looksharp65
Well-known member
Since yesterday I have a Monarch X 10.5x45 in my possession.
I bought it on eBay for a decent sum, although not dirt cheap.
The reason for the purchase was my need for a waterproof, phase-coated higher-mag binocular with a decent eye relief, that focuses clockwise towards infinity.
First and foremost, I wanted better back-lighting properties than my Zeiss Classic (non P*) has.
After buying the Vortex Fury 6.5x32, which outperformed my Minox HG 8x33 and even put the Zeiss in the shadow, I've been searching for an appropriate higher-mag binocular to match the Fury's excellent performance.
Let me start by saying that the three most prominent features of the Monarch X are as follows:
1) The central rod between the barrels of this open-bridge styled bin.
2) The light weight
3) The astonishingly high level of chromatic aberration
All three, except possibly #2, may be deal breakers for those of you who consider getting it. Even a light weight is not a decided advantage for binoculars with this high magnification, as mass may serve as a stabilizing factor.
Today I have had it out for birding and as a summary, I have to say it does most things right.
But my acquaintance had a brusque start. The CA was jaw-dropping, and I could only see it in the left barrel. My schedule didn't allow much further investigation right then.
When I came home from work, it was dusk. So I tried to evaluate the brightness of the Monarch, the Zeiss and the Fury.
Brightness:
Despite dielectric coatings, the Monarch was only a tad brighter than the Zeiss. It should be, having a 15% larger exit pupil, measured by area.
As expected, the Fury was the brightest, having a 32% larger exit pupil than the Monarch.
Street lamp test did not reveal any ghosting or straylight. The roof spikes were very minute.
Better than the Fury, way better than the Zeiss.
Magnification seemed to be spot on, being slightly larger than the Zeiss's.
I handled a Hawke Frontier ED 10x36 recently, and it had considerably less magnification than my Zeiss, possibly only 9x.
Ergonomics:
It is easy to keep it steady and the quite thick barrels fit my hands very well.
I put a slice of self-adhesive neoprene over the hinge, and some camo tape around the metal central rod. This did a lot to improve comfort.
The focus knob is two fingers wide and resistance is reasonable in the cold, not too stiff. Focusing is fast and very easy to perform rapidly.
The Fury is even faster, having its tremendous depth of field but I think the Monarch and the Fury match each other quite well. It all felt very natural to me, and the Zeiss's knob was awkward in comparison.
Better than the Zeiss.
The diopter of the Monarch is a bit slippery to get hold of, and is very hard to move. Its markings are also hard to see. Very different to the Fury, that is too easy to change unintentionally while excellent to adjust intentionally.
Zeiss is the best, Fury second (better to be able to adjust the diopter back easily even though it is quite easy to knock it out of adjustment. Never ever needed to change the Zeiss)
The rim of the eye cup is a bit sharp and very different to the Fury's softer eye cup design. The eye cups are twist-up with high friction and very sturdy. They will not move unintentionally.
Much steadier eye cups than the Fury, and way better than the Zeiss's fold-down rubber eye cups. The large and stiff eye cups of the Monarch may contribute to the astonishing steadiness.
Eye relief is reasonable with spectacles, when pushing the bin a little bit towards my eyes I was able to see the whole FOV.
(Slightly better than the Minox HG 8x33, similar to the Zeiss)
Ergonomics are subject of personal likings, but the sticky/velvety surface of the Monarch and its nice focusing properties makes it feel nicer in the hand than the Zeiss.
The image:
I used it with contact lenses today and the image is very wide and walk-in. Eye placement is not critical in any direction including depth.
(The Zeiss is harder to use as the rubber eye-cups could have been slightly higher. Blackouts occur frequently with the Zeiss but are hard to provoke with the Monarch)
The eyepiece design allows movement of the eyes without much eye strain and/or blackouts. This is part of the walk-in impression.
The combination of higher magnification and decent steadiness allows for easy bird identification, which is the primary goal of binoculars. The image was mostly sharp but I needed to center the birds carefully to get that real sharpness. The sweet spot is really not large, but the viewing comfort does help to forgive this. I have always been very careful to center the bird I watch, so the smallish sweet spot is not a real problem.
Curvature of field and CA seem to be the main reason for the small sweet spot.
