Vortex Raptor PORRO bins (3 Viewers)

[Kevin Purcell]

Vortex Raptor 6.5x32 and 8x32 PORRO bins

From

http://libertyoptics.blogspot.com/2009/01/shot-show-report-thursday-january-15.html

Binoculars: Vortex introduces a new top of the line flagship bino, the Kaibab 15x56 HD. Looking like a Viper bino on steroids, these are designed for long range glassing on a tripod and I can tell you these babies deliver in spades. As clear and sharp and bright as anything on the SHOT Show floor. Also, the optics feature an Armor-Tek coating similar to the Rainguard or Lotu-tec coating. MAP price is $1200.

For 2009, the Razor binos are unchanged in price and lineup.

Folks who read my posts know I love the Viper series of binos. Prices have gone up on the 42mm models a bit. An all new 32mm series (under 20 ounces) makes it debut and fit, finish, feel, and optical performance are all Viper....in a lighter weight package. New for 2009, all Viper binos are Argon purged.

The very popular Diamondback series of binos are completely updated for 2009. All new multicoatings and Argon purging and a style redesign combine to give one of the best bino values available. With a performance rating at about 90% of the best Vortex offers and a price from $140-$250, The DBs are the best value for the money in my opinion.

Finally, the completely new Raptor porro prism models are 17 ounce mighty mights in 6.5x32 and 8.5x32 models. With a street price of just over $100, these are very decent glass for the money.

Wait a mo ... in context that reads like "Raptor porro prism" are from Vortex?

Is that just a typo? But then the price must be a typo too.

WTF? low mag, mid size porro prisms from Vortex.

So I go to the Vortex web site and ... I swear they weren't there two days ago ...

http://vortexoptics.com/binoculars/view/vortex-raptor-6.5x32-binocular

Exit Pupil 4.92mm
Eye Relief 20mm
Linear FOV at 1000 Yards 410 feet
Angular Field of View 7.8 degrees
Close Focus 16.4 feet
Interpupillary Distance 50-70mm
Height 4.5 inches
Width 5.7 inches
Weight 17.3 ounces
Tripod Adaptable Yes
SKU R365
MSRP $159.00

http://vortexoptics.com/binoculars/view/vortex-raptor-8x32-binocular

Exit Pupil 4.00mm
Eye Relief 14mm
Linear FOV at 1000 Yards 390 feet
Angular Field of View 7.8 degrees <== probable typo should be 7.4 degrees
Close Focus 16.4 feet
Interpupillary Distance 50-70mm
Height 4.5 inches
Width 5.7 inches
Weight 17.3 ounces
SKU R385
MSRP $169.00

Very nice. Low mag. Light. Waterproof and fogproof. And perhaps a bit over $100 street price. So Vorte have learnt something from the Leupold Yosemite.

And of course added even more confusion by calling a pair of porros "Raptor"!

They lied to you Steve C about the porros. You must have had them worried

FrankD where did you leave the credit card.

 

[DHB]

The 6.5's could be interesting.... I am liking the lower power stuff more and more......


Kinda like hunting with a 7-08 or 308 instead of some super wham-bam shoulder dislocator.

 

[Tero]

Maybe this is as far as I need to go to improve my 8x32? If it beats Yosemite in optics, very interested.

 

[Kevin Purcell]

I suspect the optics will be similar to the Yosemite though I might hope the AR coatings might be a fraction better (given the changes in Chinese coatings in the last couple of years).

The FOV at the lower magnification is a bit lower than the 6x30 Yosemite but the exit pupil is about the same size.

Only downer (for birders) is the close focus is 16 feet which is a bit further out than the minimum 10 feet that I prefer (and I think the Yosemite had, IIRC).

Also from their comments they are emphasising the range of IPDs the bin allows ... another Yosemite design target.

With a wide range of interpupillary distance, this binocular can be easily adjusted to fit anyone in the family, from young children to adults.

I marked up a probable typo in the 8x32 specs.

The other point is this is the first Vortex porro which is a nice step. It might be easier (though not easy) to persuade them to look at higher quality more up market porros. A full-size one perhaps to compete with the Bushnell Legend? Or even a SE/E2-like 4mm exit pupil family with common prisms, EP and enclosure: 8x32, 10x42 and 12x50. Or an internal focus porro design. There is a lot of potential here!

 

[Tero]

Well, the 8x32 Viper looks pretty good. 16mm ER. 6x32 Viper has 19.5mm.

