Just when I thought I had my "knitting" together on cozying up with a new bin, a pair of Zeiss 7x42 FLs walked through my door and unravelled it all !
They displease the eye when inspected but when looked through they alarm and boggle the brain.
These are brand spanking new. Look around where the eyecups meet the barrels and you see a few ripples. Peer at where the covering bends around the front and you see a little crevice. Look under the lugs and the edges are a tad irregular. Slight, all of them and excusable (ignorable?) in the mortal bin catagory BUT these were forged by Hyphestus !!
Now, bring them up to your eye and the cups are very nice to the touch. They nestle into the sockets and just when you think things are getting better, you make the mistake of placing your finger on and turning the focusing wheel. A gritty plasticy crunch greets your finger and travels very quickly up the body of the bin through your eyes sockets and into, what was till now, a tranquil part of your brain. A little more of a turn the brain is informed of dancing sand particles having taken up residence between your teeth.
The feel and sound of the focusing wheel is distressing and a far cry from the pleasure provided by the old classics or E'd Nikons that I have laid hands on. I do hope it gets better with use. Till then get a birding companion who owns a pair of Nikons or Zeiss classics and would like to try out a pair of FLs. Then generously allow him the opportunity to fucus your bins while you do his and change back again. Do remember that this companionship is unlikely to last past the first sighting.
But once you have focused these monsters, the view is crystalline and confusing. They are bright, yes, but they are confusingly brilliant in their contrast. They seem to make the blacks blacker and the whites whiter but hold the relationship of the subject black and white constant true. Whats even more puzzling is that this balanced accentuation appears to sharpen the contrast and image without bias, its like the image is lit by an indipendent source of light rather than the bin lens / tint.
In an earlier discussion, Alexes had touched upon this. Could I please ask the wise tribe to explain this phenominon.
Greetings gautamsrivastav,
The Zeiss 7x42FL are truly great optics... and I encourage you to buy them if they are truly a good fit for your style of birding. However, be sure to compare them to Leica Trinovid and Ultravid 7x42 models before you buy. I personally find the edge performance of the Zeiss FL's to be somewhat dissapointing, Leica does a much better job of maintaining sharpness across the field of view, at least from what I've seen. As a side note, I have often wondered if the much touted magnificent center performance of the Zeiss FL's has something to do with a subconscious comparison of the center of field with the edge image... a sharp vs. slightly blurred contrast that makes the center "jump out" as somehow crisp and vivid.
This is NOT a Zeiss FL bashing post... I like the FL's a lot and would gladly own a pair if the price was a bit lower... just a suggestion that you compare them to other 7x42 optics available before making your final purchase. Late last year I had saved enough money to buy a pair of 7x42 FL's, but before I put down my cash I compared them to Leica Ultravid and Trinovid 7x42's and ended up taking the Trinovids home with me instead. Your own experiences will undoubtably vary... but by all means obtain the experience before making such an expensive purchase.
Best wishes,
Bawko
I had the gratifying experience of observing one intriguing aspect of the enigmatic FLs today. I am not smart enought to understand or expalian it, but, given that my eye perceived it, I would like to table the observation for your comment.
The view through the FL's are a cartographer's dream. Look at a well made map and you will see dimensionalty conveyed in "spades". Look at the Himalayas as they start to climb just behind Nepal.Through the Nikon E's and you will see all the detail and colour subtleties gloriously renderd by the artist. But now look at them through the FL and you will feel the mountain rise and lift above the plain to form the shelf that runs through China and Inner Mongolia. The FL's are doing what the Cartographer had aspired to, giving your eye a sense of dimension that his limited two dimesional medium did not allow him to fashion. If you do not have a finely made map look at a 20 Dollar bill and watch Jackson's portrait step forward towards you leaving the background of the note behind him to ingratiate the engraver.
But, should your prize the comfort of your conviction in their "victory", above the fulfillment of your curiosity, do not compare them in the light of day.
If you err, as I did, and look at flowers in the day, you will see that the FL's accentuate colour brilliantly. They light and contrast without distorting the subject's intrinsic colour relationships. It will appear to you that every colour has been highlit with just the right coloured highlighting pen. Then as you look at a gap between the petals you will see the bright light come through but you will not see the gap or the recess or sense its depth. The brilliantly highlit light coming through the gap in the petals will shroud your eye's ability to acknowledge the recess and you will loose a dimention (and in my view an important one) that nature had put before you.
The allusion that comes to my mind is that of a very high resolution Computer screen. Brilliant and articulate in its representation but in its brilliance giving up the subtle shadow that my eye uses to percieve depth.