New Swarovski 8 to 12x zoom binoculars? (1 Viewer)

[Troubador]

I would buy a zoom binocular if it would have large AFOVs...
If nowadays there are large AFOV zooms on Spotting Scopes, why not on binoculars?...

Hi David

Have you seen the size of the eyepieces on scopes?
They can be 300 grams or more in weight.

Lee

 

[Gijs van Ginkel]

Lee, post 61,
That helps to bring the balance of the binocular towards the eyepiece, excellent solution of the balance problem.
Gijs

 

[Troubador]

Lee, post 61,
That helps to bring the balance of the binocular towards the eyepiece, excellent solution of the balance problem.
Gijs

Gijs
You could be right but I suspect that the air in Utrecht, which is a giddy and vertigo-inducing 5 metres above sea level has affected your judgement due to oxygen deprivation since, like most Dutch people, you spend most of your time below sea level.

However, it would be fun trying out 8 - 30x zoom bins, but possibly not much fun with it hanging around your neck for 6-8 hours.

Lee

 

[DRodrigues]

Hi David

Have you seen the size of the eyepieces on scopes?
They can be 300 grams or more in weight.

Lee

For binos 1.5x zoom might be good enough, so reducing weight and size. After your post, I looked for the Duovid details and, if I had no binocular, the 10-15x version would be my purchase... I remember that I looked some years ago for the details of the 8-12x version and found them not good in terms of FOV. Don't know if specs improved over the years...
If Swaro will produce a sort of duovid with more >5º AFOV, a bit better eye-relief and lower weight, it might be a winner...

 

[Omid]

I'm not a big game hunter, but it seems to me that range finding binoculars would be much more useful than a range finding rifle scope. I assume the binoculars are the tool you'd use to locate your quarry and judge its distance. The scope is a tool for aiming the gun. I don't think you'd ever scan for game with your rifle scope. And by the time you're ready to shoot, I think you'd want to have already assessed distance and wouldn't want anything like distance data to distract you from the actual process of aiming and shooting. At least that's what I'd assume.

Very well said. I am a hunter and I fully agree with your comments. Now, this is a bid watching forum so lets go back to the topic of zoom binoculars. Zoom is a very useful feature in binoculars but it is very hard to provide for several technical reasons. On the other hand, zoom is not the most desirable feature in a rifle scope (which is an "aiming device" not an observation device) but it has been included in rifle-scopes and it has been pushed to insane extremes (Swarovski just introduced their 8X zoom-ratio scopes in IWA this March).

The reason riflescopes have zoom is because it is easy to do: Rifle scopes (mostly) use lens based erector systems. This makes it very easy to provide zoom: the erector lenses are moved back and forth in a coordinated way and this changes magnification.

There are two main reasons that making zoom binoculars is very difficult:

a) Binoculars use prism erectors and the only way to make zoom is to make some of the eyepiece lens elements movable. This doesn't provide much zoom (1.5X to 2X at best) and correcting optical aberrations are also difficult.

b) The second, and perhaps more challenging, problem is that both barrels should provide exactly the same magnification during zoom and this is not easy to achieve. Even a very small magnification mismatch (or alignment mismatch) can cause eyestrain and headache.

That's why Leica made their Duovid binoculars 8+12X42 not 8-12X42. I have a pair and they are great. You can see me wearing them on my website:

www.omidjahromi.com

Cheers,
-Omid

 

[Binastro]

What about switchable 2x barlows within the binocular, giving 8x and 16x?
Is this difficult?
Maybe for waterproof retention.

There are of course large binocular rotating turret 2 and 3 eyepiece systems.
Also some old small ones.

 

[Holger Merlitz]

What about switchable 2x barlows within the binocular, giving 8x and 16x?
Is this difficult?
Maybe for waterproof retention.

There are of course large binocular rotating turret 2 and 3 eyepiece systems.
Also some old small ones.

Only with Porros there would be sufficient space to swing a lens in- and out of the light path.

In principle, an objective zoom would be possible, too, using a floating group of lens elements. It could be operated via a single central wheel just like the focuser. However, these lenses would be quite heavy, and there has to be enough space for them to float, plus space for the focusing lens, so I fear that the central objective zoom would be impracticable because it would lead to fairly long and heavy binoculars.

Cheers,
Holger

 

[Binastro]

Thanks Holger.

Then Porros it is.
Fine for me.

 

[etudiant]

Would it not be lighter and cheaper to fit a single zoom lens with a binoviewer?
Ideally the same optics could serve both the camera as well as the (monolens) binocular markets.