 

[Steve C]

Maybe they did not want the cat completely out of the bag. They also didn't say anything when I asked about the Diamondback 7x & 9x36 either. Thinking about it, Vortex had to have their hand in the Porro Prism, since there are the Audubon Porros, which are/were Vortex. All they told me about were the Viper 32mm.

What I do notice about the Raptor Porro is a relatively low Vortex ranking of 82.2 for the porro vs 89.8 for the Diamondback roof.

Also it is just today that the Raptor shows on the Vortex site.

 

[FrankD]

Shoot!

Just when I thought I was happy with my current selection then Vortex has to go and pull this one.



I thought you said that when you mentioned porros they laughed...or was that another company?

This definitely looks like a Leupold Yosemite competitor. The extra .5x magnification on the 6x model might try to lure some folks who prefer slighly more power while not really giving up any of the benefits of the lower power in general.

I like the looks and overall design but....

...an 82 performance rating?

It has always been my experience, and the experience of plenty of others that porros tend to outperform roofs at any given price point. If they are saying that they only perform at 82 percent of the Razors then they might not be as attractive as I was hoping. That is very subjective though so I guess we will just have to wait and see.

If Steve is giving the 7x36 Diamondback a thorough once over then I will have to give one of these models the same. Which one will it be though...the 6.5 or the 8? I am leaning towards the 8 but who knows.

Any idea on availability?

 

[Kevin Purcell]

No idea on availibllity but I might expect (for first approximation) to be the same as the new Diamondbacks. But then again they might have stock now.

Given the Yosemite I would have though leaning towards the 6.5x might be the better bet (certainly my choice). The Yosemite 8x30 is a useful bin but I find the 6x30 more "friendly" though perhaps not good for everything. I think I like the bigger exit pupil.

So where is the Vortex rep when you need him ... shouldn't they be "managing their image" here or just interacting with their "alpha users"?

 

[orbitaljump]

Look like a couple of winners.

 

[Steve C]

Vortex is right now really difficult to get ahold of. I tried a couple of times. But, the SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) show, where all the new goodies from everybody are announced, is in full swing in Florida right now. So, I imagine Vortex might be stretched a bit thin. If the street price of this Raptor is closer to $100 as the Liberty Optics guy says, then I may just buy a 6.5.

If it's much more expensive than the Yosemite, I may not be so interested. That 7 point lower performance rating less than the Diamondback is not inspiring. For example the Yosemite 6x I have is very close optically to the 6.5 Fury, which is some 10 points higher rated than the Raptor.

 

[Kevin Purcell]

I'd take the Vortex magic number with a pinch of salt I rather doubt they're going to say "these $100 porros perform as well as these $300 roofs" though that ratio sounds about right, doesn't it?

I suspect especially given the blog comment which I think is from F2F at the show plus my previous estimates of MAP to street price that these will be a bit more expensive than a Yosemite but at the $100 mark.

Of course they might be worst but that may cause them to not win market share from the Yosemite. As usual we need a look down the bin to tell.

Though the more I look at this image of the Vortex Raptor porro the more I see the Yosemite design underneath it: the bridge, the twist up eyecups, the strap attachment points, the bodyshape. Different armor and optics but similar (or the same) enclosure.

http://vortexoptics.com/img/products/binoculars/vortex/raptor_6-5x32_front-t.jpg

That's also good news for the UK and European folks on this forum. They've always found Leupold bins difficult to get hold of but Vortex is (a bit) easier.

Did Leupold announce anything at SHOT 2009?

 

[OwenM]

I'd take the Vortex magic number with a pinch of salt I rather doubt they're going to say "these $100 porros perform as well as these $300 roofs" though that ratio sounds about right, doesn't it?

I was going to say the same thing, except "they dare not" in place of your "I rather doubt they're going to say"! I've often wondered how those numbers were arrived at. I have to imagine they're based on the complexity of the coatings and lens materials vs. the other models. Maybe a porro will rise above its coating level...
Those are good-looking binoculars. I like how Vortex makes common use of knurling in favor of other patterns on their focus knobs and diopter adjustment rings.

 

[FrankD]

If it's much more expensive than the Yosemite, I may not be so interested. That 7 point lower performance rating less than the Diamondback is not inspiring. For example the Yosemite 6x I have is very close optically to the 6.5 Fury, which is some 10 points higher rated than the Raptor.
__________________

See, that was what I was referring to. I would expect these little porros to perform at least at the $300 roof level considering what other porros at that price point perform at. If they don't then they most certainly will not sell.

