Cabelas Euro vs Zen-ray ED 1043

 

I looked carefully at the Cabelas Euro 1042 yesterday and was pretty impressed.  There was a slight mis focus/softness at the very edge but unless you looked/tested for it, I do not think it is at all noticable in normal usage.  I like to test edge clarity/focus by focusing the bino for extreme edge performance and then see how out of focus the center is.

 

My question is how does this binocular compare optically to the present ZEN-Ray ED  or equiv promaster/hawke. Hopefully some of you guys have seen both. I already know I do not like the diopter adjustment on the Euros and would prefer is on the eyepiece like the Zen-ray. 

From what I have read here, any comparisons of the zen-ray to the Meopta would also be appreciated. 

 

 

tks

 

Dennis

 

Now, I have had 8x43 ZEN and Promaster vs 8x42 Meopta Meostar comparisons.  There are two things about the Meopta.  One is the diopter, I wish it was different too.  Second i sthat I do not like the yellow color bias of the Meopta.  The images are very close together, both are good enough to give you an adequate look at anything a 10x binocular will show.

 

It becomes your call as to what is most important to you.  There is the newness and the chinese origin of the ZEN ED binocular and its extreme value/price ratio, or do you want a European glass from a long time company like Cabels's for warranty.  It is Cabela's warranty, not Meopta's.

 

I have the ZEN ED and Promaster ELX ED and am not interested in finding something else at present.  YMMV.

 

 

 

I'm going to respond to this one.  That is because the binoculars with the problem were actually mine.  John can add what he sees fit.  We had an exchange of posts here on a thread, where I offered to send him mine for his examination.  He accepted and I sent them to him.  He PM'd me some days later and said he wasn't real impressed with what he saw.  Well to be honest I wondered what he had been smoking !Well when he sent them back, sure enough there was something wrong in collimation in the left barrel.  So, something had happened in transit between us.  Who knows what?  I have had enough experience with baggage and freight handling monkeys to know some of them can break anything.  I tend to wonder how more things from the spectrum of shipped freight are not broken.  However to be fair, John said there appeared to be nothing wrong with the way they had been packed and there further appeared that nothing had happened to the box in shipping.  So maybe it was just one of those things, or maybe it was a bad binocular.  Whatever it is, it is a sample of one and there is really no telling what happened to them, because neither John or I know, so we can't say what happened.

 

Zen Ray's response was quick and immediate.  I got a new binocular on next day priorty next day shipment (I'm about 150 mi from ZR).  They asked me to send mine back at my conveience.  I also know they sent a brand new binocular to John to replace his experience.  So that was two replacement binoculars for one bum glass.