When I bought my first bins 30 years ago I remember having a choice between 10x50 or 7x35s. Now you don't seem to be able to buy 7x35s and 10x50s seem to be something that only Leica and Swarovski (out of the premier league players) seem to offer. I'm sure that the modern 'in vogue' 8x42s are wonderful but they do seem to fall between 2 ideals. Many (richer!) people now have 8x32s for their lightweight pair, 8x42s for day to day use and perhaps a pair of 8 or 10x50s for twilight use, in the good ol' days a pair of 7x35 and 10x50 would have covered all bases. It is both interesting and sad that neither Nikon nor Zeiss have 10x50 in their latest range. Anyway I guess my question is this: Can a pair of modern, top of the line 8x42 roofs be as light as older 7x35 porros and match the twilight performance of 10x50 porros from yesteryear? Discuss.
Bob.
can modern bins be lighter than larger one from yester year: one word= YES!
infact i know they are, and most people today will not need to go larger than 32mm or 42mm for all there birding needs.
[QUOTE=imagedude]When I bought my first bins 30 years ago I remember having a choice between 10x50 or 7x35s. Now you don't seem to be able to buy 7x35s and 10x50s seem to be something that only Leica and Swarovski (out of the premier league players) seem to offer. I'm sure that the modern 'in vogue' 8x42s are wonderful but they do seem to fall between 2 ideals. Many (richer!) people now have 8x32s for their lightweight pair, 8x42s for day to day use and perhaps a pair of 8 or 10x50s for twilight use, in the good ol' days a pair of 7x35 and 10x50 would have covered all bases. It is both interesting and sad that neither Nikon nor Zeiss have 10x50 in their latest range. Anyway I guess my question is this: Can a pair of modern, top of the line 8x42 roofs be as light as older 7x35 porros and match the twilight performance of 10x50 porros from yesteryear? Discuss.
Bob.[/QUOTE]
Hi Bob,
How much did the older 7x35 porros weigh? 25 oz? That's about the same as current 8x42 roofs.
Twilight observing is a pretty specialized hobby. You have a very narrow window to work in. I guess if you have cloudy weather you could have twilight conditions all day. The Leica 10x50 is very nice but heavy. I'm sure if people were buying lots of Leica 10x50s other companies like Swarovski would be jumping into the 10x50 market.
I find the new 42mm roofs are light weight and give good twilight performance.
Rich