at a local trail. Compact, powerful enough, and still a great view? Too good to be true?
I grabbed 3, hopefully top end pairs, to compare side by side. A Zeiss and Swaro comparison makes a lot of sense but I wanted to add in Kowa to the mix as they are often touted as near high end, and since they are all priced within about $150 of each other it is a good chance to see, if Kowas were priced the same as Swarovski's and Zeiss, will hold their own optically?
Swaro
In a group of compact bin's these are teeny tiny fun sized binoculars. The other two are not big at all and they still sort of dwarf the Curios. Not surprisingly these weighed the least at about 260g. Right in line with all the Swaros I've put hands on, they feel and look great. Their small size is unassuming, the view is not. They are flat to the edge with a crystal clear, almost shimmering brightness to the image. FOV is great and eye relief with glasses was the best of the 3. I still am a stickler for CA and although these are very good, I still found it easier to get false color out of these compared to Zeiss or Kowa. They are near perfect dead center, but if the view is not perfectly aligned with your pupil (which is considerably more difficult using this style), any tilting or binocular movement produced noticeable CA pretty early in the view. Despite that, the CA suppression is over-all still top tier, just, of the top tier I don't find it to be the best.
Mechanically these hit all the usual top notch Swaro wickets, eye cups extend smoothly and felt comfortable against my eye sockets. The rubber armor feels grippy but smooth. Eye placement is easy enough for this style of bin, but the double hinge design can be annoying and if they are going in and out of your pocket frequently it can get really annoying, not a fault of Swaro, more-so a limiting factor of ultra compact binoculars. The focusing knob is thin knurled plastic, comfortably palced, with a slow precise focus. I personally don't like how slow the focusing is, but I can see why some people do as it allows for the most precise focus. The diopter is OK, nothing special, nothing bad. With all of the models I had to check on it once in a while because they all can be accidentally adjusted. Accessories are slightly lower end for Swaro, but nothing at all to complain about. Standard straps and a nice carrying case.
Zeiss
First noteworthy thing is the off center hinge, and despite it being a little awkward to use at first, it grew on me very quickly. The advantage of only adjusting one hinge, for me, greatly outweighs any slight awkwardness of aesthetics or function. The second noteworthy thing is the armor. I don't like it at all. It has a sticky rubber feel that makes me think it's only going to be good for a few years and it is a fuzz magnet. I got an open box demo so maybe it is slightly worse than normal, but I doubt it. The view through these is great, but the Swaro's view is sublime and somehow seemed just as bright and brilliant as the Zeiss with larger objective lenses. The Zeiss' view is slightly distorted near the outer edge, but not at all distracting and barely noticeable to me. CA suppression was about the same as the Curio's, maybe slightly edging them out. FOV is nice and wide and the extra magnification is really nice. Color brightness and detail were all very good. Weight for these came in at about 288g.
Mechanically everything is tight and smooth. The eyecups suffice but were my least favorite of the three, and eye relief was second, just barely, to Swaro. They were usable with glasses for me, but a little FOV was lost. Another rubber knurled focusing knob that is faster yet still precise, much more to my taste, and falls nicely between the speed of Kowa and Swaro. Nothing really to say about the diopter. Accessories are about the same quality as Swaro, not spectacular, just fine. The case is much bigger and more rugged, which could be a positive or a negative based on your preferences. I would actually like to see a more pouch-like design to carry these in. But that's just me.
Kowa
At first I really liked them. On paper they should be nice and bright and my experience with the genesis line has been good for me so far. In bright day light the Kowas were more than adequate and at first glance seemed to be right up there with the two big dogs. But, because I wanted to prove some people here wrong about Kowa
I was determined to dig and see if they really could hold up. The glass seemed pretty flat with minimal distortion but slightly more than Zeiss, and for my eyes more than good enough to not be distracting. CA suppression was the best overall of the 3, IMHO, but they are all very good. At mid-day I didn't notice any brightness difference between the 3, but there was a very noticeable tint to these when I looked at distant, white-colored objects. I'm not actually sure which was more accurate because the Swaros and Zeiss almost seemed too white, or maybe 'cool', so perhaps the Kowas have a warmer tone; not necessarily bad or any more inaccurate. Going back and forth between these and either Swaro or Zeiss, it was clear (or not so clear ) that something was different with the Kowa glass. At night, lit only by the moon, it stood out that the Kowas were weirdly dark. I could pick out reds and greens of flowers nicely with the Swaros or Zeiss that were muted, dull, and just not good when using the Kowas...but this was under the most extreme use case. The last thing I tried was to use books in a dimly lit room as props to see if maybe there was still hope for the Kowa’s reputation. With poor lighting I used all 3 bino's to try and read small print on some book bindings across the room, maybe 20 feet away. Long story short, the Swaros and Zeiss undoubtedly outperformed the Kowas. Don't get me wrong, the Kowas were fine, but they were darker and less sharp. Perhaps showing that they are not quite in the top tier, especially considering that the Swaro magnification is only 7X yet their view was crisper and brighter.Mechanically I like the Kowas better than Zeiss, but not really better than Swaro, for me it's about equal. Eye relief was the worst with these, they were the most frustrating to use with glasses; serviceable but definitely sacrificing FOV. Accessories were about on par with Swaro and Zeiss, noting to write home about; adequate. Weight for these is about 320g.
Parting thoughts
Putting these in order of quality was not too difficult, Swaro was the best overall optically, but Zeiss was not far behind, and really only got edged out because the Swaros view just had the 'wow' factor. The Zeiss should not be under estimated here, though. Kowa was slightly disappointing, both me and my SO were the least impressed with Kowas clarity at long distances when we field tested them, and to me the dimly lit room test most obviously showed the flaws in the Kowas. The only thing worth considering between the Victory Pockets and the Curios is the size and hinge design. I really preferred Zeiss for the one hinge and the focusing knob, but the ultra-compact Curios manage to be so much and so small at the same time it is really impressive. As for the Kowas, I think they are still great and deserve a lot of praise, but the issues in low light, and lack of sharpness were evident next to Swaro and Zeiss. I preferred Kowa CA suppression and their fit and finish is also very good. Because these are basically all priced the same, there's really no reason to even look at Kowa in the pocket bino category. 100% get either the Victory Pockets or Curios, or just go a tier lower and save some money. If you want the 10x magnification get the Zeiss, if you want to smallest bino's ever made that still deliver high quality views, get the Swaros. Stay away form the Kowa Genesis 10x22's.
**I'll still leave it out there that these could just be a bad pair from Kowa but I don't feel like going through any back and forth to find out.
