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Pinnacles versus olympics(tacticals)?

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Exoman View Drop Down
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    Posted: October/12/2006 at 11:22
after    much debating  about  whther   I should go with monarchs  or leupolds I  went to an outfitter a few  hours away and was quite impressed with how much better the olympic 10x50 looked than the monarch 10 x 42's.
so after  searching prices  for  a  set of 10 x 50 olympics i  see the tactical 10 x 50

the current  plan is to get a pair of non reticled leupold 10 x 50 tacticals, ( which seem to be olympics in  a coyote brown) , to me it would be worth the extra $80 over a set of standard olympic 10x50s to have them in a coyote brown with the molle style bino case.

but I see these pinnacles at the same price as the leupold tactical 10 x 50 and am wondering just how much better they could be.
the olympics say they have bak4/bk7 aluminum enhanced prisms and the pinnacles say bak4 silver enhanced prism.

I have heard that bak4 > than bk7 but the olympics say they are using both, not really understanding that part either.

I will be  spending  alot of  time in  a  tripod  stand  trying to pick deer  out  of the tree line  at ranges of 180 yards  to 420  yards  away. there  are  some   less than  100 yards  shot  but they dont  really require bincoulars.
heres some  pics  of  where  I will be using these  binos mostly..

http://www.photodump.org/stored8/tripod14.jpg
http://www.photodump.org/stored8/tripod11.jpg
http://www.photodump.org/stored8/tripod12.jpg
http://www.photodump.org/stored8/tripod8.jpg
http://www.photodump.org/stored8/tripod9.jpg


my homemade tripod of terror :)

http://www.photodump.org/stored8/tripod6.jpg





tom
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote lucznik Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/12/2006 at 15:36

Personally, of the two options mentioned,  I would choose the Pinnacles.

 

I don't know what makes the Olympics you are looking at "Tactical" but, it isn't going to be enhancements in optical quality. The Olympic is a good binocular but, the Pinnacle is better.   

What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Exoman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/12/2006 at 20:48
Originally posted by lucznik lucznik wrote:

Personally, of the two options mentioned,  I would choose the Pinnacles.

 

I don't know what makes the Olympics you are looking at "Tactical" but, it isn't going to be enhancements in optical quality. The Olympic is a good binocular but, the Pinnacle is better.   



I am only calling them tactical  because they  are labeled  as  such.

http://www.competitor.net/leupold-10x50mm-tactical-binocul ars.html
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bird Watcher Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 00:37

The Leupold Olympic Tactical has 18.0mm eye relief whereas the Pinnacles have 16.5mm. The Tactical has an exit pupil of 5mm & the Pinnacles are 4.3mm. Also the Tactical is longer at 6.7" whereas the Pinnacles are 5.5" in length. The Tactical comes with or without reticle(s).

I believe that the Pinnacles, with the phase & L-coated, silver enhanced prisms, might give you better light reflective capability at dawn & at dusk. It would be great if you could look through both, in a side-by-side comparison, under low light conditions.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Exoman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 12:27
Originally posted by Bird Watcher Bird Watcher wrote:

You can't have both Bak4 & Bak7 in the same binocular. It's one or the other. Bak7 would pretty much put the Leupold Olympic in the "paperweight" status. All good quality binoculars use the BaK4 prisms, as I assume the Olympic does.

The Leupold Olympic Tactical has 18.0mm eye relief whereas the Pinnacles have 16.5mm. The Tactical has an exit pupil of 5mm & the Pinnacles are 4.3mm. Also the Tactical is longer at 6.7" whereas the Pinnacles are 5.5" in length. The Tactical comes with or without reticle(s).

I believe that the Pinnacles, with the phase & L-coated, silver enhanced prisms, might give you better light reflective capability at dawn & at dusk. It would be great if you could look through both, in a side-by-side comparison, under low light conditions.

If you want to ADD to the recipe, the Leupold Olympic 10x50 also comes in an Advantage Timber HD Camouflage. HD stands for a fluoride-based High Definition lens which also increases brightness. This might give you the edge back, over the Pinnacles 10x42. You could always contact Leupold & ask their advice.
Choices, choices, choices.


I dont  think  they mean HD lenses,  I think they mean HD camoflauge.

if  you look  on the  ads  the say  bak4/bk7.  so is that an  either  or  situation? or  a  hybrid lense?


http://www.swfa.com/c-320-leupold-wind-river-olympic-binocul ars.aspx

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote koshkin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 16:06
Olympics do not have HD lenses.  HD refers to the camouflage.

Bak4/BK7 refers to the fact that some models have bk7 prisms and some BAK4, if I understand this correctly.  If I had to venture a guess, I would say that compact models have BK7 prisms and full size ones have BAK4 prisms.

