Greetings!
I hope this post doesn't offend too many people, I'm sure it will be seen as a bit of "optical heresy" to some... but here goes anyway.
A lot has been said on this board recently about edge sharpness, particularly in regard to the new Zeiss FL series binoculars. I've been doing a bit of thinking about this myself, and today while I was birding at a local pond I decided to consider this aspect of binocular performance and usage, and do some experimentation.
I was watching a rather large flock of ducks, spread across a large portion of the pond, and did everything I could to pay attention to what I was actually looking at through the binoculars. I noticed that whenever something caught my attention at the edge of the binoculars, a flash of color or movement or whatever, I would almost automatically, without really thinking about it, move that section of the view to the center of the binocular view. I tried very consciously to attempt viewing birds close to the edge without moving the binoculars, and I found it was rather uncomfortable and disconcerting to do so. I kept wanting to move what I was watching to the center of the field of view. This wasn't because the edges of my binoculars were any worse than the center in terms of image quality (my Nikon HG 8X32 is the sharpest "at the edges" binoculars that I have ever had the pleasure of using), but rather because something in my perceptual nature just wanted the center of attention to be surrounded by viewing "space" because of some sort of aesthetic, balance, or other psychological reason.
I'm wondering at this point if most other birders are also experiencing the same mental phenomena, and how important edge sharpness and geometry really are in a real world birding situation. For me, after today's experimentation and thoughts, edge performance really isn't that important to me anymore. It is not a factor I will give much weight to in selecting future binoculars.
Any thoughts?
Best wishes,
Bawko
[QUOTE=Atomic Chicken]Greetings!
I hope this post doesn't offend too many people, I'm sure it will be seen as a bit of "optical heresy" to some... but here goes anyway.
A lot has been said on this board recently about edge sharpness, particularly in regard to the new Zeiss FL series binoculars. I've been doing a bit of thinking about this myself, and today while I was birding at a local pond I decided to consider this aspect of binocular performance and usage, and do some experimentation.
I was watching a rather large flock of ducks, spread across a large portion of the pond, and did everything I could to pay attention to what I was actually looking at through the binoculars. I noticed that whenever something caught my attention at the edge of the binoculars, a flash of color or movement or whatever, I would almost automatically, without really thinking about it, move that section of the view to the center of the binocular view. I tried very consciously to attempt viewing birds close to the edge without moving the binoculars, and I found it was rather uncomfortable and disconcerting to do so. I kept wanting to move what I was watching to the center of the field of view. This wasn't because the edges of my binoculars were any worse than the center in terms of image quality (my Nikon HG 8X32 is the sharpest "at the edges" binoculars that I have ever had the pleasure of using), but rather because something in my perceptual nature just wanted the center of attention to be surrounded by viewing "space" because of some sort of aesthetic, balance, or other psychological reason.
I'm wondering at this point if most other birders are also experiencing the same mental phenomena, and how important edge sharpness and geometry really are in a real world birding situation. For me, after today's experimentation and thoughts, edge performance really isn't that important to me anymore. It is not a factor I will give much weight to in selecting future binoculars.
Any thoughts?
Best wishes,
Bawko[/QUOTE]
Everything you wrote makes sense and is, so far as I can see, an entirely natural reaction. If I am watching something rather special, I can look at what is at the edge of the view without centering it, but that is very unusual.
I think that the edge sharpness phenomenon we have read so much about is of no consequence in practice, but some folk really do enjoy discussing such details and that is fair enough. What is rather less than fair, I think, is that the discussion might be misinterpreted as of practical consequence and put people off choosing a certain optic because of what is being said about it.