best vintage bino for night time wildlife viewing (2 Viewers)

[waterman74]

The 8x40's...ish

Olympus EXPS I 8x42, BAK4, No indication where these are made, Sharp edge to edge, Very good lowlight performance.

Bushnell H20 8x42, BAK4, No indication where these are made, Sharp to at least 80%, Good lowlight performance.

Jason Clipper #120 8x40 EWA, J-B133 BAK7 , Sharp to 70%, Ok lowlight performance.

Sears #6215 8x40 , J-E25-J-B52 BAK7, Sharp to 70%, Ok lowlight performance.

Comments: The Jason edged out the Sears in daylight, but there was no appreciable difference in lowlight. The Olympus was a little better than the Bushnell in daylight and lowlight and the Bushnell was better than both the Jason and the Sears in both categories. A quick note about the Olympus, they had a VERY generous Eye relief, most I've every seen, and they are nice and compact. After using the Bushnell for several years and being very happy, the Olympus is everything that the Bushnell are and more, I paid $79 shipped for the Olympus and somewhere around $60 for the Bushnell.

 

[waterman74]

The 7x35's

Jason Clipper #118 EWA, BAK7. JB17, Inside clean, little dust behind one of the eyepieces, Slightly out of collimation. Sharp to maybe 70%.

Sears Discover #6266 EWA, Bak 7, Little bit of dust inside, Slight Collimation issue. Sharp to Maybe 75%.

Sears #6212 EWA, BAK 7, JB46, Clean inside. Sharp to maybe 80%

Comments: Day time had the Sears 6212 beating the other 2 in all categories, color on the Jason were a little bit better than the Sears Discoverer, but I liked the view out the the Discoverer better than the Jason. Also, the Jason has the Fast Focus, which I didn't like, too hard to fine tune. Lowlight had the Jason and the Discoverer neck and neck with no real difference in brightness. The Sears 6212 were a little brighter than both, but not as much as I would have figured considering the daytime test.

 

[waterman74]

some pics of 7x35's

 

[FrankD]

A nice set waterman. I enjoyed/enjoy using those models from time to time. I still have both of the Sears models but I sold the Jason some time ago.

 

[mnich]

some pics of 7x35's

very neat copies until pleasure to watch )

 

[waterman74]

I have cleaned the eye piece lenses and collimated the Jason, and they are now for sell on the bay

 

[waterman74]

My Jason Statesman 7x50 model 151 came in today, it doesn't have the UV coating. I am going out of town for 3 weeks, so the test on the 7x50's will have to wait, but I will do a quick comparison between a couple pairs tonight.

 

[waterman74]

Well, I did a quick lowlight test between the Jason Statesman 151, Swift Nighthawk, Swift Seahawk, and Carl Zeiss Jena. The Jena = Seahawk>Nighthawk>Jason Statesman.

I was a little disappointed in the Jason, it had some flaring going on, not sure if this is because of the huge eyepiece lenses or what. The Nighthawk had a little haze on the prisms, and a slight collimation issue. The Zeiss Jena also had a collimation issue, but it was nice and bright so it will pay to get this fixed, if I cannot do it myself. Once I do a real test on all the 7x50's including a minor cleaning, then the outcome may be different. By the way, I didn't include the Fuji Meibo, because they are at camp. They will be hard to beat.

Thanks for reading.