Nikon Monarch 7 10x30 - Keeper! (1 Viewer)

[EnjoyTheView]

Impressed by another Nikon, this time the Monarch 7 10x30.

What a great size, rubber armor is very nice. Bright for a 10x30 I believe. Image quality is outstanding.

Now I only had a couple hours of intensive use, with a couple short checks that convinced me to take it out for a while.

In my longer test I put it up against the Sightron BlueSky II, and I have to say I came away impressed with both. The BSK-II had replaced my ProStaff 8x25 as my vehicle binocular, but I had not really been wowed by the optics, more the ergonomics, especially the light weight and nice focus (even if it is the wrong direction).

My current main usage in open areas has me preferring 10x over 8x so if I had to choose one I'd take the M7. The M7 is essentially as bright as the BSK–II, when you account for the twilight factor. In some light it seemed slightly dimmer, and in others slightly brighter. Essentially though I'm calling them equal as after dark they were essentially the same. At dusk they often appeared a little darker, but it was really 50/50 depending on the scene.

I've not yet seen the vailing glare some say is possible and I will test more for that.

I paid just over $300 almost double what I paid for the BSK–II, but a good price for the M7. I have to agree with most on the mammoth BSK–II thread, that they are a real bargain quality optic.

I really like the small form factor of 10x30 M7, this was mainly what I was looking for in 10x. I'm very happy with the ergonomics, although the BlueSky are lighter weight which is nice.

The eye placement does seem more critical than the BlueSky, and the view seems slightly less relaxed. The M7 has more focus range; without my glasses the BSK–II just make it to infinity, where as the M7 has room to spare. I do like the view without my glasses better, it is more relaxed and more forgiving of eye position.

That's it for now. With that test out of the way ithe M7 now have to go up against the Pocket CL 8x25 and the 8x42 EDG when I have time.

 

[karstenkoch]

Just got an M7 10x30 myself. I am impressed too. Have used them only very briefly so far, but here are my prelim thoughts:

* a huge, bright, sharp view in a small, light package
* very natural fit in my hands, feels just right
* might be some glare issues, but nothing to be overly concerned about, esp. in the $3xx price range

I had A/B compared these with the Kowa BD XD 10x32 in the shop before buying. I thought that the Kowa might have had a bit better contrast. But in the end, it was no contest for me: the Nikon felt more natural in my hand, had a noticeably wider and immersive view, had a better focus knob feel, and might have had a bit shaper image.

Bottom line: no regrets, can't wait to get them outside more!

 

[brocknroller]

Outdoor Gear Lab ranked the 10x30 M7 tops out of the 13 binoculars it tested it against. I think about 30 people handled it and gave their opinions, so it wasn't just the ranking from one reviewer.

Somewhere in the review, I thought the author wrote sharp from edge to edge, but I'm not finding it now, perhaps it was a different review.

houtdoorgearlab-Reviews/Nikon-Monarch-7-10x30

How you would rate the edge sharpness on the 10x30 M7? How far from the center is the image sharp before the in-focus image noticeably falls off and is the fall off at the edges steep or gradual?

I tried the 8x30 M7 and while the sharp image in the center was impressive and so was the wide FOV, the trade-off was the fuzzy edges, which were somewhat distracting while panning with the bins.

I prefer the 8x30 Terra ED in the 8x30 configuration since the edge sharpness is very good (at least in the sample I tried) and I like the ergonomics, but I liked the ergonomics on the M7 even better and think it might be easier to hold steady @ 10x.

Brock

 

[karstenkoch]

The sweet spot is large. I generally don't study the edges in quantitative detail, but I will next time I have them outside and try to report back here. No aberrations at the edge (whatever they might be) distract me. I did have them out for the past two nights, and let me be careful not to get folks hopes up too much here (we are talking 30mm), but they do great on the night sky! Astigmatism appeared to be well controlled and stars were in-focus points for almost the entire field of view. I easily spotted two famous globular clusters in Sagittarius and Hercules (keep in mind that I did know exactly what to look for and where to look). These will be great travel binos for both day and night use. They really do feel like an engineering success. What I mean by that is that the designers were successful in getting such a small bino to do so much IMHO. I've returned a fair share of binos after being unhappy in my gut with there performance, but the M7 10x30 impresses me every time I use it. One final thought here: the depth of field is pretty shallow as expected. During the day, I'm always refocusing with any bino I use, and during the night, once I get focus set, I leave it set ... so a shallow depth of field doesn't bother me at all, but I know others who can't stand it.

 

[karstenkoch]

Okay, back in from walking my dogs with these binos. I examined scenes in the far distance to check field flatness. Conclusion: not perfectly flat as expected for $3xx dollars, but impressively close. Moving away from the center of the field, there is no discrete point at which the blur begins. It is a very gradual and slow increase. And the blur even at the edge of the field is what I would call very minimal and again impressive. I examined thin white poles in the distance such as antennas, railings, and fence posts. They all retained a significant amount of sharpness at the edge of field though mixed in with some minor aberrations. The bottom line is that the casual observer would call this a flat field and be done with it, while the optical geek would say not flat but close to flat.

I have noticed no chromatic abberation at any time with these binos.

Collimation is perfect using the "pull the binos as far away from your face as you can" test.

I would say that sharpness of image is about 95% of what I see in my Zeiss Conquest HD 10x42. In other words, very good. They are sharp enough to use all day birding and feel satisfied with the level of detail IMHO.

 

[EnjoyTheView]

....
I have noticed no chromatic abberation at any time with these binos.
....

On high contrast tree lines I can see the typical purple and green fringes (top of view vs. bottom), but I can say it was less on the M7 than on the BSK-II. I'd rate it as excellent 80% of the height of the view or more looked clean.