As America goes, so goes the rest of the world. There’s a great deal of truth to that saying, especially now that we live in an era of 24-7 news, where ideas and movements spread faster than the Covid-19 virus. The rise of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, cultural Marxism and the Woke Revolution has politicized many institutions across the United States and has now reached all the way across the Western world, where it is now influencing liberal democracies like Australia, New Zealand, the nations which comprise the European Union, and here in the UK.
Wokeness is political correctness gone mad. It’s a new secular religion with ‘social justice’ being its new god, and ‘cancel culture’ its military wing. Its despotic power seeks to make western institutions jettison conservative mores and lose faith in their own ideals. The defining characteristics of wokeness are arrogance, ignorance and irrationality in equal measure.
Not long after we saw the horrific pictures on our TV screens of statues being torn down across the USA throughout the summer of 2020, violent protesters in the city of Bristol, UK, toppled a statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th century slave trader and dumped it into Bristol Harbor. UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, quickly condemned their actions in a tweet;
“People have a right to protest peacefully & while observing social distancing but they have no right to attack the police. These demonstrations have been subverted by thuggery – and they are a betrayal of the cause they purport to serve. Those responsible will be held to account1.”
The events in Bristol triggered the removal of several other statues across the UK including, Robert Milligan, Thomas Guy and Sir Robert Clayton2. Not content with removing the memory of slave traders from our streets, the same mob defaced a statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, Westminster, which had to be boarded up by police2.
Snowflakes
Our hallowed educational institutions have also become fertile breeding grounds for the woke movement. At Oriel College Oxford, an angry mob called for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, insisting that he was a white supremacist, colonialist and racist. Although Oriel College did agree to remove the statue, the decision was reversed owing to the financial cost of undertaking such a measure4.
But Oxford University represents the tip of the iceberg. Today, some 90 per cent of British Universities have actively banned or cancelled guest speakers because their ‘controversial’ views offend them5. Over the last several years it has become such a problem that the UK government had to enforce new laws prohibiting this vicious cancel culture, with fines of up to £500,000 should they continue to de-platform people6.
Yet the woke movement has penetrated many more of our national institutions in the UK, including the National Trust, the Church of England, the Police, the BBC and the British Army. In the wake of the George Floyd tragedy, the National Trust sped up the publication of a 2018-commissioned study linking many of the grand houses under its wing to slavery and colonialism7. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with learning about our colonial past, but when the National Trust insisted that all volunteers must undergo ‘unconscious bias training,7 it led to some resignations in protest. They also pushed the wearing of LGBTQ+ rainbow badges and lanyards on its employees to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain, removing those individuals from interacting with the public who conscientiously objected to wearing them7.
The Church of England seems equally keen to preach the woke gospel. During the Black Lives Matter riots in the USA, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, commissioned a new Church of England guidance8 suggesting that artefacts linked to slavery and colonialism could be removed from churches simply because some people might find them ‘disturbing.’
In August 2021, the UK Police Force unveiled a new fleet of cars adorned with the LGBTQ+ rainbow to ‘fight social injustice.’ The move was received with almost universal scorn, with some commentators calling them ‘Clown Cars’ that will only encourage more criminals onto the streets. Perhaps the most scathing rebuttal came from Harry Miller, a former police officer and founder of the campaign group, Fair Cop. Speaking to the Telegraph, Miller said, “We don’t see the Met with special cars for knife crime, even though the number of stabbings in London is appalling. The problem is that the second you see a rainbow car, you know that it is a police force that has made its mind up about some very contentious issues. You no longer see a police car or a police officer who is there to support everyone, from all political persuasions, without fear or favor. They have literally tied their colours to the mast and painted their cars with their political leanings. They are painting rainbows on their cars when we have figures showing that only seven per cent of violent crime ends in a prosecution. They have moved from policing crime to policing thoughts and speech, because it is easier9.”
The BBC, that long-trusted bastion of journalistic excellence has also gone woke. The corporation produced a video called “Understanding Sexual and Gender identities10,” in which they claimed there were 100 different genders! Thankfully, after a storm of protest, they removed the video from their platform. Now the BBC are conducting a gender census to see which of their employees identify as male, female or non-binary to better address ‘gender-related pay gaps.’ Furthermore, they recently tweeted that they will not tolerate any dissent on transgender issues and are willing to inform the police concerning the most egregious ‘offenders.11‘ Not surprisingly, that also sparked a large public backlash, with people complaining that the corporation was just wasting taxpayers’ money.
Finally, in one of the sickest moves yet enacted on British soil, the thoroughly immoral leftist, devolved nationalist Scottish Government is introducing new legislation allowing children as young as four to undergo gender transition, without parental consent, as well as mandating schools to include transgender literature on the curriculum12. Although the move was almost universally described as ‘risible’ and ‘shocking,’ even by the mainstream press, there is no effective political opposition to the nationalists’ woke agenda to stop them in their tracks.
Rebels Without a Clue
So, just like the USA, Britain faces the same war on wokeness that is tearing society apart at the seams. Seen in a Christian light, God has given them over to a Romans 1 ‘reprobate mind.’ But there are welcome signs that the Brits are fighting back, by launching anti-woke TV channels like GB News, and a small number of determined and influential journalists who refuse to be silenced by the woke mob. Furthermore, the British government has summarily dismissed and banned the teaching of Marxist concepts such as critical race theory, intersectionality and white privilege in UK schools, deeming these ideologies harmful to a multi-cultural British society13. You can hit the BBC where it hurts them simply by switching off. Personally, I wouldn’t trust them even with the weather. But a lot of resistance to this immoral movement is also being fostered in sound parental guidance, as well as through the exercising of the general public’s democratic right to air its concerns to local politicians. Though it’s probably too late to turn the tide, let’s hope more brave individuals will join the dissenting ranks to stave off the worst instances of ‘wokery’ in the UK!
Neil English has put down roots in Scotland and is the author of seven books on amateur and professional astronomy. His 650-page magnum opus, Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy, explores the history of telescopic astronomy from a Christian perspective.
An Essay Originally Published in Salvo Magazine Volume 51
Updated periodically as new science emerges
For this is what the Lord says—
he who created the heavens,
he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it; he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited— he says:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45: 18
Just a few short decades ago, the Earth was considered to be an ordinary planet, orbiting an ordinary star, lost in a vast galaxy of other stars, amid myriad other galaxies populating the Cosmos. Mindless processes produced the first living organisms, we were told, which slowly evolved over the eons to produce creatures like us1. This secular myth was accepted hook line and sinker by the uneducated masses after its promotion by God-denying ‘high priests’, including the late Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, and mindlessly parroted by a generation of science journalists unwilling to dig any deeper. Yet, with the exponential rise of human knowledge, this worldview is being radically over-turned by an avalanche of new science, that paints an entirely different picture of our world: one in which its exceptional properties for supporting a long-lived biosphere for the express benefit of humanity in particular, is coming to the fore; where life itself ‘terraformed’ the Earth under Divine instruction.
An Anomalous Solar System
Many lines of evidence show that the Earth is old; 4.543 billion years with an uncertainty of just one per cent. But the circumstances under which our planetary system was shaped were very unusual. Formed from the gravitational collapse of a vast cloud of gas and dust, the proto-solar system condensed into a relatively thin disk with the neonatal Sun at its center. The inventory of elements endowed to the solar system might have turned out to be much like any other were it not for the presence of at least two relatively close-by supernova events2 which helped eject it from a nursery of other stars, but which also enriched the primordial solar system with relatively large quantities of heat-generating radioactive elements such as aluminum 26, thorium and uranium3. The aluminum 26, with its short half-life of 730,000 years, provided enough thermal energy to remove excess levels of volatiles including water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide which would have scuppered the future emergence of living creatures on our world. In contrast, the very dense and long-lived radioactive elements like uranium and thorium sank to the center of the primordial earth, where their prodigious heat has kept the planet in a geologically active state over billions of years.
The most recent research on star formation shows that the Sun is far from being an average star4. Indeed that distinction goes to stars with masses roughly 50 per cent less massive than the Sun, with luminosities only 5 per cent as bright and surface temperatures of 3600K4, comprising some 80 per cent of all the stars in the Universe. Many more are smaller L dwarfs that are unable to fuse hydrogen in their cores, or larger stars than the Sun that have much shorter lifespans. In the words of the University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank;
“Please stop calling our Sun an “average star. It is philosophically dubious and astronomically incorrect.4 ”
The Moon-forming event, which is thought to have occurred about 100 million years after the neonatal Earth formed5, in a highly improbable, oblique collision with a Mars-sized object, helped remove still more volatiles from the primordial Earth, allowing it to eventually form relatively shallow oceans where the continental land-masses could eventually emerge from the sea floor. The debris from this cataclysmic event formed a relatively large Moon in close proximity to the Earth, helping to stabilize its orbital inclination and over time, to slow down the rotation rate of our planet from just 5 hours shortly after the Moon’s formation, to its present leisurely rotation period of 24 hours.
For the first few hundred million years after its formation, the Earth would have looked black and golden from the vantage of outer space, from the vast amounts of solidified magna cooling on its surface as well as the prodigious levels of volcanic activity spewing out hot lava from the planet’s interior. Frequent collision events with smaller space debris like asteroids would also have exacerbated these hellish conditions, but eventually the prodigious levels of water vapor outgassed from its interior would have transformed our lava dominated planet into a blue water world still devoid of continental landmasses.5 But just as soon as the Earth cooled down enough to enable liquid water to flow on its surface, life appeared.
Life Terraforms the Planet
The standard evolutionary story is that life began as simple organisms and gradually progressed to more complex forms with the slow march of time, but the best scientific evidence now suggests that this life was already complex and biochemically sophisticated. This is based on isotopic evidence6,7 from the analysis of ratios of carbon and sulfur isotopes in sedimentary rocks laid down over 3.5 billion years ago. Since these biochemical processes have an absolute requirement for highly complex protein enzymes to have been present, it completely eludes an evolutionary explanation. Then why did our Creator choose to begin Earth’s life story with microbes? The answer has less to do with evolution than it has with chemical sophistication. The simple answer is that microbes are, by some considerable margin, the hardiest creatures ever to have lived on our planet.
Microbes are the die-hards of the living world, being capable of surviving in very hot and cold temperatures, high and low pH environments, and can even thrive in a cocktail of toxic chemicals and radioactive environments. Once the planet cooled enough to allow the first microbes to survive, they were set to work removing a plethora of poisonous substances from the primordial Earth. In these early times, the Earth’s surface would have had large amounts of so-called vital poisons, substances that are required in small amounts for more complex life to thrive, but in higher concentrations, can prove lethal; substances like iron, copper, zinc, molybdenum, arsenic, boron, selenium and iodine, to name but a few. In their soluble forms such vital poisons would have stunted any new life forms coming on the scene but in chemically transforming these elements8 into insoluble ores and minerals, microbes not only removed such vital poisons from the Earth’s water environments but also formed large deposits of the valuable minerals that are now mined for their use in high technology devices. This also makes sense from a creation point of view, as more complex organisms are far more sensitive to these toxins than microbes are. One other benefit that life brought to the Earth is that it greatly enriched the planet’s mineral and gemstone tally. According to Dr. Robert Hazen, a world-leading mineralogist, Earth has the greatest diversity of mineral species of any body in the Solar System.5 Over 4,600 mineral species have been identified on Earth. In contrast, Mars probably has about 500 and Venus about 1,000 at the most. What’s more, Hazen discovered that life processes formed about two-thirds of Earth’s mineral species5.
