JJHACK
Member
It's clear that human vision has enormous differences between the millions of people in the world. There is a good reason that there is a vision center in every one of the thousands of Walmarts around the country.
Considering this, and the fact that there is no type of scientific scoring with credible, and definitive standards for optics it's no wonder it's so difficult to judge the quality between the top players. If we just look at the logical top three players in this field.
Ziess, Leica, and Swarovski. Have 300 people judge them, it's likely 100 people would pick each one. Reviews are all done with a person looking through them and then very articulately describing what they see and how they feel.
You have to be very careful about the opinions. There are a lot of Band Loyal or stealthy folks who may come off as having a good opinion, but actually have an underlying agenda. It's horrible, that one of the most expansive items and the biggest investments made does not have a means of clearly identifying the features, and quality they provide.
Optics come down to opinion, throw the facts away, Joe prefers Ziess, Mike Lieca, and Fred Swarovski. Then throw into the mix Meopta, Kahles, and Kowa. Pretty soon the field is out of control with 100 people sharing 100 different opinions. I recently had an opportunity to look through all the high end glasses at a 33 yard distance using eye charts, color graphs, and Military bar graphs used for some sort of optical checks, I don't have the details. Kinda reminded me of the old TV test screen that would appear when the TV shut off at midnight long ago. You might have to be over 45 to remember these.
There were 6 of us in the store after closing to see for ourselves. If it was possible to come to any kind of agreement as buddies without any agenda on the top dog of optics. We also had the ability to dim the lights as needed. The optics were set on a bench with shooting bags to hold dead steady. The targets we looked at were only 33 yards away. So this was not an outdoor real world situation. Many of you can just skip the rest if this is not up to your standards. It was however consistent and reproduced exactly what we all saw in our little "home made" lab.
I should also say, I have no brand loyalty. I have owned and used Swarovski, Currently I own Kahles, ziess Leica and Nikon. Oh yeah, I have a set of Steiners as well! Add to this mix the store inventory and we had a huge selection of optics to play with.
The 6 of us from late 20's to a 70 ish year old guy. Each of us preferred something about each of the big three, each of us did not like one thing or another about them as well. Or maybe better stated, the "feel" was preferred one over another, but not all the same brand. We agreed on a lot of things, but even so, there was no consensus by all of us or even half of us on which was best. There were a couple surprises I would have never bet on. Or even considered.
One fella would say XXX was the brightest, but the colors were less vivid, another would say that same thing about XYZ. It became unrealistic to get 6 experienced hunters and outdoorsman to conclude a winner. So we quit trying! One thing that was clear and obvious regardless of brand. 42mm plus objectives were brighter then the 32mm obj. By how much was subjective, but all agreed they were. I felt that the poorest 42mm was still equal to the best 32mm glass. Only for a big bright picture. When you start looking through the highest alpha 42mm glass........ well nothing less really comes close. I'm not just including Leica, Ziess, Swarovski either. Add to this Meopta, and Kowa and a few others.
The HD versions did not add even a sliver of additional light to my eyes, for me the colors were more vivid and spectacular. Actually all the guys seemed to feel the 42mm HD glasses were the brightest and best at showing accurate colors. Three things came out of this for me.
We could not select a winner determined by a group of people varying in age, and vision quality.
42mm glass is brighter then anything in 32mm
HD provides much better colors but no additional light gathering
The 8X42 and 10X32 were determined to have great applicatons, but just would not work for overall general purpose glasses. The 8x42 are awesome in my opinion, but the group seemed to feel that if your going to 42 mm size, may as well just get 10X for the same size.
So is it just me? Or are optics opinions from others just a roll of the dice? I have a lot of respect for the guys sharing this little test practice with me. Yet we all seemed to have very strong opinions that did not match on all these glasses. The other outdoor products that remind me of the varied opionion, are the way a fishing rod feels, and the smoothness of a Compound bows draw curve. Ask a dozen people and you get a dozen opinions!
