Nick,
I have neither used nor owned either the Swarovski EL 10x42 , or the upgraded Swarovski EL 10x42 SV, so will refreshingly refrain from offering a comprehensive armchair opinion, although I'm sure someone will be along presently to postulate about Nikon this, or Nikon that!
Everyone that I talk to raves about the SV's resolution sharpness, except maybe for ronh, who rates the Zeiss FL in front, and is no doubt salivating over the prospect of the HT!
This is what albino's has to say about old the Swarovski EL 10x42 WB
http://www.allbinos.com/144-binoculars_review-Swarovski_EL_10x42_WB.html, and the new Swarovski EL 10x42 SV
http://www.allbinos.com/223-binoculars_review-Swarovski_EL_10x42_Swarovision.html
By all accounts, a step-up, and gets going, when the going gets tough .....
As for "rolling ball" - it's just a 'phenomena'
(and ! some would say ....).
There have been reams of bunkum written on the topic, by every man and his dog - from the layman wannabe trying to be quasi-technical; bespectacled public bookkeepers hidden away in dimly lit rooms diligently scribing amatuer meta-analyses; well meaning father types offering advice - both sage, and /or spurious; the helpful, the hopeful, the terminally confused; god-forbid!
actual users just reporting what they see!; monty python spoofers; those that deal in facts, and those who'd never let the facts get in the way of a good story!; to those wonderful propeller-heads trying to nut it out for the greater good, and everything in between! Mostly with good humour, if not always accuracy.
The upshot of all this, is that it seems to have snowballed into
'the sum of all fears (or should that be distortions?|;|), with both the new chum, and hardened binoholic, anxiously approaching a new (or even old flame bin) with tremulous apprehension like a dog sh*t*n' razor blades!
The
'phenomena' is just that - a,
. p - h - e - n - o - m -e - n - a
. and is merely the result of 'barrel distortion' in human vision .....
Depending on the magnitude of this vision distortion, and whether the optical design prescription of the binoculars satisfies:
the 'tangent condition' (no distortion to correct angular magnification distortion, k=1), or
the 'circle condition' (enough pincushion distortion to correct angular magnification distortion, k=0.5), or
the 'angle condition' (excess of pincushion distortion to correct angular magnification distortion, k=0), or
some other value in between, like the Swaro's* k=0.74 AFAIK, which would be the ~'semi-circle condition' say,
along with a
whole host of other physical, physiological, and optio-neurological factors, determines the net effect perceived.
The sum of this vision distortion + any pincushion distortion in the optical design, results in either perfect cancellation (harmony); or a negligible effect; or a large residual, one way or the other, which results in the 'rolling ball' effect, or the 'rolling bowl' effect, depending on the sign. The ideal I suppose, would be to have a poofteenth more pincushion in the optical design to cancel out
your barrel distorted vision, if you want to negate the rolling ball effect phenomena.
The amount of barrel distortion is different for every single person, and so no-one will be able to tell you what you'll see except for you.
Further, that
whole host of factors, such as object situation, panning speed in relation to nauseous natural frequencies, conditioning by current bins, consistency of optical formulas in your bin collection, etc, etc, etc (I'm sure even the coriolis effect could squeeze in an appearance there somewhere!), palpably modify the perceived image. Why introduce additional vectors into the equation, by rolling your eyes right to the very edge of the FOV, when doing so is going to degrade the image with increased CA anyway? Do youself a favour and just stick to the centre view with the one distortion formula, lest ya fry ya brain by swapping between twixt and twain .....
Of all the neural coinage's, I like the "neurally constipated" one the best ..... "you see the
rb effects - but just don't give a cr*p!"
Dr. Holger Meriltz has a helmholtz checkerboard test to determine your distortion levels .....
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/globe/test_distortion.html
I'm sure he'd appreciate as many test results as possible - c'mon everybody - give it a crack - tis good craic to be sure .....
I'm more myopic than
"Mr. Magoo!", which means I'm meant to have greater than normal barrel distortion in my vision, and yet, I test somewhere around 0.7 ~0.8 or more.
Of the 56 records on the site, the average is ~0.76. (although fully over 75% of respondents have distortion in the low range of k=0.7 - k=1) i.e works perfectly with a Swaro! well whaddya know, they're not idjuts after all!
People often trot out the nonsense that Swaro SV's are zero distortion models - and they're not, although the mustachio optical formula complicates that somewhat.
Hopefully Holger will be along soon to confirm this Swaro k value is still current, and update any further test result data.
My advice - get the 10x42 SV's, forget all this guff - just go and look at stuff .....
If you find yourself somehow throwing up everywhere and violently convulsing - send 'em back! Otherwise, sit back and enjoy :t:
Chosun :gh:
* The k=0.74 figure was supplied to Dr. Merlitz by Swaro (reference here on a BF thread somewhere)
Further reading - good stuff! Thanks Holger!
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/globe/distortion.html
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/curv/pin_curvature.html
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/globe/distortion_final.pdf