Recent oxygen isotope evidence shows that ongoing plate tectonic activity produced nearly all the continental landmasses by about 2.5 billion years ago.9 The fact that just 29 per cent of the planet’s surface area is covered by dry land appears to be highly fine-tuned. Greater land surface areas would induce too little precipitation in the interior of those ancient continents, preventing life from gaining a hold in these places. On the other hand, land areas significantly less than 29 per cent would not be able to re-cycle enough valuable nutrients between the land, the sea and the atmosphere to maintain a healthy biosphere.
The earliest lifeforms extracted energy from these minerals without the need for molecular oxygen, but the introduction of photosynthetic microbes radically transformed the early biosphere, paving the way for the introduction of advanced lifeforms. One way to get a handle on how early oxygenic photosynthesis occurred on Earth is to study so-called Banded Iron Formations (BIFs)comprised of iron rich clays containing magnetite and hematite. The early oceans had high concentrations of soluble iron, but when it reacts with oxygen, it forms an insoluble rust-like substance that serves as iron ore today.
Such studies reveal that BIFs were first laid down about 3.0 billion years ago, continuing up to about 1.8 billion years ago.10 This coincides with the microfossil record of life, which shows that oxygen-dependent complex cellular life (the so-called Eukaryotes) made its first appearance around 2 billion years ago.11The rise in atmospheric oxygen also created the ozone layer, which protected future life on land from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. The emergence of oxygen-generating photosynthesis had other effects that are not immediately obvious. When the Sun was born, it was about 30 per cent less luminous than it is today, but as it aged, its luminosity increased with the result that the amount of thermal energy received by the planet also increased. Photosynthetic organisms removed great amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and generating oxygen which reacted rapidly with another greenhouse gas, methane. In so doing, photosynthetic organisms served to counteract the tendency of the aging Sun to overheat the planet.12 The remains of these and other unicellular creatures settled to the bottom of the oceans where they formed vast sediments that were compressed over time to produce natural gas and oil reserves so important to human civilization today.
After a long cooling phase coinciding with the formation of the supercontinent, Rhodinia5, signs of the first large(macroscopic) multicellular lifeforms appeared about 600 million years ago in an event known to palaeontologists as the Avalon Explosion, where scientists have uncovered the first evidence of simple animal lifeforms. It is unclear however whether these bizarre creatures were animals or plants but what is clear is that in the space of a short 410,000 year period starting around 541 million years ago, 80 per cent of all existing animal forms appeared in the fossil record, with no credible evolutionary antecedents3,22. Paleontologists studying the so-called Cambrian Explosion have found no transitional forms in layers immediately pre-dating this period in Earth history. Moreover, the land was being prepared for the arrival of vascular plants by fungi who began breaking down rocks into soil as early as about 1000 million years ago14. It is difficult to conceive how any blind process like Darwinian evolution could produce such stunning biological complexity and diversity in such a short space of time without any foresight.
In recent times, a greater appreciation of the interplay between life and plate tectonics has been appreciated. Without plate tectonics, our planet wouldn’t have a climate stable enough to support life over billions of years of time. That’s because plate tectonics takes center stage as a planetary thermostat in a process called the “carbonate-silicate” cycle.13 Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in rainwater to form carbonic acid, which dissolves silicate rocks. The by-products of this erosion, or “weathering,” are conveyed to the oceans where they are ingested by organisms—such as tiny planktonic foraminifera—and incorporated into limestone (calcium carbonate) shells. When those creatures die, they fall to the bottom of the ocean and pile up as sediments, creating new raw materials used by humanity. The introduction of life on planet Earth also increases the amount of water subducted into the mantle, where it functions as a kind of lubricant, facilitating motions between plates. It also lowers the melting point in the mantle, which leads to more volcanism and therefore more continent building. So, without life speeding up the weathering at the surface as well as the sedimentation rate on the sea floor, the fraction of the surface covered by continents would be far smaller.
Plate tectonics has other, hitherto unforeseen consequences for the maintenance of the Earth’s strong magnetic field. By accelerating the transfer of heat to the surface, plate tectonics induces convection in the liquid iron outer core of our planet. What’s more, it’s the dynamic outer core that generates our planet’s magnetic field, which protects Earth’s atmosphere and oceans from excessive erosion and desiccation from the solar wind as well as all surface life from dangerous cosmic rays.
The fossil record attests to several mass extinction events that occurred over the long history of our planet.14 Research has shown that these devastating events are followed by equally spectacular mass speciation events, uncannily similar to the scenarios described in Psalm 104. According to Christian astronomer, Dr. Hugh Ross, these events proved crucial for maximizing both the quantity and longevity of Earth’s life.15 By ensuring that the right quantities and kinds of life are present at the right times, our Creator employed these organisms to remove the just-right quantities of greenhouse gases from Earth’s atmosphere so as to compensate for the Sun’s increasing brightness. According to Ross, one would expect God to intervene periodically to remove life no longer appropriate for compensating for a brightening Sun and then replace it with life that is more efficient at doing so. Finally, in the last few hundred million years, vast deposits of coal and oil were produced from the remains of plant life that flourished on land during the Carboniferous and Permian (360 to 250 million years ago) periods, which was necessary for the launch of the industrial revolution.
Jewel Planet
Seen in the light of these new scientific discoveries, it is apparent that the Earth is a highly fine-tuned planet that has sustained a very stable environment over 4 billion years for the flourishing of life. And that same life transformed our world beyond recognition to make it ideal for humans to thrive in. This consensus is now being expressed by other scientists, who have noted Earth’s amazing properties. Influential books like Donald Brownlee and Peter Ward’s Rare Earth18: why complex life is are in the Universe, David Waltham’s Lucky Planet19, John Gribbin’s Alone in the Universe20 as well as Privileged Planet21by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, all seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Far from being a humdrum planet orbiting an ordinary star, the Earth was designed by a mind vastly more advanced than our own. And I give God all the glory!
Neil English is the author of several books in amateur astronomy. His latest historical work, Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy, is published by Springer-Nature.
References
Sagan, C. Cosmos, MacDonald Futura Publishers, London, 1981.
Eric Gaidos et al., “26Al and the Formation of the Solar System from a Molecular Cloud Contaminated by Wolf-Rayet Winds,” Astrophysical Journal 696 (May 10, 2009): 1854–63.
Frank, A., What is the “Avergae Star” like? Hint: It’s not like our Sun: https://bigthink.com/13-8/average-star/
Hazen, R. The Story of Earth, Penguin, 2012.
Allen P. Nutman et al., “≥3700 Ma Pre-Metamorphic Dolomite Formed by Microbial Mediation in the Isua Supracrustal Belt (W. Greenland): Simple Evidence for Early Life?” Precambrian Research 183, no. 4 (December 15, 2010): 725–37.
Yanan Shen et al, “Isotopic Evidence for Microbial Sulphate Reduction in the Early Archaean Era,” Nature 410 (March 1, 2001): 77–81.
N. Bindeman et al., “Rapid Emergence of Subaerial Landmasses and Onset of Modern Hydrologic Cycle 2.5 Billion Years Ago,” Nature 557 (May 23, 2018): 545–48, https://doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0131-1.
James, H.L. (1983). Distribution of banded iron-formation in space and time. Developments in Precambrian Geology, 6, 471–490.
Simonetta Gribaldo et al., “The Origin of Eukaryotes and Their Relationship with the Archaea: Are We at a Phylogenomic Impasse?” Nature Reviews Microbiology 8 (2010): 743–52.
Ross, H. Improbable Planet, Baker Books, 2016.
Ross, H., Cambrian Explosion Becomes More Explosive: https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/cambrian-explosion-becomes-more-explosive
Walker, J.C.G., Hays, P.B., & Kasting, J.F. A negative feedback mechanism for the long-term stabilization of Earth’s surface temperature. Journal of Geophysical Research 86, 9776-9782 (1981).
Melott & Bambach, “Do Periodicities in Extinction—With Possible Astronomical Connections—Survive a Revision of the Geological Timescale?” Astrophysical Journal 773 (August 10, 2013).
In a recent blog, I outlined my experiences of an older model Canon IS 10 x 30. I was impressed by the image stabilisation technology on that unit and described its optical quality as very good but not outstanding. These tests got me curious about two smaller models recently introduced by the giant Japanese camera manufacturer; a 8 x 20 IS and 10 x 20 IS, which promised even better ergonomics than the older generation 8 x 25 IS and 10 x 30 IS models. So I decided to buy and test the smaller 8 x 20 IS, the subject of this new review.
First Impressions
The Canon 8 x 20 IS arrived neatly boxed away inside its soft carry case, together with a comprehensive user manual, lithium ion battery, and warranty card. Weighing in at 420g without the battery, the binocular has a tough, grey coloured plastic chassis which I immediately found much easier to handle than the larger 10 x 30 IS, which tips the scales at 660g in comparison.
Like the older generation models, the new Canon 8 x 20 IS has soft rubber eye cups that can be folded down for use with spectacles. Turning next to the objectives, I was quite surprised but very happy to see that the 20mm objectives on the Canon were very deeply recessed; far more deeply in fact than any other binocular I’ve thus far encountered. Doubtless, this helps quite a lot in keeping stray light, dust and rain at bay; a good thing surely, as these units are not waterproof.
The small, 20mm objectives on the Canon IS 8 x 20 are very deeply recessed to protect them from the elements and stray light.
The focus wheel on the Canon IS 8 x 20 appears to be made of metal. It has very good grip and is large enough to access and manoeuvre even while wearing thick winter gloves. The dioptre compensation is achieved in the traditional way, by rotating the base of the right eye cup until you achieve your desired setting.
The single CR123A lithium ion battery is easily installed in a pull-out compartment located under the focus wheel. The image stabilisation is achieved by pressing a small button offset onto the right barrel of the binocular, causing a small green LED to light up while it is being activated. The instruction manual states that the battery has a lifetime of about 12 hours at room temperature but is reduced to just 8 hours at -10C. During my tests I never encountered any problems using the image stabilisation function, which involved a few hours of testing at temperatures ranging from +20C to -2C.
The objective lenses on both the ocular and objectives have very nice and evenly applied anti-reflection coatings. The objective coatings have a pale, greenish tint while those on the eyepieces appeared magenta in daylight.
Note the magenta coloured anti-reflection coatings on the ocular lenses. One can also see the rectangular shaped battery compartment on the instrument immediately under the focus wheel.
Ergonomics
In comparison with my experiences with the older generation Canon IS 10 x 30, the smaller 8 x 20 model was much easier to use in my medium sized hands. For example, it was considerably easier to hold it with two hands, and accessing the off centre stabilisation button did not present any problems.
The large, centrally placed focus wheel turns very smoothly, with excellent inertia and with no play while rotating clockwise or anti-clockwise.
The textured, metal focus wheel on the Canon IS 8 x 20 rotates smoothly with no backlash, stiction or free play.
The rather old-school, flexi-rubber eyecups proved reasonably comfortable when they were pressed against my eyes. When I folded them down to test the eye relief for spectacle wearers however, I found it difficult to image the entire field of view using my varifocals. I think this an area that Canon can improve on in the future.
The old school soft rubber eyecups fold down for use with eye glasses.
Playing around with the Canon IS 8 x 20 in my hands, and comparing it to a conventional 8 x 20 pocket binocular, I felt the latter was much easier to achieve a stable, comfortable grip with. So, while the newer 8 x 20 IS units are a big improvement over say a larger 10 x 30 IS, they are still nowhere near the comfort levels I experience using a conventional, dual-hinge 8 x 20 glass.
The Leica Ultravid BR 8 x 20 (left) is much easier to handle than the Canon IS 8 x 20(right).
Optical Assessment
I was quite impressed with the optical quality of the older generation Canon IS 10 x 30 but my tests on the newer IS 8 x 20 showed it to be a good deal better again. Conducting a bright light torch test showed no annoying internal reflections, diffraction spikes or diffused light. Indeed, it was a good step up from the results I achieved with the older, Canon IS 10 x 30 in this regard. No doubt, this is largely attributed to the improved ‘Super Spectra’ coatings applied to its optical elements.
