Sunday, 23 March 2014

KERN Pizar 6X24 AR

This little and lightweight binoculars will always stand in the shadow of 8X30 Pizar. Although it is not so bright neither has so neutral colours, it offers an amazing view and much better view comfort. Comparable to 6X30 Silvarem, Pizar has much better contrast, better sharpness and more neutral colours. Even if its FOV is declared only 120 m / 1000 m, I can not see any significant difference to Silvarem with 150 m / 1000 m. An interesting observation! There is one not so positive review of 6X24 Pizar. But be careful, I describe the AR (coated) version, which I use as family trips binoculars.







Saturday, 22 March 2014

CARL ZEISS Silvarem 6X30

Silvarem is Deltrintem's older brother,  produced between 1910-1975. Except for lesser magnification they share the same built quality and good optics. They also have the same field of view (150 m / 1000 m). This means that with Silvarem you can see the same image slightly more distant and view circle is smaller. That's why it does not impress as much as 8X30 wide angle binoculars. Silvarem's sharpness goes much further to the edge of the image, and should be a bit brighter at low light. This Silvarem is a newer version, which is much lighter than the original Silvarem and its eyepieces are shaped a little differently.






Second opinion: WpgBinoculars (older version)

Monday, 10 March 2014

HENSOLDT Sportglas 8X30

Sports cars are lightweight, so is the Hensoldt Sportglas. Weighs only 432 g! This is a great achievement for center focus 8X30 binoculars made somewhere between 1936 and 1943. For example, the same size Deltrintem weighs 100 g more. It's not the brightest binoculars around, let's say average. But its colours are very neutral and center sharpness is pretty good. Brown leather looks quite unique.






Saturday, 8 February 2014

KERN Pizar 8X30 AR

Kern Aarau, over 170 years of excellent Swiss workmanship ends in 1991. Binoculars were only a small fragment of the major industries of various optical instruments produced by Kern in Aarau. And how good are they? Excellent in almost every way! Field of view is slightly narrower, about 140 m at 1000 m. But the biggest problem is the combination of small eye relief and too deep and narrow eye cups. So it is very difficult to see whole field of view, even without glasses. You have to push your eyes as close as possible. Otherwise, this is the binoculars with the most neutral colour, even by today's standards and it's brighter than all vintage 8X30 binoculars I've ever seen. It matches the brightness of Nikon EII! Its pin sharp image goes almost to the borders. Focus is amazing! Not too slow and not too fast, and very smooth. And finally, its glossy black finish looks great.






  The latest models lack a crossbow logo which is a symbol of Swiss quality.


AR stands for anti reflex (coated) lenses.

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

MEOPTA 8X30

Very robust (well-built) and heavy binoculars. Design is well known Zeiss Jena style, with slightly shorter prism housing and longer objective barrels. Even the quality of optics is similar, except highly pronounced amber color view. That's why the view is not so bright as it is in Jena glass. Nevertheless, good optics.






Second opinion: Simon Spiers

Thursday, 2 January 2014

PZO LP 8X30

The history of PZO (Polish Optical Industries) is quite interesting and dates back to the late 19th century. Their roots and knowledge comes from the famous French Krauss and German Zeiss.This binocular's optics, unfortunately, does not reflect this pedigree. The view is like you're watching an old sepia photographs and not particularly bright nor wide. Reverse view does not show traces of balsamin (their glue-karbidol for joining optical elements) and the optics are clean without any mist. I suppose it was made before 1960 (around 1957) so it is without any anti-reflection coatings. Minimum focus distance is only about 9 m. But the image is quite sharp and its mechanics is excellent.





Friday, 20 December 2013

DOLLOND Luma 8X30

Dollond Luma is actually Wray Clearvu dressed a little differently.To my taste a little bit more casual. All in all really nothing to write home about. Far from Ross, Kershaw and Barr & Stroud league.