I estimate the Zeiss's sweet spot to be a bit larger. The Fury's sweet spot is absolutely huge as measured in degrees but is quite wide even as a percentage of FOV.
Color representation is mostly neutral. As has been previously reported by BF members, light transmission sometimes seems to be so great that the colors seem to fade to white. I recognize this. In daylight, I could not see any loss of brightness through the Monarchs.
The Fury is very colour neutral, the Monarch close but with an ever so tiny reddish cast, while the Zeiss is quite yellowish.
The chromatic aberration does not always show up, but can always be found with a tiny bit of searching. Dark branchlets against an overcast sky can sometimes seem a little purple colored, but that is not a problem.
I watched a Rough-legged Buzzard against the blue sky, and CA was not what came into my mind, but the beautiful details and vivid colors.
What seems to cause the worst problems with the CA are white or pale objects against a darker background. Even when centered in the image, swans seems to have swum in neon green slime.
One needs to have some sense of humor to accept it, but once the awareness of this deviation has been established, it can mostly be neglected.
The Zeiss shows less than a fourth of this CA, and the Fury none at all.
Back-lighting properties are very good in this bin. This is very nice, as the sun hits the horizon with an oblique angle here, thus it's close to it for extended periods. I was almost unable to make the Monarch produce any straylight crescent or ghost image.
Thus it is even better than the Fury, and vastly superior to the Zeiss.
Other:
The rainguard is OK, the objective covers are not. The strap is made from woven nylon with no padding at all. It is 1½ inch wide and I did not feel the weight at any occasion during my birding session.
This binocular could have been so much better if Nikon had bothered to get rid of the CA. With the RRP its level of CA is unacceptable, unless you wish to dream yourself back to Woodstock and flower power.
However, it is hard not to like its better sides.
It is largely an adequate birding instrument with nice ergonomics (although some external adjustments help it up further), speedy action, a surprisingly light weight for its configuration and a mostly sharp image.
I am sure there are quite a few better 10x bins out there, and my quest is not at its end yet. This is my best 10x binocular this far, but had I known about the CA I would not have bought it, despite the low price I paid.
I could have been more satisfied, but I still think of it as an upgrade.
Time will tell if, when and with what I will replace it.
I bought it on eBay for a decent sum, although not dirt cheap.
The reason for the purchase was my need for a waterproof, phase-coated higher-mag binocular with a decent eye relief, that focuses clockwise towards infinity.
First and foremost, I wanted better back-lighting properties than my Zeiss Classic (non P*) has.
After buying the Vortex Fury 6.5x32, which outperformed my Minox HG 8x33 and even put the Zeiss in the shadow, I've been searching for an appropriate higher-mag binocular to match the Fury's excellent performance.
Let me start by saying that the three most prominent features of the Monarch X are as follows:
1) The central rod between the barrels of this open-bridge styled bin.
2) The light weight
3) The astonishingly high level of chromatic aberration
All three, except possibly #2, may be deal breakers for those of you who consider getting it. Even a light weight is not a decided advantage for binoculars with this high magnification, as mass may serve as a stabilizing factor.
Today I have had it out for birding and as a summary, I have to say it does most things right.
But my acquaintance had a brusque start. The CA was jaw-dropping, and I could only see it in the left barrel. My schedule didn't allow much further investigation right then.
When I came home from work, it was dusk. So I tried to evaluate the brightness of the Monarch, the Zeiss and the Fury.
Brightness:
Despite dielectric coatings, the Monarch was only a tad brighter than the Zeiss. It should be, having a 15% larger exit pupil, measured by area.
As expected, the Fury was the brightest, having a 32% larger exit pupil than the Monarch.
Street lamp test did not reveal any ghosting or straylight. The roof spikes were very minute.
Better than the Fury, way better than the Zeiss.
Magnification seemed to be spot on, being slightly larger than the Zeiss's.
I handled a Hawke Frontier ED 10x36 recently, and it had considerably less magnification than my Zeiss, possibly only 9x.
Ergonomics:
It is easy to keep it steady and the quite thick barrels fit my hands very well.
I put a slice of self-adhesive neoprene over the hinge, and some camo tape around the metal central rod. This did a lot to improve comfort.
The focus knob is two fingers wide and resistance is reasonable in the cold, not too stiff. Focusing is fast and very easy to perform rapidly.