Looking through the Canon IS 8 x 20 during dull, overcast winter weather, I was immediately impressed with the excellent sharpness, contrast and brightness of the image from edge to centre. Like the older models, these smaller Canon IS binoculars have built-in field flattening lenses which reduces field curvature and other off axis aberrations when viewing a target away from the centre of the field.
Indeed, in low light tests I conducted alongside my excellent Leica 8 x 20 BR Ultravid, I judged the Canon IS 8x 20 be equally bright, but just falling short of the sharpness of the Leica. Glare suppression however, was noticeably better in the Canon though. This is probably attributed to the very deeply recessed objective lenses on the Canon IS binocular in contrast to the Leica, the objectives of which are not at all recessed( maximising its compactness) and so are at the mercy of intrusions of stray light.
One aspect of the view was less engaging with the Canon IS 8 x 20 over the hand-held Leica Ultravid 8 x 20 though. Despite having a slightly larger field of view(6.6 vs 6.5 angular degrees), I felt the field was significantly more immersive in the Leica compared with the Canon 8 x 20. It almost felt as if I were watching a scene on a movie screen in the latter compared with the feeling of being much more ‘in the image’ using the Leica.
Chromatic aberration was an absolute non-issue in the Canon IS 8 x 20, unlike the larger and older Canon IS 10 x 30. Indeed, it was fully the equal of the Leica Ultravid 8x 20, with only the extreme edges of the field showing up the merest traces of secondary spectrum whilst glassing high contrast daylight targets.
Close focus was found to be very good in the Canon IS 8x 20 too. I measured it at just over 2 metres, in accordance with the stated numbers issued by Canon. Still, the Leica Ultravid 8 x 20 BR was noticeably better at 1.8 metres.
Depth of focus proved excellent in the Canon IS 8 x 20. Indeed, it was even a shade better than my Leica 8 x 20 Ultravid BR. This was largely to be expected, as the Porro prism design of the Canon has long been known to create better depth perception in comparison to their roof prism counterparts.
All in all, I judged the Canon IS 8 x 20 to have excellent optics, as good or better in many respects to the best roof prism instruments models available today.
Engaging the IS Technology
The real magic of these binoculars takes place when you press the image stabilisation button. Like the larger 10 x 30 IS I tested some weeks back, the smaller Canon 8 x 20 IS works brilliantly. Aim at your target, focus as sharply as you can and press the IS button. You can immediately see finer detail that is quite invisible in the non-stabilised views. The stabilisation function works in two modes: sporadic and continuous. Most of the time, I used the button to stabilise the image for a few seconds before dis-engaging. But the IS function can also be used continuously for up to five minutes. I got on less well with the latter mode, as I felt a bit queasy moving the binocular from one target to the other, and watching the images ‘swim’ into stabilised mode.
In another test, I compared the stabilised views on the Canon 8 x 20 IS to a tripod- mounted Leica Utravid 8 x 20. Carefully going back and forth between the instruments, I discerned slightly more details in the tripod-stabilised Leica than the Canon 8 x 20 IS. This is in keeping with my results with the older generation 10 x 30 IS. The tripod-stabilised view offers a little more in the way of resolution at the cost of losing portability.
In yet another test, I aimed the Canon IS 8 x 20 on the Pleaides star cluster high in the winter sky, comparing the non-stabilised view with the images served up when the IS function was engaged. The results were quite dramatic; many fainter stars popped into view when the IS button was engaged. Very impressive!
Concluding Thoughts and Recommendations
The Canon 8 x 20 IS serves up very impressive views, even when the image stabilisation function is dis-engaged. These newer models have noticeably improved optics over their older counterparts, especially in terms of brightness and contrast, and in the control of stray light. Indeed, optically, they are very close to the quality served up by the world’s best pocket binoculars. Having said that, while I fully acknowledge that the smaller weight of these new Canon IS binoculars is a big step in the right direction in terms of ergonomic handling, they still fall quite a bit short in terms of how good they feel in my hands compared with my little Leica Ultravid. Indeed, I think the engineers at Canon could make some significant improvements in the shape of the chassis to allow a better grip in the hand. What’s more, their lack of waterproofing will put others off, especially if they intend using them for long periods in the field where the weather can change without warning.
So, all in all, a terrific product, but still some room for improvement.
Coatings: Fully broadband multi-coated, phase and dielectric coatings applied to Schmidt Pechan roof prisms
ED Glass: Yes
Light Transmission: 90%
Tripod Mountable: Yes
Weight: 500g advertised, 509g measured
Dimensions: L/W 11.8/11.8cm
Accessories: cleaning cloth, hard case, neoprene neck strap, hard case strap, objective covers, ocular covers
Warranty: 10 years
Price: £352.99(UK)
In a previous blog, I reviewed the magnificent GPO Passion HD 10 x 42, one of the flagship models from the relatively new firm, German Precision Optics. For the money, I felt it was an excellent bargain, especially when compared to significantly more expensive models from Zeiss, Leica and Swarovski. Gone are the days when you have to shell out several grand to get a world class binocular, and in my opinion, GPO are definitely leading the way in this regard.
But having enjoyed the instrument for a couple of weeks, reality began to bite. As I’ve remarked before, the 42mm format is not my favourite. It has nothing to do with optics or ergonomics. It’s about weight. You see, I’ve come to strongly favour smaller formats. I already own and frequently use a world-class pocket binocular, the Leica Ultravid BR 8 x 20, but my experiences with larger binoculars convinced me that an optimum size for me would come from the compact class of binoculars, with apertures in the 30-35mm size class. Such instruments are easier to hold, easier to view through, and have more light gathering power. But I was also on the look out for a 10x instrument, to afford greater reach for my glassing targets, especially birds. While I’ve enjoyed some really high quality 10 x 25 pocket glasses in the past, their smaller objectives let in less light – an important parameter when glassing in shady areas during daylight hours, and especially for discerning subtle colour tones.
Unfortunately, GPO did not offer a smaller model in their flagship HD range, but they did have a 10 x 32 model from their more economical Passion ED line. After doing some research on this model(see the Preamble link above), I decided to pull the trigger and ordered one up for testing; enter the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32.
The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 and its high quality carry case.
First Impressions
Costing less than half the price of the larger 10 x 42 HD model, the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 package arrived with all of the same great quality accessories that delighted me in the larger HD binocular: I received the same neck strap, a smaller clamshell case, snugly fitting rain guard and objective lens covers, GPO-branded microfibre lens cleaning cloth, instruction manual and warranty card. It arrived in the same high quality presentation box as the larger HD model, with its unique serial number etched into the underside of the binocular and on the outside of the box. Very neat!
The GPO Passion ED 10x 32 has the same excellent build quality as the larger HD models.
Picking up the binocular and holding it, I was chuffed to see how well it fitted my hands. The narrow, single bridge allowed me to wrap my fingers round the barrels better than any other 30-32mm model I’ve previously handled. And while the instrument has a lovely, solid feel about it, with its sturdy magnesium alloy chassis, I was very reassured by its considerably lower weight; just 500g as opposed to ~ 850g for the larger, HD instrument.
The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 fits perfectly in my hands!
The central hinge is nice and stiff, making it difficult to change the IPD on the fly. I like that. The binocular has a rather oversized central focus wheel, just like the heavier HD model, and I was relieved to see that it moved very easily and smoothly, with just one finger. The professionally machined aluminium eyecups are, in my opinion, even more impressive on the Passion ED model than the HD, rigidly locking into place with one intermediate click stop. The immaculately applied rubber armouring has two textures, just like the HD, a roughly textured side armouring and a silky smooth substrate covering the inside of the barrels.
All in all, very impressive!
Ergonomics
The GPO Passion ED shares many of the high quality ergonomic features built into the more expensive HD models. The ocular and objective antireflection coatings are immaculately applied and have a fetching magenta hue when observed in broad daylight. Unlike the HD models however, they do not have the hydrophobic coatings – an acceptable sacrifice, and then some.
Ocular lens end of the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32.
The objective lenses are recessed to an extent I’ve not seen before on any other compact model I’ve had the pleasure of using. I measured it at about 9mm! Why so deep? Well, it could be to protect those objectives from the vagaries of the weather; rain, wind, and stray light etc, or maybe partially compensating for the lack of hydrophobic coatings on the glass? Whatever the precise reason, I liked it!
The beautiful magenta coloured antireflection coatings on the Passion ED are immaculately applied, and note the exceptionally deeply recessed objective lenses!
The eyecups are beautifully designed; absolutely world class! They extend upwards with one intermediate position between fully retracted and fully extended, and lock into place rigidly with a reassuring ‘click.’ This is one binocular you can safely store inside its case with the eyecups fully extended for quicker deployment. They ain’t gonna budge!
Eye relief proved perfect for me, as I don’t use eye glasses, but I think the stated value of 15mm might be a bit optimistic, as I was not easily able to observe the full field of view keeping the eyecups down and wearing my varifocals.
The beautifully machined aluminium eyecups are world class, clicking into place with absolute rigidity.
Unlike the more expensive HD models which have a centre-locking dioptre adjustment, the Passion ED presents a more cost-effective solution by returning it to under the right ocular lens. While adjusting it, I noted its excellent rigidity, rendering it very resistant to accidentally moving while in the field. I felt it was a very acceptable compromise. Furthermore, the + and – settings are clearly marked, and so it’s very easy to memorise its optimal positioning should the instrument be used by others.
The oversized focus wheel is very easy to access and manoeuvre using one finger. It has a very grippy, texturized rubber overcoat, identical in fact to the more expensive HD models. Taking just over one complete turn to go from one extreme of its travel to the other, I would rate its speed as very fast; a good thing in my opinion, as it will be used primarily for birding, where big changes in focus position are often required following a mobile avian target. Motions are very smooth though, but I did notice a very small bit of play with it; similar in fact to focus wheel on the Leica Trinovid HD 8 x 32 I used and enjoyed a while back. Here the HD model came out better in my opinion, as I was unable to detect any play whatsoever with the 10 x 42.
I was most highly impressed with the way the binocular felt in my hands though. In truth, I don’t recall enjoying wrapping my medium sized hands around the barrels as much as on any other compact binocular I’ve tested. I reckon that this is attributed to the narrow bridge, which exposes those long, slender barrels. It’s simply a joy to hold, perfectly stable and always a thrill to bring to my eyes!
All in all, the build quality and handling of the Passion ED 10 x 32 are absolutely unrivalled in this moderate price class. GPO has clearly gone well beyond the call of duty in the design and execution of these new, highly-advanced compact binoculars!
Optics
The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 came perfectly collimated. I was able to ascertain this by carefully focusing the binocular on the bright star Capella and then moving the right eye dioptre to the end of its natural travel. The perfectly focused star from the left barrel was found right in the centre of the defocused star diffraction pattern.
The lady reviewing the 10 x 32 in the Preamble to this review stated that the binocular had no issues with internal reflections and stray light and I was able to affirm this in the 10 x 32 I received. The image of an intensely bright beam of light from my IPhone torch was clean and devoid of diffraction spikes.
The exit pupils are nice and round and have little in the way of light leaks immediately around the pupil; a very good result but not quite in the same league as those found on the more expensive Passion HD 10 x 42.
Left eye pupil.
Right eye pupil.