_________________________
www.huntingadventures.net
Considering this, and the fact that there is no type of scientific scoring with credible, and definitive standards for optics it's no wonder it's so difficult to judge the quality between the top players. If we just look at the logical top three players in this field.
Ziess, Leica, and Swarovski. Have 300 people judge them, it's likely 100 people would pick each one. Reviews are all done with a person looking through them and then very articulately describing what they see and how they feel.
You have to be very careful about the opinions. There are a lot of Band Loyal or stealthy folks who may come off as having a good opinion, but actually have an underlying agenda. It's horrible, that one of the most expansive items and the biggest investments made does not have a means of clearly identifying the features, and quality they provide.
Optics come down to opinion, throw the facts away, Joe prefers Ziess, Mike Lieca, and Fred Swarovski. Then throw into the mix Meopta, Kahles, and Kowa. Pretty soon the field is out of control with 100 people sharing 100 different opinions. I recently had an opportunity to look through all the high end glasses at a 33 yard distance using eye charts, color graphs, and Military bar graphs used for some sort of optical checks, I don't have the details. Kinda reminded me of the old TV test screen that would appear when the TV shut off at midnight long ago. You might have to be over 45 to remember these.
There were 6 of us in the store after closing to see for ourselves. If it was possible to come to any kind of agreement as buddies without any agenda on the top dog of optics. We also had the ability to dim the lights as needed. The optics were set on a bench with shooting bags to hold dead steady. The targets we looked at were only 33 yards away. So this was not an outdoor real world situation. Many of you can just skip the rest if this is not up to your standards. It was however consistent and reproduced exactly what we all saw in our little "home made" lab.
I should also say, I have no brand loyalty. I have owned and used Swarovski, Currently I own Kahles, ziess Leica and Nikon. Oh yeah, I have a set of Steiners as well! Add to this mix the store inventory and we had a huge selection of optics to play with.
The 6 of us from late 20's to a 70 ish year old guy. Each of us preferred something about each of the big three, each of us did not like one thing or another about them as well. Or maybe better stated, the "feel" was preferred one over another, but not all the same brand. We agreed on a lot of things, but even so, there was no consensus by all of us or even half of us on which was best. There were a couple surprises I would have never bet on. Or even considered.
One fella would say XXX was the brightest, but the colors were less vivid, another would say that same thing about XYZ. It became unrealistic to get 6 experienced hunters and outdoorsman to conclude a winner. So we quit trying! One thing that was clear and obvious regardless of brand. 42mm plus objectives were brighter then the 32mm obj. By how much was subjective, but all agreed they were. I felt that the poorest 42mm was still equal to the best 32mm glass. Only for a big bright picture. When you start looking through the highest alpha 42mm glass........ well nothing less really comes close. I'm not just including Leica, Ziess, Swarovski either. Add to this Meopta, and Kowa and a few others.
The HD versions did not add even a sliver of additional light to my eyes, for me the colors were more vivid and spectacular. Actually all the guys seemed to feel the 42mm HD glasses were the brightest and best at showing accurate colors. Three things came out of this for me.
We could not select a winner determined by a group of people varying in age, and vision quality.
42mm glass is brighter then anything in 32mm
HD provides much better colors but no additional light gathering
The 8X42 and 10X32 were determined to have great applicatons, but just would not work for overall general purpose glasses. The 8x42 are awesome in my opinion, but the group seemed to feel that if your going to 42 mm size, may as well just get 10X for the same size.
So is it just me? Or are optics opinions from others just a roll of the dice? I have a lot of respect for the guys sharing this little test practice with me. Yet we all seemed to have very strong opinions that did not match on all these glasses. The other outdoor products that remind me of the varied opionion, are the way a fishing rod feels, and the smoothness of a Compound bows draw curve. Ask a dozen people and you get a dozen opinions!
_________________________
www.huntingadventures.net