The Fury is even faster, having its tremendous depth of field but I think the Monarch and the Fury match each other quite well. It all felt very natural to me, and the Zeiss's knob was awkward in comparison.
Better than the Zeiss.
The diopter of the Monarch is a bit slippery to get hold of, and is very hard to move. Its markings are also hard to see. Very different to the Fury, that is too easy to change unintentionally while excellent to adjust intentionally.
Zeiss is the best, Fury second (better to be able to adjust the diopter back easily even though it is quite easy to knock it out of adjustment. Never ever needed to change the Zeiss)
The rim of the eye cup is a bit sharp and very different to the Fury's softer eye cup design. The eye cups are twist-up with high friction and very sturdy. They will not move unintentionally.
Much steadier eye cups than the Fury, and way better than the Zeiss's fold-down rubber eye cups. The large and stiff eye cups of the Monarch may contribute to the astonishing steadiness.
Eye relief is reasonable with spectacles, when pushing the bin a little bit towards my eyes I was able to see the whole FOV.
(Slightly better than the Minox HG 8x33, similar to the Zeiss)
Ergonomics are subject of personal likings, but the sticky/velvety surface of the Monarch and its nice focusing properties makes it feel nicer in the hand than the Zeiss.
The image:
I used it with contact lenses today and the image is very wide and walk-in. Eye placement is not critical in any direction including depth.
(The Zeiss is harder to use as the rubber eye-cups could have been slightly higher. Blackouts occur frequently with the Zeiss but are hard to provoke with the Monarch)
The eyepiece design allows movement of the eyes without much eye strain and/or blackouts. This is part of the walk-in impression.
The combination of higher magnification and decent steadiness allows for easy bird identification, which is the primary goal of binoculars. The image was mostly sharp but I needed to center the birds carefully to get that real sharpness. The sweet spot is really not large, but the viewing comfort does help to forgive this. I have always been very careful to center the bird I watch, so the smallish sweet spot is not a real problem.
Curvature of field and CA seem to be the main reason for the small sweet spot.
I estimate the Zeiss's sweet spot to be a bit larger. The Fury's sweet spot is absolutely huge as measured in degrees but is quite wide even as a percentage of FOV.
Color representation is mostly neutral. As has been previously reported by BF members, light transmission sometimes seems to be so great that the colors seem to fade to white. I recognize this. In daylight, I could not see any loss of brightness through the Monarchs.
The Fury is very colour neutral, the Monarch close but with an ever so tiny reddish cast, while the Zeiss is quite yellowish.
The chromatic aberration does not always show up, but can always be found with a tiny bit of searching. Dark branchlets against an overcast sky can sometimes seem a little purple colored, but that is not a problem.
I watched a Rough-legged Buzzard against the blue sky, and CA was not what came into my mind, but the beautiful details and vivid colors.
What seems to cause the worst problems with the CA are white or pale objects against a darker background. Even when centered in the image, swans seems to have swum in neon green slime.
One needs to have some sense of humor to accept it, but once the awareness of this deviation has been established, it can mostly be neglected.
The Zeiss shows less than a fourth of this CA, and the Fury none at all.
Back-lighting properties are very good in this bin. This is very nice, as the sun hits the horizon with an oblique angle here, thus it's close to it for extended periods. I was almost unable to make the Monarch produce any straylight crescent or ghost image.
Thus it is even better than the Fury, and vastly superior to the Zeiss.
Other:
The rainguard is OK, the objective covers are not. The strap is made from woven nylon with no padding at all. It is 1½ inch wide and I did not feel the weight at any occasion during my birding session.
This binocular could have been so much better if Nikon had bothered to get rid of the CA. With the RRP its level of CA is unacceptable, unless you wish to dream yourself back to Woodstock and flower power.
However, it is hard not to like its better sides.
It is largely an adequate birding instrument with nice ergonomics (although some external adjustments help it up further), speedy action, a surprisingly light weight for its configuration and a mostly sharp image.
I am sure there are quite a few better 10x bins out there, and my quest is not at its end yet. This is my best 10x binocular this far, but had I known about the CA I would not have bought it, despite the low price I paid.
I could have been more satisfied, but I still think of it as an upgrade.
Time will tell if, when and with what I will replace it.
Last edited:
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