In broad daylight, the images served up by the GPO Passion ED are very impressive! It is bright and very sharp across the entire field, with very little in the way of distortion even at the field stops. Like the Passion HD model, it enjoys a very decisive snap to focus on whatever target I turn it on. The small exit pupil ensures that the best part of your eye does all the imaging. Colours are vivid and natural but to my eye it has a slightly warm tone, with greens and browns coming through very strongly. Contrast is very good but not quite in the same class as the GPO Passion HD 10x 42 I tested it against. Glare suppression was also impressive. Comparing it to my control binocular – a Barr & Stroud Series 5 8x 42 ED – which exhibits excellent control of all types of glare, including veiling glare, the little Passion ED proved to be slightly superior to it. However, it was not quite as good in this capacity as the GPO 10 x 42 HD model, which exhibits the best control of glare that I have personally witnessed in any binocular.
Close focus is considerably better than I had expected. The accompanying user manual claimed 2.5m for this model, but I measured it at only 1.92m!
Colour correction in the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 is very impressive! Pointing the binocular into the branches of a leafless tree against a bright overcast sky, the centre of the image is completely devoid of it, and even off axis, I could only coax the merest trace and only near the field stops. Returning to testing the binocular under the stars, I was able to verify just how well corrected the field of view is. Stars remain nice pinpoints nearly all the way to the edges. I attribute this excellent result to GPO’s optical engineers’ choice of field size. 6 degrees is not large by modern standards so it’s easier to achieve optical excellence using standard eyepiece designs. More on this a little later.
Venturing out on a freezing, misty December night to observe the full Moon, the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 threw up a beautiful image. It was clean and sharp and contrasty. Secondary spectrum was non existent over the vast majority of the field, with only the extreme edges showing some weak lateral colour. Field illumination was also excellent, as with the 10 x 42 HD, with very little in the way of brightness drop off as the bright silvery orb was moved from the centre to the edge of the field. I also judged field distortion to be excellent in these tests too. The Moon remains razor sharp across most of the field, and only shows slight defocus at the field stops. Indeed, it was very comparable to the results I got with my optically excellent Leica Ultravid 8 x 20 in this regard.
Complementary instruments.
These are excellent results, and quite in keeping with the comments made by the lady from Optics Trade, as revealed in the Preamble video linked to at the beginning of the review. Indeed, these results place the GPO Passion ED in the top tier optically. Its colour correction was notably better than the Leica Trinovid HD 8 x 32, and I felt its sharpness and contrast were perhaps a shade better too. I’m confident that this 10 x 32 ED could hold its own against top-rated compact binoculars up to twice its retail value or more.
Notes from the Field & Concluding Comments
The view through the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 is very stable and immersive. On paper a field of view of 105m@1000m might seem restrictive but in practice you never get that impression. There are no blackouts, rolling ball effects or any other issues common to compact models sporting wider fields of view with field flatteners. This makes panning observations particularly pleasurable with this instrument. To be honest, I suspected that this would have been the case after I had put the Passion HD 10 x 42 through its paces. Indeed I would hazard a guess that both binocular lines – the HD and ED – have substantially similar optical designs. As an experienced glasser, I have no abiding interest in very large fields of view. Indeed, I tend to think of those wide angle binoculars as rather distracting and more suited to beginners than more seasoned observers. I’m interested in vignettes not vistas.
Goldilocks Binocular.
So there you have it! The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 is, for me, a Goldilocks binocular, serving my purposes perfectly and fitting my hands like a tailor-made glove. It pays to mention that GPO also market a 8 x 32 with a wider field of view, and two 42mm models with powers of 8x and 10x; so something for everyone! Check them out as soon as you can. You’ll not be disappointed!
Dr Neil English has some exciting news to reveal early in the new year. For now, he’d like to wish all his readers a Very Happy Christmas!
In several previous reviews, I’ve showcased a few binoculars made by Barr & Stroud. As I explained before, I cut my first binocular teeth with a modern roof prism binocular by Barr & Stroud just over three years ago, and have always been impressed by their excellent bang for buck. Unlike so many other instruments in the same price range, which showed mis-collimated barrels, too much field curvature, chromatic aberration and sub-standard ergonomics, Barr & Stroud products punched well above their weight in terms both of the quality of the optics they presented and the rugged no-nonsense chassis in which those optics were housed. In this review, I’ll be discussing the optical and ergonomic features of two nifty monoculars from the same company; the Sprite Midi 8 x 42, and the higher power Sprite Plus 15 x 50. But before we get to those details, let’s take some time to go over the reasons why a monocular might suit an individual more than a binocular.
A monocular is, quite simply, half a binocular. Thus, it uses one eye rather than two. Some people have natural deficiencies in one eye, such as severe astigmatism for example, that results in their inability to properly adjust the dioptre setting on a regular binocular leading to a blurred image. Others have one eye damaged in some way and so can’t avail of the natural advantages of using both eyes. Some folk like to use monoculars because they are smaller and lighter than the equivalent binocular and this may prove to be very important if space and weight constraints are very tight. Monoculars are now available in many sizes and magnifications. Low power monoculars have magnification ranges similar to that found in modern compact and full-sized binoculars, but higher powered units function more like mini-spotting scopes, enabling the user to lock in on small targets beyond the range of binoculars or seeing details quite invisible to conventional, hand-held binoculars. Yet another advantage of a monocular is cost; it’s just cheaper to use a monocular than a binocular of the same aperture.
What does one lose in going from a binocular to a monocular? Well, a few things actually. Depth perception for one thing, as our eyes were designed in such a way that they both create the sensation of focus depth, allowing us to gain a sense of the 3-dimensional shape of objects and how far away they are. Many observers enjoy up to a 40 per cent gain in contrast using binoculars compared with the same sized monocular. The reasons for this are not entirely understood but suffice it to say that using two eyes increases the signal to noise ratio in the electrical impulses that are created in viewing an object. Many observers also report that monoculars are harder to hold steady than binoculars of the same aperture. Despite these drawbacks, most of the main binocular manufacturers also produce monoculars, and Barr & Stroud is no exception.
First Impressions & Ergonomics
Both the Barr & Stroud monoculars have a polycarbonate chassis overlaid by a grippy, green rubber armouring. The polycarbonate body cuts down on weight and is perfectly adequate for most observing schedules. Both instruments fit very easily in the palm of your hand. They are both very lightweight; the 8 x 42mm weighing at 350g and the 15 x 50mm just 100g more. In this capacity, both the Sprite Midi 8x 42 and Plus are no heavier than the average compact binocular. Both instruments come with a rubberised rain guard and a tethered objective cover, which means you’ll never lose it in the field.
Both Barr & Stroud Monoculars have a permanently tethered objective cover.
In a previous blog, I commented on my great fondness for the quality of the focusers on a number of Barr & Stroud binoculars. And these binoculars are no exception. Both instruments have silky smooth focus wheels, which are large and easy to negotiate with just one finger. They do however have slightly different textures; I found that I preferred the less expensive Midi Sprite focus wheel over the larger 15 x 50 Sprite Plus. It was just slightly easier to grip and engage with throughout its travel.
The focus wheel on both Barr & Stroud monoculars are of high quality but I liked the extra grip afforded by the less expensive Midi model.
Both monoculars are equipped with pull-up eyecups that lock rigidly in place. The smaller 8 x 42 Sprite Midi has very generous eye relief. I was easily able to observe the full field with my eye glasses on. The larger Sprite Plus however, has considerably less eye relief, but if push came to shove, I was just able to engage with the full field but it was certainly challenging!
Both monoculars have well made twist up eyecups that lock rigidly in place.
Both Barr & Stroud monoculars come with a screw thread which enables you to mate it to a tripod or monopod for extra visual stability.
Both monoculars can be easily mated to a tripod or monopod.
Both monoculars come with a padded case and a carry strap that you can easily affix to the instrument.
Each monocular is supplied with a padded carry case and strap to carry it from place to place.
Optics
Both Barr & Stroud monoculars feature fully multicoated optics and BaK4 Schmidt Pechan roof prisms. The less expansive Sprite Midi 8x 42 is not phase coated however, unlike the higher power 15 x 50 Sprite Plus. The Sprite Midi 8 x 42 appears to have the same specifications as the 8 x 42 Sahara binocular with a field of view of 129m@1000m or 7.35 angular degrees but has a noticeably longer close focus at 2.59m(as opposed to just 1.98m for the Sahara binocular). Intriguingly, the Sprite Plus 15 x 50 monocular has a significantly better close focus of just 2.2 metres, which is also considerably less than the 2.5m advertised.
The higher power Spite Plus 15 x 50 has phase coated roof prisms unlike the smaller Sprite Midi.
Looking at the exit pupil of both monoculars showed a significantly better result for the larger Sprite Plus 15 x 50. Although both presented with nice round pupils, the 8 x 42 Midi had more stray light close to the pupil, as the images below show.
The exit pupil presented in the Sprite Midi 8 x 42.
The exit pupil presented by the Sprite Plus 15 x 50.
These results were also somewhat reproduced in my tests for internal reflections, by directing a bright beam of my IPhone 7 torch into the monoculars from across a room and inspecting the images visually. The Midi 8 x 42 did show significantly more internal reflections and diffused light around the beam than the larger 15 x 50 Plus unit. That said, these stray light artefacts were not terribly injurious to the image and both gave passable results when directed at a sodium street light after dark, and also on a bright Moon.
The daylight images served up by the 8 x 42 Midi monocular are bright and sharp. Contrast is good and chromatic aberration is very well controlled, with only the outer part of the field showing a trace. The 8 x 42 has a large sweet spot covering perhaps 60 per cent of the field but beyond that astigmatism and pincushion distortion increase gradually towards the field stop. I was also able to confirm these findings under the stars.
I judged the larger Sprite Plus 15 x 50 to be better optically than the smaller 8 x 42. Despite its higher power, the images it served up had higher contrast than the latter, a consequence I suppose of its phase corrected roof prisms. The field of view was flatter and better corrected in the 15 x 50 too. Star testing showed that most of its 3.78 degree true field was very well corrected, with only the outer 15 per cent showing significant distortion. Chromatic aberration was more conspicuous but never to an unacceptable degree. High contrast objects against a bright over cast sky background does show some but that’s just par for the course and most folk can easily ignore it and just get on with observing.
I found the 15 x 50 unit more versatile than the 8 x 42. With its substantial magnification, I enjoyed employing it as a mini spotting scope, either mounted on a monopod or simply by finding a suitable branch or fence post to rest it on. If you’re observing from a car, a small beanbag also works wonders stabilising the view. The 15x is just right for bridging the gap between a standard binocular view and a larger spotting scope. For example, I was able to make out nice, high-resolution details on a Grey Heron that were quite invisible in 8x and 10x binoculars. The 15 x 50 is a nifty instrument for studying the phases of the Moon; all the way from slender crescent to full on full Moon. Crater fields and maria show up sharply and in very high contrast; a true refractor image. The Plus proved to be a rather good, low-power, rich field telescope too, delivering up very impressive views of larger deep sky objects such as the Pleiades, the Beehive Cluster, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Double Cluster. Views of the Sword Handle of Orion also proved very compelling through the Spite Plus.
In addition to its higher magnification, the better close focus on the Sprite Plus 15 x 50 made it a rather good, long distance microscope, affording crystal clear views of leaf litter, bark, rock formations, fungi and tree branches. Indeed, if coupled to a digi-scoping adapter, it works well as an ultraportable telephoto lens.
In summary, both the Sprite Midi 8 x 42 and Plus 15 x 50 represent excellent value for money. They are well made, small, lightweight, easy to use, weather resistant and serve up very decent optics for their modest price tags. If your outdoor activities are in need of a magnification boost, give one of these monoculars a try. You won’t be left second guessing!
Neil English is the author of seven books on amateur and professional astronomy, including Choosing and Using a Refracting Telescope.
Svbony is a relatively new Hong Kong-based optics firm that began supplying amateur astronomers and nature enthusiasts with a wide range of cost-effective but good quality instruments and accessories in 2014. A google search of Svbony products will reveal a large and international fan base of customers who have been pleased with their eyepieces, filters, night vision devices and more recently, the company’s extensive range of astronomical and terrestrial spotting scopes.
