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Zeiss victory St or HT light transmission

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Brocksw View Drop Down
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    Posted: October/20/2016 at 20:25
I've started digging into light transmission in premium binos and it seems from the little research I've done that Zeiss is typically viewed as having the best light transmission of the big 3 manufacturers. Anyone have any numbers or solid explanations for this or is this just reading some wrong information from uninformed or bias people?

If true I'd like to know how Zeiss is able to accomplish this?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote supertool73 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/20/2016 at 21:40
Zeiss focuses on brightness as their number one feature. Be cause of this a couple of other areas are not quite as good. Swaro and leica do the same but focus on a different area. But they are all fantastic. I used to have some leica binos and the image just popped with a 3d affect to my eyes. I have some ziess victories now and they still pop but not like the leicas did. But they do indeed have a brighter image to my eyes.

Honestly all high end binos are amazing. I have some meopta hds that i bought for $505 on sale. They are close to my victories, they have an amazing image.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote WJC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/21/2016 at 00:10
The many opinions notwithstanding, most people who say they can see the difference in the coatings of two or three industry leaders are ... wrong. They are seeing the difference caused by blackening, baffling, field stop size and position, the eyepiece configuration, and such. In most instances what they claim to see is beyond the brains threshold of recognition.

You can't go wrong with any of the three.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JGRaider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/21/2016 at 08:35
Originally posted by WJC WJC wrote:

The many opinions notwithstanding, most people who say they can see the difference in the coatings of two or three industry leaders are ... wrong. They are seeing the difference caused by blackening, baffling, field stop size and position, the eyepiece configuration, and such. In most instances what they claim to see is beyond the brains threshold of recognition.

You can't go wrong with any of the three.


You can most definitely see the results of the various proprietary coatings that manufacturers use, such as the Zeiss example above.  I believe he's 100% correct in his assessment that Ziess focuses their coatings on a perceived brightness characteristic, while Swaro and Leica focus elsewhere, such as resolution, contrast, neutral colors, etc.   Those qualities are easy to see.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote WJC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/21/2016 at 10:46
As has been pointed out, Zeiss makes that their specialty. We go into the situation KNOWING certain things. Like the fellow who says he see sharp images to the edge of the field because he is not considering the millisecond eye movement that is putting the edge of the field in the center of his own.

A Talk with an Optometrist

Wanting to be certain I am not sharing more than I know about this subject, I called on optometrist, Dr. Edward R. Ford, of Ford Family Eye Care in Twin Falls, Idaho who offered the following:

“The corneal thickness centrally is thinner than it is peripherally, thus causing a change in refractive error from the eye’s central line of sight to its peripheral line of sight.  Now, aside from the optics of the cornea, aqueous, pupil, lens and vitreous not being perfect, perhaps the largest issue with the eye’s peripheral vision lies at the level of the retina.  As you know, the retina consists of photoreceptors called rods and cones. The rods provide light sensitivity and motion detection, while the cones provide the detail and color vision. The center of the retina, known as the macula, consists of the highest concentration of cones while the peripheral retina has the higher concentration of rods. With that in mind, it makes sense that the central retina or macula gives us the sharpest acuity, while the peripheral vision does not.”

This, of course, explains the value of that millisecond eye movement that most observers never notice. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Klamath Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/21/2016 at 11:14
Zeiss is somewhat different in that they use the Abbe Koening prism system.  This is radically different from the typical Schmit-Pechan prism system used by most others, so that is how Zeiss does it.  Zeiss did break form this with their new Victory SF which abandoned the AK prism for the SP prism. They also used the more compact SP system in the 32 mm Victory FL series too. The AK prism bends the light beam a lot less and typically gives higher transmission numbers.  However, keep in mind the human typically needs a 4-5% transmission increase for the eye to notice it.  The Victory HT and the Maven B2 are right at 95% overall transmission, both are AK prism.  So if you want to visibly improve that we need somebody to get to 100% transmission.  That ain't gonna happen.  In reality when we get to a good quality glass with all the other features to go with a 90% transmission, you will not see any real difference.

Transmission is just part of the image you see.  Contrast and resolution among others are in play.  We have to take a holistic approach to the whole package presented by the binocular.

Also keep in mind that when you see somebody touting "peak" transmission of 98-99% they are feeding you a marketing level baloney sandwich.  That quote has some basis in fact at there might be one surface in the binocular that does transmit that much light. Transmission loss is greater than that among the many other pieces of optical glass in the system, so if that 99% glass gets its light from a piece that only passed 85% of the light and looking at all the pieces of glass, all with differing transmission values, well things get real funny real fast.  Thus it is a true big deal to get to a binocular that has an honest overall light transmission of 90%


Edited by Klamath - October/21/2016 at 11:27
Steve
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote WJC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/21/2016 at 12:59
Thanks, Steve:

So much of what people know concerning such things is based on all the background data that they don't know about, haven't studied, or choose not to believe. It takes much less effort to pontificate than to research.

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."—Dr. Richard Feynman

 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RifleDude Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/22/2016 at 21:49
Each of the top tier optics manufacturers have their own design philosophies and "special sauce."
Zeiss designs their optics to emphasize light transmission and extremely good resolution in the center of the field.
Swarovski designs their optics to have a broad "sweet spot" of sharp resolution, in some cases out to or very near the edge of the FOV.
Leica designs their optics to emphasize contrast, making colors "pop."

Each of these intentional design goals come at the expense of something else. All have very good resolution and light transmission.

Human vision is a lot like taste buds -- different people have different tastes and prefer different optical characteristics.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mike650 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/23/2016 at 09:01
^^^ This ^^^

For my eyes using binos from one of the big three, I find Zeiss bright to a fault, Swaro and Lecia more appealing and easier on my eyes. I love the larger sweet spot and colors I see through a pair of Swaro's which for me is important when glassing large areas. I have an older pair of EL's, there is some chromatic aberration early morning depending on the position of the rising sun.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Brocksw Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/25/2016 at 13:41
bright to a fault...never thought I'd hear that about any piece of glass!
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