 

[Kevin Purcell]

Vortex sort of half define their "binocular performance rating" in this summary chart which has not been updated for the new bins yet.

http://vortexoptics.com/pages/binocular_performance_rating

The Raptor porro will "loose out" on:

• prisms: porros don't need as accurate cut prisms as roofs; they don't worry above homogeneity issues in the prism glass (roofs are essentially interferometers, they recombine two optical paths that are phase coherent, so they do worry about phase coherence through the prism).
• low-light performance: unless you are owling not a big issue for birders but they'll loose here despite the TIR porros having better reflectivity than
• waterproofing/fogproofing: I have no idea why the numbers vary here. It either is or it isn't. But I'm sure they'll rank lowere here if only because an external focus porro will be more leaky than a sealed internal focus roof
• comfort features: it's not as small as a similar roof.

When I compared the Yosemites to the Diamondbacks 8x42 and the Hurricane 8x28 I found the Yosemite rather better than the Diamondback and much better than the Hurricane. Using these numbers Vortex have posted (assuming Raptor porro == Yosemite) that would be Raptor porro is 82, the Hurricane 8x28 is 86, and the Diamondback 8x42 is 88.5. I note the Fury 32mm is at 93.

The cynic in me notes that the "binocular performance rating" correlates to price. The quality of view will correlate with it too (given the report on the bins) for the same type of prism.

It also shows how useless a single number is to "define" a bins performance.

So unless they've really messed it up then I expect similar sorts of results.

 

[FrankD]

The cynic in me notes that the "binocular performance rating" correlates to price. The quality of view will correlate with it too (given the report on the bins) for the same type of prism.

I agree Kevin. Can you imagine if any company rated their own $100 porro higher than several of their roofs costing significantly more.

I am not sure how I feel about them at this point though. The Vortex guys are usually pretty forthcoming. Either they wanted to keep this little binocular a secret for a reason or it really doesn't rank very well on the performance scale.

 

[Kevin Purcell]

I agree Kevin. Can you imagine if any company rated their own $100 porro higher than several of their roofs costing significantly more.

I am not sure how I feel about them at this point though. The Vortex guys are usually pretty forthcoming. Either they wanted to keep this little binocular a secret for a reason or it really doesn't rank very well on the performance scale.

Or they'd like price sensitive buyers to buy it and non-price sensitive buyers to buy the Fury 6.5x32.

Wait that's me being cynical again!

I just see this as balancing up their product line (to compete with Leupold) whilst not enouraging too much loss of profit.

The view is of course the final arbiter.

 

[MacGee]

Only downer (for birders) is the close focus is 16 feet which is a bit further out than the minimum 10 feet that I prefer (and I think the Yosemite had, IIRC).

Kevin, the Yosemite officially has exactly the same close focus, 16.4', as the Raptor, though various posters here have said that, in practice, it's significantly less. I measured mine at 4m (13.1'). My own minimum close focus these days is 2m.

Michael

 

[Kevin Purcell]

Kevin, the Yosemite officially has exactly the same close focus, 16.4', as the Raptor, though various posters here have said that, in practice, it's significantly less. I measured mine at 4m (13.1'). My own minimum close focus these days is 2m.

Thanks, Michael. I must not be recalling correctly (IMNBRC )

I suspect the pair I have (and my eyes) have a closer focus than the spec (but I can't confirm that without looking for the stuff I posted here or looking at my notes). I do recall being able to get close focus than they specified.

I find I'm generally happy at 10 feet or 3m though I do own bins that focus closer. I'm not big into butterflies yet (and when I do watch them it tends to be with my Papillios).

For porros the separated objectives mean that there's not a huge amount of field shared between the barrels at 10 feet or less. I suspect this is why they target that distance a bit further out (plus the EPs don't have to move as far back for that extra bit of closeness ... internal focus is a win for that too).

 

[FrankD]

I think you just created a new whatever-their-called abbreviation. Now lets see how often you use it.

;-)

Also your comment about close focus and objective spacing seems to be quite an issue for me....particularly with the Cascade porro. I want to say that the narrower field of view plays some part in this but, obviously, cannot say for sure. It would seem to make more sense that a wider field of view in a porro should offer better overlap especially at closer distances.

 

[henry link]

It would seem to make more sense that a wider field of view in a porro should offer better overlap especially at closer distances.

It does and low magnification helps too. The 10x Leupold/Opticron/Minox cousins have such narrow fields and wide objective spacing that they are guaranteed to have very poor overlap at close distances.

Field overlap is just part of the problem with widely spaced objectives at close distance. Just as bad is the inability to bring an object of interest to the center of both fields.

Henry