My introduction to Svbony came as a result of testing out a trio of high-performance binoculars from their SV 202 range. You can see those reviewshere, here and here. What astonished me most about these binoculars was their excellent optical and mechanical performance at prices that were simply unbeatable in today’s market. These experiences collectively whetted my appetite to explore some more of their products, and in this review I will be sharing my thoughts on their newly launched mini-spotting scope that combines weatherproof ruggedness with good optical performance, in an ultra-portable package; enter the SV 410 9-27 x 56mm ED spotter, which first appeared on the market back in April of this year.
The scope was purchased from Amazon UK for a price of £179.99, and arrived a couple of days after ordering. Readers may also purchase the instrument directly from Svbony via this link, which will allow you to purchase the scope more cheaply if you can tolerate a longer shipping time(usually about 8 days)The instrument came well packed inside a long, white box with the blue and yellow Svbony logo, and with all of its accessories neatly packed inside. The little spotting scope was carefully placed inside a snugly fitting black foam bed, carefully cut to match the angled shape of the instrument. The accessories included a comprehensive multi-language instruction manual, a lens cleaning cloth, a nicely machined protective jacket and carry strap. The scope itself came with good quality and tightly-fitting rubber ocular and objective covers.
The Svbony mini spotting scope is very small and easy to carry, almost fitting inside a large pocket.
Ergonomics
Right from the get go, I was very impressed with the build quality of the SV 410 mini spotter. It feels very solid in the hand but only weighs about the same as a typical 8 x 32 binocular. The metal chassis (possibly a magnesium alloy or aluminium) is overlaid by a mild green rubber armouring. The helical focuser, located between the objective and the eyepiece moves nicely with a good deal of friction. There is no facility for fine focusing like on larger spotting scopes, which offer a larger range of magnifications, but in use I found that it was more than adequate to get precise focus since the highest power (27x) is not large enough to necessitate a fine focus knob.
The zoom eyepiece is clearly marked with magnifications from 9x to 27x which you can choose simply by rotating the eyepiece to dial in your preferred power boost.
The silky smooth zoom function on the eyepiece gives the user a range of magnifications from 9x through 27x.
The nicely machined aluminium eyecup is overlaid with soft, black rubber and twists upward to provide the necessary eye relief for non-eye glass wearers. It clicks into place- and you can hear it!– without any play, and holds its position very well. Another good design feature of the eyecup is its continuous motion from fully retracted to extended -that means you can dial in your preferred eye relief. I found, for example, that the eyecups pushed slightly down renders excellent results without glasses.
The nicely machined twist up eyecup on the SV 410 mini spotter.
The instrument is quoted as having an eye relief of 18mm, but I found it was a little shorter than this. I did however test the scope with the eyecup fully retracted with my eye glasses and I was able to see the entire field with no problems but it was fairly tight!
The objective and ocular lens coatings are different from those applied to their SV 202 binoculars, having a mild, greenish tint in broad daylight;
The anti-reflection lens coatings on the Svbony mini spotter are a subdued green.
The green anti-reflection coatings on the eyepiece lens.
Unlike larger spotting scopes, there is no lens hood on the Svbony SV 410 spotter, although the objective is quite deeply recessed. Having a hood would afford greater protection against stray light during use in bright daylight but if push come to shove, one can easily be made from a cardboard or plastic sheath. I guess Svbony decided against having a lens shade to keep the weight down to an absolute minimum.
The underside of the mini spotter has a brass screw socket to enable the user to quickly mate it to a monopod or tripod in field use.
The underside of the mini spotter has a socket to attach it to either a monopod or tripod.
Overall, I was very impressed with the build quality on this nifty little spotting scope from Svbony; so small it fits snugly in the palm of your hand.
I keep the tripod mounting bracket on the underside of the scope for quick release from a tripod or monopod.
Optical Evaluation
My first test looked for stray light and internal reflections when pointed at an extremely bright light source. So on went my IPhone torch set to its brightest setting. After focusing the beam from across a living room, I was able to establish that the unit displayed excellent suppression of internal reflections, but also very little in the way of diffused light and no diffraction spikes. Just like their SV 202 binoculars, this spotting scope was up there with them in terms of controlling bright light sources. I confirmed this after dark by looking at a bright sodium street lamp. All was well, as I expected, with a nice clean image of the lamp with no annoying internal reflections or diffraction spikes. Once again, good job Svbony!
Looking at the exit pupil as the scope was racked through its zoom magnification range showed a nice round light shaft throughout. The images below show the exit pupil at the 9x setting and the 27x setting for reference:
Exit pupil at 9x setting.
Exit pupil at 27x setting
Taking into the consideration the extremely fast focal ratio of this Porro prism spotting scope ( f/3.4), requiring four objective lens(one of which is an ED element) elements in three groups, I knew going in that the total elimination of chromatic aberration would be a tall order. But I was very pleasantly surprised when, after mounting the scope to a lightweight tripod, I racked it through its full range of magnifications, 9x through 27x, focused on a telephone pole set against a uniformly bright overcast sky. I noted that I could obtain a very sharp focus right up to 27x with only a modest amount of chromatic aberration seen around the edges of wires and the pole itself. Furthermore, any secondary spectrum seen was very sensitive to eye placement. I quickly learned to move my eye around to minimise it while observing my targets. In addition, moving off axis shows some lateral chromatic aberration in this scope.
The image is bright and sharp, with excellent contrast. Autumn colours really showed up beautifully using this small spotting scope from the Far East. The eyepiece is not parfocal however, thus requiring a significant amount of refocusing moving from low to high power The zoom is continuously variable however, from 9x through 27x
The image remained very sharp right out to the field stop, with only very minor field curvature and pincushion distortion; much less severe than the vast majority of binoculars I’ve tested over the last three years! I took the liberty of capturing some images through the Svbony mini spotting scope using my IPhone and a digi-scoping adapter. The reader will bear in mind that these images were captured during the most adverse conditions possible with leaden rainclouds, windy gusts and outbreaks of rain. All the images are entirely unprocessed and were taken directly from my IPhone.
First up, an image of some fence posts at just under 44 yards distant. The reader will note the magnification was set to 27x and shows extremely mild field curvature at the edges of the field.
A wooden fence located at a distance of 43.8 yards, captured during very inclement lighting conditions. Next up, an image of a wooden outhouse roof about 20 yards away, showing the brilliant autumn colours coming though in the spotting scope set at 27x:
A rooftop showing greens, reds and browns of autumn.
The image blow shows autumn leaves at 24 yards distance, power of 27x:
Autumn leaves at 27x, distance 24 yards.
In my most severe test conducted, I took a shot of a telephone pole at a distance of 35 yards at 27x, showing some secondary spectrum. The reader will note that the amount seen by the naked eye is much less than the IPhone 7 captures:
A telephone pole and wiring set against a grey, overcast sky. 35 yards distant, 27x.
Finally, I took a picture of a BlueTit at the birdfeeder in my back garden: 15 yards distance, 27x:
Further Notes from the Field
I measured the close focus on the Svbony SV 410 mini spotting scope to be 2.16m or 7 feet, just a little longer than the advertised 2m. That’s an excellent result, closer, in fact, than a raft of other spotting scopes I’ve looked at. The nearest I got was 2.5m for the Opticron MM4 50 ED, and even the closest product to the Svbony – the Celestron Hummingbird 9-27 x 56 ED – has a close focus of nearly 10 feet! That’s great news for those who would like to use their spotting scopes as long range microscope. It’s quite amazing to be able to look at flowers, fungi, rocks, insects, and a host of other things at very close range at powers up to 27x. That, in my opinion, greatly increases its versatility.
Because it’s so small, the little Svbony spotter can be carried in a wide jacket pocket or a rucksack. Stable handholding is eminently possible at a power of 9x, but at higher powers it does benefit from some sort of makeshift support such as a beanbag. I was able to stabilise the image completely by resting the spotter on the branch of a tree while viewing a pair of Mute Swans at one of my local patches, when I could exploit the entire magnification range of the instrument.
For more hassle free results, it pays to mount the spotter on a monopod, and because these are very lightweight and fold up to very convenient sizes, they can be carried about in a rucksack, with no hassle to the rambler.
This would be a good place to compare and contrast some of the specifications of this Svbony mini ED spotting scope to an outwardly similar instrument – the Celestron Hummingbird 9-27 x 56mm ED. As well as having a significantly closer focus than the Hummingbird, it also sports a wider field of view. The Svbony has a field of view range from 2.1 to 4.5 angular degrees, as compared with the Hummingbird at 1.9 to 4.2 degrees. This makes object acquisition that little bit easier with the Svbony The eye relief is also better on the Svbony mini spotter (18mm as opposed to 15mm). Furthermore, the Svbony is about 30g lighter than the Celestron scope. But perhaps the best news of all is that the Celestron Hummingbird ED mini spotter retails for about £299.99. That’s a 66 per cent mark up in price compared with the Svbony! Is the Hummingbird really any better? I have my doubts!
Notes Gleaned from Looking at the Night Sky
Reviewers who only carry out terrestrial observations during daylight hours are prone to miss some important details about their subject instruments. As a case in point, I use my right eye for astronomical viewing through all my telescopes, and this little Svbony was no exception. At 9x I noticed the mild astigmatism in my own eye was showing up in images of bright stars in the spotting scope’s field of view. But when I cranked up the power to 27x, the astigmatism was noticeably less. Viewing with my glasses on effectively eliminated this astigmatism. Had I confined my viewing to daytime targets, I would be none the wiser to this aberration originating from my own eyes.
Star images remained nice and tight nearly all the way to the field stop at all magnifications, just as the photos above reveal. The instrument clearly has a very flat and well corrected field.
The Svbony SV 410 mini ED spotting scope proved to be an excellent instrument for observing the Moon, which I enjoyed doing over a couple of weeks in October. There are no annoying reflections and diffraction spikes in the images it served up. A great amount of detail was gleaned at 27x; craters, maria, valleys and mountains all showed up with beautiful sharpness and contrast. I detected some slight fringing at the lunar limb, but this was also sensitive to eye placement. In comparison to my 20 x 60 Pentax PCF binocular, the Svbony showed slightly less colour fringing on the Moon but was its equal for sharpness and contrast – a very good result indeed, as I rate the latter very highly as a Moon-gazing binocular.
Bright stars like Vega reveal a trace of secondary spectrum at the highest powers as does the bright planet Jupiter, but I was just able to make out two bands straddling the planet’s equator and the four large Galilean satellites were very clearly discerned as tiny stellar-like point sources. I was also delighted to see Saturn’s majestic rings with the little Svbony spotter, and even its largest satellite, Titan.
In the late evening of October 30, I enjoyed a long clear spell with the waning Moon out of the sky. Mounting the spotter on my tripod, I examined a suite of double stars to test the resolving capabilities of this pint-sized scope. My first target was Mizar & Alcor low in the northern sky, where I was able to prize apart the tight companion to Mizar at 27x. Albireo( Beta Cygni) was beautiful and easy at powers above 12x, but most compelling at 27x. The view of the celebrated binocular multiple star system Omicron^1 Cygni was gorgeously presented at 27x, the wonderful colour contrast of its components coming through clearly. The components of Beta Lyrae were also cleanly resolved, and an especially lovely sight at 27x. Perhaps my most challenging split came when I turned the instrument on the orange star Gamma Delphini, now sinking into the west south-westerly sky. Taking that little bit extra care focusing this system at 27x revealed the prize I had been looking for; its fifth magnitude companion being just resolved with a steady gaze. This will make an excellent instrument for observing traditional binocular doubles, allowing you to study them at significantly higher powers than regular binoculars!