As for BK7 vs BAK4, while it does make a considerable difference for porro prisms, it is not as critical with roof prism binoculars.  For example, very decent Katmai binoculars have BK7 prisms.

Personally, with lower magnificaiton binoculars BK7 prisms seem to work pretty well.  With 8x and above, I would make sure I see the binocular with my own eyes before I buy it.

As for Pinnacle, they are better than Olympic.  I would go with Pinnacles.

ILya
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bird Watcher Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 16:44
The learning process is never ending.

I would have thought that the larger 42mm & 50mm Olympic series would have the BaK4 & the smaller 25mm would have the BK7, but, the person that I spoke with in Technical Services said that they do use a combination of the two prisms whenever they work better together. It's all kind of mind boggling at times, at least we are learning what they mean in their advertisements.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote koshkin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 16:53
Did you by chance ask Leupold what they mean buy "HD lenses"?  how it is different from other lenses?

As for the combination prisms, I did not know they do that.  That''s a bad sign for high magnification binoculars.  I would stay away from 10x Olympics if they use a BK7 prism.

ILya
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bird Watcher Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 16:59
The advertising is so muddy that I think I will leave this alone until I can get more feed-back from Leupold.


BK-7 is borosilicate & BAK-4 is barium crown. BAK-4 is more expensive & considered better because it provides sharper and brighter images than BK-7. BAK-4 also produces a perfectly round exit pupil, whereas BK-7 typically has some distortion around the outer edges.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote koshkin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 17:05
Leupold advertising is pretty famous for inventive ways to confuse customers, hence my question. Enhances resolution, color and contrast compared to what?  I would not put it past them to stamp an HD label on any old lens.  HD by itself does not mean anything, like, for example, ED does.

ILya
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Exoman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 17:09
im just  going  by the  fact that  advantage  timber HD is  a camo pattern . the HD  denotes the  high resolution of the camoflauge pattern

http://www.advantagecamo.com/patterns/camo-guide.tpl
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bird Watcher Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 17:39
As hard as it is, sometimes, to decipher or decode the meaning of advertising campaigns, we certainly need to have a sense of humor, as well as alot of patience. Maybe someday we will all be binocular gurus.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote FrankD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 20:15
Admittedly, I know next to nothing about the specific attributes of Bk-7 versus Bak-4 glass but since most roof prism binos actually use two roof prism designs "Schmidt-Pechan", "Abbe-Konig" "Schmidt-half pentagonal", etc... then would it be possible to use Bk-7 on one prism component and Bak-4 on the other?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote koshkin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 20:19
All binoculars use two prisms, whether porro or roof.  Using a combination of the two glass types is a cost saving feature that degrades performance.

ILya
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote FrankD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October/16/2006 at 20:22
Then there would be no benefit other than cost to using the two in combination? I seem to remember reading something about Bk-7 being beneficial in some instances but that was on cloudynights.com and was probably not applicable in our discussion.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gremlin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February/13/2007 at 13:14

When discussing roof-style binoculars, the BK7 vs. BaK4 thing is less of an issue than if you're discussing porros.  Here's an excellent explanation from Christophers, Ltd.:

 

http://www.astronomics.com/main/category.asp/catalog_name/Ch ristophers/category_name/XLK4Q6QD5U5E9JLE93EVC1JJT1/Page/1

 

Prisms: Image-erecting prisms (porro or roof prisms) are used in binoculars to provide correctly-oriented (erect and right-reading) images. With porro prisms (named after Ignazio Porro, the Italian scientist who invented them), the quality of the glass in the prisms affects the performance of the binoculars.

When you hold a binocular up to a light source, the exit pupil is the small circle of light you see in the eyepiece. The best porro prism binoculars, those that use costly high density/high transmission BaK4 (barium crown glass) prisms, have circular exit pupils.

Less-expensive porro prism binoculars use inexpensive BK7 (borosilicate) glass in their prisms. This glass produces gray areas cutting across the edges of the exit pupils, making them look like square pegs in round holes. (This is due to some of the light passing through the faces of the low refractive index BK7 glass prisms instead of being 100% internally reflected as it should be.)

BK7 prism cutoff.GIF 1773 bytes

Image brightness in these vignetted areas is reduced by a clearly visible 25%, which is often objectionable in dim light as it affects overall brightness. In addition, exit pupils may not only be vignetted by cheap prisms, but may also have totally cutoff edges due to poor design.

Because roof prisms (named after their resemblance to a house roof) use a different light path than porro prisms, they cannot vignette the image the way porro prisms can, no matter what type of glass is used. Accordingly, they do not need high density BaK4 prisms to perform properly. Examining the exit pupil of roof prism binoculars for prism cutoff will therefore not reveal the presence (or absence) of BaK4 glass.

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