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Pinnacles versus olympics(tacticals)? |
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Exoman
Optics GrassHopper Joined: September/16/2006 Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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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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lucznik
Optics Master Joined: November/27/2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1436 |
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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. |
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What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?
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Exoman
Optics GrassHopper Joined: September/16/2006 Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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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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Bird Watcher
Optics Master Joined: August/30/2006 Status: Offline Points: 1523 |
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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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Exoman
Optics GrassHopper Joined: September/16/2006 Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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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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koshkin
MODERATOR Dark Lord of Optics Joined: June/15/2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13182 |
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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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Bird Watcher
Optics Master Joined: August/30/2006 Status: Offline Points: 1523 |
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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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koshkin
MODERATOR Dark Lord of Optics Joined: June/15/2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13182 |
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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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Bird Watcher
Optics Master Joined: August/30/2006 Status: Offline Points: 1523 |
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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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koshkin
MODERATOR Dark Lord of Optics Joined: June/15/2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13182 |
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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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Exoman
Optics GrassHopper Joined: September/16/2006 Status: Offline Points: 37 |
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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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Bird Watcher
Optics Master Joined: August/30/2006 Status: Offline Points: 1523 |
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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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FrankD
Optics Journeyman Joined: November/11/2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 686 |
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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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Frank
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koshkin
MODERATOR Dark Lord of Optics Joined: June/15/2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13182 |
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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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FrankD
Optics Journeyman Joined: November/11/2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 686 |
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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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Frank
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gremlin
Optics Apprentice Joined: February/16/2004 Location: left of center Status: Offline Points: 115 |
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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.:
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.) 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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