The main body of the Pleaides was nicely framed in the 2.1 degree true field of the Svbony SV 410 ED spotting scope at 27x. Many dozens of stars filled the field from edge to edge, including many double and multiple star systems easily discerned at the highest powers available to me. What appeared very odd to me at first, was the orientation of the stars making up this most celebrated herald of autumn. Of course, it presents the view as the eye sees it(only magnified), but being very accustomed to viewing stars through Newtonians and (in a former life), small refractors yielding upright but mirror-reversed images, it took a bit of getting used to in this quirky little spotting scope. Pointing the scope much higher up in the night sky showed me a very nice view of the great Galaxy in Andromeda(M31), together with its fainter companions M32 near the core, and M110 about a degree off to the northwest of the core of M31. The Double Cluster in Perseus, now near the zenith, stood out beautifully at 23x against a jet black hinterland. The Coathanger asterism in Vulpecula was an awesome sight at powers between 15x and 23x. And while sinking quite low into the north-western sky, I enjoyed some very fine views of M13 and M92 in Hercules.
As local midnight approached, I began observing the trio of Messier open clusters in Auriga. At 27x, one can begin to resolve these celebrated clusters into dozens of individual stars. Later on again, in the wee small hours of Sunday morning, October 31, I went in search of M35, that wonderful, sprawling open cluster in the northern foot of Gemini, and was rewarded by a very compelling sight at powers above 20x, when several dozen of its brightest luminaries began to be resolved in the spotting scope. That weekend night vigil convinced me that a great deal of astronomy can be done with such a tiny scope as this. It’s very easy to find objects at 9x before zooming in for a closer look.
Conclusions & Recommendations
My experiences with the Svbony SV 410 9-27 x 56 ED spotting scope have been very pleasing indeed. Its low cost, solid optical performance, ease of handling, outdoor ruggedness and very light weight will appeal to a great many individuals wanting to make a move into the high magnification world of sport optics. And while not a full-sized instrument with its larger aperture and magnification range, this pint-sized scope will fill a niche for many, serving multiple purposes as a rich field travel and spotting telescope, as well as a high-powered long range microscope that you can take with you anywhere.
Highly recommended!
Neil English is the author of seven books in amateur and professional astronomy, including one on refracting telescopes.
Plotina: the author’s modified 130mm f/5 Newtonian reflector, with a Vixen Erecting Adaptor and two simple Plossl eyepieces used in the investigation.
A Work Commenced October 3 2021
In this blog, I’ll be demonstrating the potential of a small Newtonian reflector operating in spotting ‘scope mode. This follows on from a previous blog I conducted to find a suitable optical device that would give fully erected and correct left-right orientation, just like a conventional spotting scope.
First, a few words of introduction about the telescope. It’s a 130mm f/5 SkyWatcher Newtonian reflector, so has a focal length of 650mm. Because of its open-tube design, the instrument is surprisingly light; just 3.8 kilos(8.4 pounds) and 4.1 kg (9 pounds) with the mounting bracket attached. It acclimates fully in 30-40 minutes, even when taken from a warm indoors environment to the cold of a Winter’s day. But such thorough cooling is only necessary to coax the highest powers out of the instrument.
The instrument has mirrors treated with state-of-the-art Hilux coatings(applied by Orion Optics, UK), increasing its overall reflectivity to 97 per cent. The primary mirror is the original one supplied by SkyWatcher, while the secondary flat mirror was upgraded with an Orion Optics UK secondary, having a flatter surface and smaller semi-major diameter of 35mm. This provides a small 26.9 per cent central obstruction. This size of central obstruction is significantly smaller than a Maksutov or Schmidt Cassegrain (SCT) of the same aperture. Unlike the popular Maksutov, the 130mm Newtonian(aka Plotina), can deliver a significantly lower magnification. For example, using a 32mm Skywatcher Plossl, it delivers a power of just 20x and using another Plossl of focal length 10mm, the telescope provides an amplification of 65x. I used these two eyepieces to demonstrate the spotting scope potential of the Newtonian, as many conventional spotters provide magnifications in this range(20-65x), corresponding to exit pupils of 4.7 and 2mm, respectively.
The contrast transfer is provided by subtracting the aperture of the secondary from the primary(130-35 = 95mm), thus one can expect a degree of contrast equivalent to a 95mm apochromatic refractor. Its light gathering power and resolution(0.89″) are significantly higher than a 95mm refractor, however. This has been borne out in several years of observations of lunar, planetary, double star and deep sky observing. The reader will find several other blogs I have published on this instrument in the past by clicking on the ‘Telescopes’ link on the home page.
The Erecting Adapter: Purchased for £80, the Vixen erecting adapter is a rather long appendage but delivers an upright image with the correct left-right orientation, just like a conventional spotting ‘scope. The lenses in the adapter are fully multi-coated and truncates the field a little when employing longer focal length eyepieces. You simply insert the desired eyepiece into the adapter, focus the ‘scope, and you’re off to the races!
Plotina, with the erecting adapter attached.
The instrument was used in broad daylight outside on a cool, breezy autumnal day, between heavy rain showers. It was mounted on a simple non motorised alt-azimuth(Vixen Porta II). The instrument is equipped with Bob’s Knobs screws for quick and easy collimation using a Hotech laser collimator. Alignment of the optics takes just a few seconds to get precise alignment of the secondary and primary mirrors. All of the images were taken simply by pointing my Iphone 7 into the eyepiece and taking single images. The pictures presented here are the highest resolution I can load onto this website( ~200-750KB), so are not the highest quality that I can potentially show. All the images are completely unmodified, apart from cropping. All distances quoted were measured with a laser range finder, and all the images were taken on the same breezy afternoon of October 3 2021.
Results:
Image 1: Shows a TV satellite dish at a power of 20x located at distance of 27 yards:
Image 2 shows some autumn leaves at 20x and located at a distance of 18.9 yards
Image 3 shows the branches of a tree at 20x located 43.1 yards from the scope:
Image 4 shows a hill top located at about 2 km distance at 65x
Discussion:
I am very encouraged by the results I obtained this afternoon. Irrespective of the scepticism of arm chair theorists, the images speak for themselves! The instrument provides very nice, high contrast and colour pure renditions of a variety of targets. Chromatic aberration is particularly well controlled, as expected, given that the Newtonian is a truly apochromatic optical system, though some secondary spectrum is introduced by the eyepieces chosen. In addition, higher quality eyepieces will give better off-axis performance, and because those oculars are inter-changeable, a greater range of magnifications can be explored. Visually, the images are considerably better when examined with the naked eye. The reader will note that these magnifications are somewhat pedestrian for such a large telescope. Visually, much higher magnifications can be utilised profitably. And although the formidable resolving power of the instrument is clearly in evidence, the images could be improved further by employing a higher quality phone camera. What’s more, the images could also be processed lightly to bring out even more details.
The set up, though admittedly bulky by conventional spotting scope standards, could quite easily be erected in the field or, better still, in a hide, where it could be used to gather video footage or still images with the right equipment. Observing from indoors, through a clean window is also a distinct possibility, especially at lower powers. The instrument is not weatherproof however, owing to its open-tube design, so may be prone to dewing up but a small, battery-operated fan would extend its longevity in field use.
I believe this provides a very cost effective way(the entire apparatus set me back just a few hundred pounds) of obtaining high quality images compared with a high-end apochromatic spotter.
Food for thought!
Thanks for reading!
Dr Neil English spent most of his adult life testing and observing through telescopes of all varieties and genres. He now enjoys a new lease of life exploring the terrestrial realm during daylight hours.
A couple of months back, I reviewed an extraordinary compact binocular, the Svbony SV 202 8 x 32 ED, showcased in the Preamble above. Retailing for just under £100(but now being offered for just £90), I was deeply sceptical regarding the claims made by the company, since it was offering an instrument with a raft of sophisticated features, including a magnesium alloy chassis, phase and dielectrically coated Schmidt-Pechan roof prisms and an ED element in the objective. Determined to debunk those claims, I happened to have in my possession another compact 8 x 32 – the Celestron Trailseeker – which also had many of those same features but with the exception of the ED element to compare it to. To my absolute astonishment, the claims made by the Hong Kong based Svbony turned out to be true! What’s more, the addition of the ED objective element pulled the Svbony ahead of the Trailseeker in careful optical testing. Even its ergonomic features proved superior to the very decent Celestron binocular.
Yet, it transpired that Svbony was also offering a larger glass, the SV 202 10 x 42 ED, with the same quality features found in the 8 x 32 model, and for a truly amazing price of £125.99 inclusive of delivery! After a purchaser of both binoculars kindly posted some video footage of these instruments on YouTube, I became convinced that the larger model was worth investigating also, and sure enough, its larger sibling turned out to be even more exciting to test drive!
So, in this review blog, I’ll be taking the reader through the ergonomic and optical features of the Svbony 10 x 42 ED model, and hope to demonstrate why I think it represents exceptional value for money in today’s market. Indeed, it has given this author serious pause concerning the purchase of a more expensive, ‘top-tier’ 10 x 42 for future field use.
First Impressions:
The beautifully finished Svbony 10 x 42 ED.
The Svbony SV202 10 x 42 ED arrived in a similar package to the smaller 8 x 32 ED model. The binocular ( with objective and ocular tethers attached) was carefully packed away inside a nicely fitting soft case, with a soft lens cleaning cloth, a well written instruction manual, a nice quality padded logoed neck strap. The box itself was nicely made, simple and attractive to look at.
Stop Press: The supplied carry case actuallycloses properly lol, with the binocular and its carry strap attached. You’ve no idea how few binoculars come with cases that can do just that!
Once I removed the binocular from the case, I was immediately impressed with the build quality. Just like its smaller sibling, the 10 x 42 felt very solid in the hand and was covered in a tough, textured rubber armouring that once again reminded me very much of the Zeiss Terra ED binoculars I had seen. Inspecting the objective and ocular lenses, I could see that the magenta coloured anti-reflection coatings were smoothly applied with no sleeks or pits. Passing a torch inside the binocular showed a nicely machined and blackened interior with no sign of dust, fingerprints or other debris. The exit pupils were round with no signs of truncation and the area around the pupils was nice and black. Nothing to concern me here!
Left eye box.And right eye box.
Ergonomics:
The Svbony 10 x 42 ED feels very sturdy in the hand but is surprisingly light weight. Usually, the lighter models in the 10 x 42 class tip the scales at over 700g but this model weighed in at just 698g, which is good news for folk who want to travel light.
The eye cups are wonderfully made, properly machined and twist upwards for non-eye glass wearers. There are three positions in all, with each detent locking rigidly into place. These are top notch eye cups, as good as I’ve seen on models costing several times the retail cost of this binocular.
The very well designed twist up eyecups are nicely machined and covered with a soft rubber substrate.
The centrally located focus wheel is constructed from metal and covered with a finely textured rubber substrate for easy gripping. Focusing is smooth and precise with zero play. It’s a little on the stiff side but very easy to negotiate, and I’m sure this will relax a little further with more frequent use. The focuser goes through 1.75 revolutions from one end of its focus travel to the other. The rubber tethered objective and ocular covers fit snugly over the lenses. I generally don’t use these in the field, but I’m reassured that should I employ them, they won’t fall off easily.
The underside of the Svbony 10 x 42 ED has no thumb rests but neither are they really needed. Note the similarity to the Zeiss Terra armouring.
The metal right eye dioptre ring is also nicely machined and rotates smoothly but has just the right amount of tension to stay rigidly in place. Having taken it in and out of its soft case dozens of times over a few days of testing, it never budged a millimetre. Good job Svbony!
As stated above, the anti-reflection coatings applied to the ocular and objective lenses has a strong magenta hue in broad daylight. They reminded very much of those found on the new Zeiss Victory SF binoculars.
