Cameras and Lenses

Egleton Birdfair Optics yesterday, 22/8/09

I enjoyed my first visit to Birdfair for many years yesterday. The Optics Marquees seemed well staffed; and with one side open for viewing, the environmental conditions were fine. (Not so in the totally enclosed marquees which were over-warm and very humid, and soon had me exiting!) The weather was sunny with little heat haze or shimmy to spoil the viewing at moderate ranges, although both were evident viewing the old church/museum at ~3 miles range.

I had with me for comparison my ageing Minolta Activa 7 x 35s, and expected to easily find a binocular which would cause buying lust. It didn't happen. Yes, I saw many with brighter and clearer views, but when I checked on angle of view, my old Porro prisms won every time. It seems as though 7x bins are now out of fashion. (I did ask...) I do own several different bins, but it's the old Minolta pair that gets used most.

I also came across very different stiffnesses on nominally identical hinge mechanisms, and one pair which were simply out of alignment. They should have taken them to the Zeiss stand for adjustment!

Must say I really enjoy these exhibitions / fairs where there's masses to try out, and no pressure to make a rash purchase, just because you're embarrassed at taking up too much of the salesman's time!

Malcolm,

Thank you for sharing your experiences at the birdfair. Pardon the language but I would "kill" to have such an event here locally. We are going to have something similar, for the first time since I have gotten into birding, up at one of the local conservation organizations, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary on the 5th of next month. I am not sure how many representatives are going to be there but I am excited about it. I wish there were more of them in my neck of the woods.

As for those Minoltas, I was not familiar with them so I googled them to see what they looked like and what their specs were. Pretty impressive on both counts. Physically they almost look like the Pentax PCF-WP IIs I had once. The specs though are what really caught my eye. For a porro prism bin that 9.8 foot close focus is very respectable as is the 24 oz. weight. The field of view is, at 9.3 degrees, is exceptionally impressive. I would be curious about what the level of edge distortion looks like in that model. Usually the wider porros suffer from some level of poor edge performance but it is the amount an degree that separates the good from the average.

Having said that the only two bins I can think of off the top of my head that would be comparable (Field of view and magnification/objective size) would be the Nikon 7x35 Action EX and the Zen Ray Zen ED 2 7x36. I don't have your Minolta model anywhere locally otherwise I would be happy to do a comparison for you.

Sorry for getting off track but that is how my mind works sometimes.



Thanks again.

Edit: Scratch my comment about the physical similiarities with the Pentax model. They actually look more like the Nikon Action EX I mentioned.

Hi Malcolm

Thanks for sharing your views on the optics at the fair. Out of interest did you see any new models? Usually it's the place where new stuff gets introduced.

Nev

Back to Home Page!