Ocular end of the binocular.Objective lenses.
Like all good anti-reflection coatings, they ought to nearly disappear when viewed nearly straight on. Can you see the glass in the photo below?
Fur mein freund Hans: Good anti-reflection coatings should show little glare when viewed nearly head on in soft artificial light.
In summary, the ergonomics of this binocular are second to none. Really well made, with a quality fit and feel from the get go!
Optical Assessment
Beginning, as always, with my flashlight test, I directed an intensely bright beam of white light into the binocular and examined the image visually from a distance of about 3 metres away. Like the smaller 8 x 32 model, the result was excellent! There were no annoying internal reflections floating about, no diffraction spikes and no diffused light around the beam. It was clean as a whistle. As usual, I compared the results to my control binocular; a Barr & Stroud Series 5 8 x 42 ED, which displays exceptional control of internal reflections and diffraction spikes. I’m happy to report that the Svbony was fully the equal of it!
Later, after dark, I aimed the Svbony at a bright sodium street lamp and was delighted (but not surprised) to see that it was clean, crisp with no internal reflections, diffused light and nary a sign of any diffraction spikes. These were great results, especially for such an inexpensive binocular. Indeed, I’ve seen much more expensive instruments fare a whole lot worse in this simple test. Good job Svbony!
These results present a problem for Hans.
Even before I tweaked the dioptre ring for my right eye, I was very impressed with the daylight images I was getting from this binocular. The instrument arrived on a very overcast, dull day, with the worst possible lighting. Despite this set back, I was immediately taken by the sharpness of the image and its very large sweet spot. Colour rendition was very neutral and accurate. Eye placement was easy to optimise and I encountered no blackouts. The image was bright and crisp with excellent contrast. I did encounter some veiling glare under these harsh lighting conditions but I remember thinking to myself; “If this is the worse it could be, it’s really not too bad at all!”
The next day afforded much better, sunnier seeing conditions and I was further able to test the mettle of this Svbony binocular. Early autumn leaves radiated with colour and the image remained pin sharp across most of the field. The images snapped to focus with absolutely no ambiguity – a property I had noted in other high quality binoculars. On a walk by the river, I was mesmerized by the clarity of water flowing around rocks with beautiful sharpness and very little glare. Later the same afternoon, when some cloud rolled in, I examined the hills located a kilometre or so away, and I did detect some chromatic aberration on the edge of some cliffs against a uniformly bright sky. The result was very interesting because I also had my Barr & Stroud Series 5 8 x 42 ED with me to compare the views. After a few minutes going back and forward between the images, I could see that the Barr & Stroud – a lovely binocular in its own right and my personal favourite 8 x 42 – had better colour correction in the same image, but the Svbony was significantly sharper!
I had seen this effect before in the Leica Trinovid HD 8 x 32. Boy was that binocular sharp but it also showed some chromatic aberration on high contrast targets! More on this later.
Comparing the low light performance of the Svbony 10 x 42 ED with a Carson VP 10 x 42 (right) without dielectric coatings showed the former to have the brighter images.
I wanted to test the brightness of the Svbony 10 x 42 ED in comparison to a binocular with the same specifications but without dielectric coatings and ED glass. So out came my Carson VP 10 x 42. Starting around dusk and continuing into early September twilight, I wanted to ascertain whether or not I could detect a brightness difference between these binoculars, fully expecting the Svbony to deliver the brighter image. Sure enough, I could see a difference! Looking into some brush under bushes as the light rapidly faded, the Svbony delivered a significantly brighter image under these conditions, affirming that the superior coatings on the Svbony resulted in a higher light transmission than the Carson. Neat!
In another test, I canvassed the opinion of my maths student, Alexander, who was keen to help in the testing. I set up three 42mm binoculars; a Carson VP 10 x 42, a Barr & Stroud Series 5 8 x 42 ED and the Svbony 10 x 42 ED, as shown below:
Three 42mm roofs compared in broad daylight on the same target; from right to left: the Carson VP 10 x 42,the Barr & Stroud Series 5 8 x 42 ED and the Svbony 10 x 42 ED.
Looking at the trunk of a tree under good mid-afternoon illumination, exactly 20 metres away, I asked Alexander to carefully focus each binocular and judge the sharpness of the images, from worst to best. To make it as fair as possible, I asked him to examine the same trunk at a distance of exactly 15 metres away using the 8 x 42 ED to compensate for its reduced magnification. After a couple of minutes of testing, Alexander delivered his verdict; the Carson was the least sharp, the Barr & Stroud was sharper still, but he declared the Svbony to be the sharpest of all!
Alexander looking through the Svbony 10 x 42 ED.
Then I asked him to guess which one was the most expensive. Naturally enough, Alexander figured that the Svbony must be the priciest. He was quite surprised to learn that his choice was actually the least expensive of the three!
After a few days of using the Svbony 10 x 42 ED on long walks through the woods, along the river bank and through open fields, I began to appreciate the silky smoothness of the focuser. The focus wheel’s slow progression makes precise focusing a breeze, and while it’s more suited to hunting than birding, I was still able to enjoy some amazing glassing moments watching a Buzzard taking to flight from a tall conifer tree on one of my local patches. As I related earlier, the Svbony does show a very small amount of chromatic aberration on high contrast objects, yet it delivers sharper images than a more colour free binocular tested against it. This shows that absolute image quality need not be conflated with the degree of chromatic correction found in the binocular. As a case in point, the reader is invited to study reports made by reviewers of Leica’s flag ship binocular, the Noctivid.
Notes from the field: The Svbony has very decent focus depth for a 10 x 42 roof prism binocular. I measured close focus to be 2.8 metres – longer than the advertised 2.5 metres, but something I wasn’t too bothered with, as I usually do close up glassing using 8x models anyway. The comparatively light weight of this binocular makes it very easy to hand hold in my medium sized hands. The binocular does show some glare in the most demanding lighting conditions, but I learned to control it better by firmly holding my eye sockets to the eyecups to minimise the entry of peripheral light into the optical train. Greens and yellows are especially well accentuated in the Svbony, with the binocular delivering excellent brightness to the eyes, even during fading evening light.
Astronomical Testing
No matter how enthusiastic one feels about a binocular during daylight testing, observing the night sky produces still further insights into the relative quality of the glass. Luckily I enjoyed a couple of good vigils with the Moon out of the sky. Here’s what I found. Although it’s obvious that the Svbony 10 x 42 ED had a large, well-corrected sweet spot as seen in daylight glassing, it becomes much clearer by seeing how bright stars morph as they are moved from the centre of the field all the way to field stop. My first opportunity came on the evening of Saturday, September 11. Examining the bright yellow star, Capella, low down in the northeast at 21:45 local time, I was able to see that it remained pin sharp out to within~15 per cent of the distance to the field stop, beyond which point it started to bloat. But even at the field stop the bloating wasn’t too bad and indeed, I was able to focus most of it out. I consider this to be a very good result, especially for the very reasonable cost of the instrument. I believe this is attributed to the modest choice of field size employed in the Svbony. Many inexpensive models make the mistake of opening up the field too much, with the result that the outer part of the field becomes noticeably more blurred than the centre of the field. And while the field of view of the Sybnony 10 x 42 ED is not overly restrictive at 6.16 angular degrees, the designers did not fall into the trap of making it too wide. This greatly aids in the aesthetic appeal of the night time binocular field.
Bright stars like Vega, Deneb, Altair and Arcturus, low in the west, showed their colours very faithfully. No secondary spectrum was detected within the large sweet spot. The large and sprawling Alpha Persei Association (Melotte 20) looked magnificent in this 10 x 42, as did the Double Cluster a little higher up in the sky. I enjoyed lovely views of the Great Andromeda Galaxy, the Coathanger asterism and the Engagement Ring, Finally, observing mighty Jupiter low in the south southeast shortly before 10pm local time, I could easily resolve, by just handholding the binocular, all four Medicean Stars to the east of the Giant Planet.
While I had intended to view the Pleaides and Hyades some time later that evening, it clouded over. Luckily though, the next night, Sunday September 12, also turned out to be clear and indeed it remained so for much of the night, well into the wee small hours of Monday morning. Beginning about 23:00 h local time and ending about half past local midnight, I enjoyed a fantastic night observing with the Svbony 10 x 42. Though most of my observations were handheld, lying back in a recliner, I did perform one high resolution test centring Albireo in Cygnus in the field of view with the binocular mounted on my tripod. I was delighted to get a beautiful split of this wonderful colour contrast double, the emerald and golden components showing up faithfully. Indeed, I took the opportunity to micro-tweak the dioptre setting just a little while observing this celebrated binocular double.
I enjoyed splendid binocular views of the globular clusters, M13 and M92 sinking lower in the west in Hercules. High in the east, magnificent Perseus was very prominent and I once again soaked up the views of Melotte 20, and the Double Cluster. The lovely open cluster M34 stood out beautifully with a good sprinkling of faint stars being easily resolved within its confines. After that I just relaxed and went cruising along the river of Milky Way starlight meandering its way from Cassiopeia in the northeast, continuing through Cepheus, Cygnus, Vulpecula, Sagitta and Aquila now sinking into the southwestern sky.
Before ending the vigil, I moved from by back garden to the front garden, which faces east. The Pleiades was painfully beautiful in this binocular, the stars remaining pin point sharp and pure white as the driven snow. Moving the little asterism from the centre of the field to the edge showed a drop off in illumination of its constituent stars. I found it easier to see this fall off under these conditions than during the day. Nothing bad to report here either, as this is a common feature in even top rated binoculars I’ve tested in the past. Finally, with the Hyades rising over the Fintry Hills to the east of my home I was able to enjoy the horns of the Celestial Bull in their full glory. The field sparkled with stellar jewels of various hues and glories; red, orange, white and yellow. Just lovely!
Conclusions
The Heavens declare the glory of God…. you’ll see it well with this binocular.
I’m so very glad I followed up on reviewing this larger sibling from the Svbony ED binocular duo. The little 8 x 32 ED impressed me, but this instrument is just plain extraordinary! It feels and behaves like a much more expensive binocular. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it will compete favourably with the best mid-tier binoculars out there… no strings. Optically it reminded me very much of the lovely Leica Trinovid HD I owned and enjoyed some time ago. I don’t know why it is priced so low, but I do know quality when I see it and this wonderfully designed binocular exudes quality, both ergonomically and optically. Please don’t listen to trolls and optics snobs who do nothing to help their fellow amateurs get as much as a foot up on the ladder, and who spout lies about this binocular, as Hans did in the video linked to in Preamble 1 above. I would encourage others to test out this binocular and spread the word to the wider community. You can purchase this in the USA for as little as $150.00 from Amazon. And if not satisfied, it can be returned and a full refund issued to you.
I’m not interested in buying another 10 x 42. This ticks all the boxes for my purposes.
Thanks for reading!
Dr Neil English is the author of seven books in amateur and professional astronomy, including a large historical work, Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy, showcasing how the Christian faith was never a hindrance but actually instrumental to the development of astronomical science. His new book on binoculars was published in January 2024.
Coatings: Fully broadband multi-coated, dielectrically coated and phase corrected Schmidt Pechan prisms, hydrophobic and scratch resistant coatings on outer lenses.
Dioptre: Lockable +/- 4 dioptres
Waterproof: Yes 10 mins at 5m depth
Dry Nitrogen Purged: Yes
Weight: 450g
Tripod Attachable: Yes
Dimensions(L/W): 11.9/ 12.6cm
Warranty: 10 years
Accessories: high quality clamshell case (zip closed), high quality logoed padded neck strap, rubber ocular and objective lens caps(2 types supplied), warranty card, instruction manual.
Price: £780- £825(UK)/ $950(US)
The Japanese camera giant, Nikon, also manufacture an extensive range of binoculars and spotting ‘scopes for the growing sports optics market. Much of their less expensive models have now been transferred to China but they still manufacture their best gear in Japan. In this blog, I’ll be providing a comprehensive review of one of Nikon’s top tier binoculars – the Monarch HG – and in particular the 8 x 30 compact model. The binocular was purchased(£840) with my own cash and I have no association with any optics company, so what you’ll get here is a completely impartial opinion on its properties.
Packaging & Ergonomics
The Nikon Monarch HG 8 x 30 arrived in a rather plain looking brown box. Inside, the binocular was nicely housed inside a really high quality zipper-closed clamshell case. Everything was packed away nicely and I was surprised to see that Nikon included two different kinds of objective covers. The first has caps that can be firmly pressed into the objective. The other option is to go without them. In this case, Nikon provide the user with simple rubber covers that protect the ends of the barrels but do not include the tethered ends. Since I’m no fan of tethered caps, I elected to replace them with the sleek rubber covers.
The great quality clamshell case that accompanies the Monarch HG 8 x 30 as well as the ocular and objective covers.
The binocular itself is very nicely finished in a leather-like textured rubber that is quite reminiscent of the BL offerings from Leica. The strong Magnesium alloy body provides light weight(just 450g) but enough mechanical strength to meet the tough demands of outdoor work, yet I was left feeling that the armouring was a bit too meagre compared with the thicker rubber offerings found on the very popular Monarch 7 line. I began to wonder just how durable this covering would be going forward, especially while negotiating thick brush and brambles. Personally I would have sacrificed some of the obvious aesthetic appeal of this armouring in favour of something a little bit more practical and bulky.
The Nikon Monarch HG 8 x 30 has a very attractive textured rubber armouring but is a bit too thin for my liking. Note the made in Japan stamping under the left ocular.
The right eye dioptre is very nicely engineered. To adjust it, simply push it up, rotate to the desired position and push it back down to lock it. Unlike less expensive models which possess a similar kind of lockable dioptre, Nikon’s solution is very firm. And unlike what some of the reviewers above have mentioned, I never experienced a situation where it popped up by accident.
The focus wheel is a work of art. Taking just over one revolution to go from one end of its travel to the other, it is silky smooth and completely backlash free, enabling one to easily use just a single finger to execute precise focus. Neat!
The Monarch HG is fitted with a very high quality focus wheel that moves with perfect smoothness. Just one finger is enough to get precise focus time and time again.
While there are no thumb indents on the underside of the binocular, I found I never really desired them. The longish barrels are easy to get my medium sized hands around and the instrument feels solid and stable to man handle. The stiff, single bridge design works perfectly well with a binocular of this size too, and I was able to engage with it using one hand without any difficulty, thanks to the fairly long barrels. Having said that, I’m not a fan of glassing this way, as two hands are always more stable than one!
The eye cups are properly machined metal, with a soft rubber overcoat. They have three positions and lock firmly in place. That said, I have seen similar quality eyecups on much more economically priced binoculars, such that I didn’t consider those of the Monarch HG to be exceptional in any particular way. For example, I felt they were similar in quality to the Celestron Trailseeker 8 x 32 I reviewed some time ago. With an eye relief of 16.2mm, I could image the entire field without glasses, but couldn’t see all the way to the field stops with my eye glasses on, and with the cups fully retracted.
Optical Evaluation:
Collimation was spot on, as judged by examining the images of a far distant vista in both barrels. Inspecting the exit pupils, I was less than impressed with the amount of light around the eye box of each ocular, as seen in the images shown below. I expected a little better attention to these details in a binocular marketed as ‘premium.’ For further commentary on this, see the remarks made by the reviewer in Preamble 3 above.
Left ocularRight Ocular
Performing my simple iphone torch test, I directed an intense beam of white light into the binocular and examined the image. I was disappointed to see a fairly pronounced diffraction spike although internal reflections were very well controlled, with no sign of diffused light around the light source. The same spike was present when I turned the binocular on a bright sodium street light after dark. My control binocular – the Barr & Stroud Series 5 ED 8 x 42 – in comparison, showed no diffraction spikes and even better control of internal reflections.
Right from the get go, I was extremely impressed with the brightness and sharpness of the image of the Monarch HG 8 x 30 in bright sunlight and its enormous field of view ( 8.3 degrees checked on the stars). The image sparkled with high resolution details on everything from flowers, tree trunks and distant hills. The image was unusually immersive. Indeed, comparing it to my Series 5 8 x 42 ED, which exhibits a similar true field size(8.1 degrees), I came away with the distinct impression that the HG was delivering a slightly higher magnification than it really was. I have no explanation for this rather wonderful optical illusion but I witnessed it on too many occasions to discount it as not entirely illusory! The image remained impressively sharp across the vast majority of the field thanks to the built-in field flattening technology, with only a minor amount of distortion seen at the field edge. Looking through many layers of fresh mature Sycamore leaves under a forest canopy against a bright overcast sky, revealed virtually no chromatic aberration. Only at the extreme edges of the huge field of the HG did I detect a trace. Depth of focus was very good in the Nikon Monarch HG 8 x 30 but not quite as good as my Leica Ultravid 8 x 20.
Glare was exceptionally well controlled on this unit – better than my control Series 5 binocular in this regard – and that was also the case for veiling glare. This is best tested by looking at some under growth with the Sun immediately above it. Here too, the Monarch HG 8 x 30 bested my Series 5 control – but it wasn’t like a night and day difference.
But despite scoring very high marks optically in many departments, the little Monarch HG 8 x 30 was not without its issues. The most immediate problem I encountered was blackouts, that is, spherical aberration of the exit pupils. I found it very annoying. Indeed, it was not only present while panning with the binocular but it also showed up quite often as I moved my eye around the enormous field while glassing a fixed target. And while one can learn to minimise these blackouts by paying more attention to proper eye placement, I could never really ‘make it go away,’ as it were. Furthermore, the effect was noted by my wife, as well as by several of my students. Looking through my notes on the Leica Trinovid HD 8 x 32, I also recorded some blackouts but they were few and far between in comparison to this Nikon binocular. Nor was this entirely caused by the small exit pupil (3.75mm), as my little Leica Ultravid 8 x 20, with its smaller exit pupil of 2.5mm, is virtually devoid of this problem. I concluded that these pronounced blackouts must have something to do with the special, wide-angle eyepiece design of the Monarch HG. Indeed, the same blackouts were also mentioned by the reviewer in Preamble 4 above using a 10 x 42 Nikon Monarch HG. In addition, I never encountered these blackouts through a Nikon Prostaff 7s 8 x 30, which, despite its identical magnification, objective diameter and exit pupil size to the HG, has a simpler eyepiece design and smaller field of view.
Less serious was the observed rolling ball effect I noted for the first time in my binocular testing career, a consequence of artificially flattening the field. It was quite apparent while panning the edge of a forest at a distance, and gave me somewhat of a queasy feeling. That said, I’m confident I could unlearn this effect with more sustained use.
Further Notes from the Field
A stylish companion in the great outdoors.
Close focus of the Nikon Monarch HG 8 x 30 is very good. While advertised at 2m, I measured a significantly closer focus of 1.81m. The vast majority of targets from 20 feet away all the way out to infinity snap to focus merely by moving the focus wheel through about one quarter of a turn of the wheel. Because the focuser is so soft and smooth, I found this activity to be particularly enjoyable. It really is quite impressive!
The image through the HG is impressively bright, with good enough transmission to allow one to continue to glass well into twilight, but ultimately proving inferior to a decent 8 x 42 in similar low light conditions. Nikon claims a light transmission of 92 per cent, but two spectrophotometric measures on the 8 x 30and 10 x 42 show slightly lower values of 90.1% and 88.3%, respectively. That said, the light curves look almost identical and show a nice, flat profile over the most important visual wavelengths, peaking in the red.
Astronomical Tests
The 8 x 30 format is about the minimum aperture required to really enjoy the night sky. Smaller binos are all well and good for the Moon and some of the brightest deep sky objects, but you go a whole lot deeper moving from 20-25mm up to 30mm. The Moon looks very sharp, bright and colour free through the Nikon Monarch HG 8 x 30, but I did notice a trace of the 4 diffraction spikes emanating from the Moon during waning gibbous under good, transparent conditions.
Testing on a rich star field like the Alpha Persei Association afforded a good opportunity to test for field flatness/curvature. Canvassing the help of a former student of mine and keen amateur astronomer, we noted that the field is not perfectly flat to the field stops in the Nikon Monarch HG. Stars remained very tight out to about 75 per cent of the field, with distortion increasing rapidly in the last 25 per cent of the field. That said, in most situations, the stars remained acceptably sharp over the entire field, so should be an enjoyable companion under the starry heaven.
Moving a last quarter Moon from the centre to the edge of the field of the HG did reveal a small but significant darkening of the maria which provides strong visual evidence for a drop off in illumination in the outer 20 per cent of the field. I found it very difficult to discern these changes during tests conducted in broad daylight.
Conclusions
A birder’s dream bino?
For some folk, the Nikon Monarch HG might well be a birder’s dream binocular, with its very sharp, contrast-rich and extremely wide and flat field of view. For me though, I feel the blackouts are a major issue which would make me somewhat leery of paying the relatively steep retail price for these binoculars. This concern isn’t just confined to the Nikon Monarch HG though, as another reviewer mentioned how the same phenomenon completely put off his daughter while testing the Zeiss Victory SF 10 x 32, so any potential buyers will be strongly advised to try them out before buying. I find it a little alarming that some of the reviewers presented at the beginning of this blog never even mentioned this effect! What’s more, the small size of the Nikon Monarch HG 8 x 30 may not suit those who have large hands. In addition, the rolling ball effect, while mild in this binocular, may deter others in favour of models that do not have field flattening technology. In the end, the decision lies with you!
Thanks for Reading!
Dr Neil English is the author of Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy, celebrating four centuries of visual telescopic astronomy.
Make no mistake about it; we live in a golden age for buying binoculars. Never before has the consumer had so much choice available, thanks to incredible advances in optical technology which has given many other individuals access to very decent optics for a small financial outlay. In recent years, new coating technologies have greatly increased light transmission and image sharpness, to such an extent that even the budget models now available can and do outperform premium models offered only a few decades ago. In addition, the incorporation of extra low dispersion(ED) glass is now common even in inexpensive models, which, if executed properly, promises to cut chromatic aberration and increase image contrast still more.
As I’ve commented elsewhere, the 8 x 32 format is the new 8 x 42, as evidenced by the offering of the former by both mass market and premium binocular manufacturers alike. This is in no doubt attributed to their lower mass, improved ergonomics and very efficient light transmission, as well as their perfect suitability during bright daylight but also well into low light situations encountered at the earlier stages of dusk and dawn. Apart from the use of premium pocket glasses – my personal favourite format – the 8 x 32 format has always interested me, owing to its compactness and smaller exit pupil (4mm), which uses the best part of your eye to analyse the binocular image.
While many entry-level ED models are priced in the £250 to £300 range, I became very intrigued by a less well known manufacturer, Svbony, a Hong Kong-based optics firm that has recently marketed a compact and mid-size model – an 8 x 32 and 10 x 42 – chock full of advanced features. But what really piqued my interest was that Amazon UK were offering the 8 x 32 ED model for just £99.99, inclusive of delivery! As you can see from the specifications above, the Svbony 8 x 32 ED has a number of advanced optical features that I simply wouldn’t expect in a model at this price point, but having another binocular available – the Celestron Trailseeker 8 x 32(retail price £146 UK) – that also possesses many of the same features – I was able to conduct an in-depth study of how the Svbony ED binocular compared with it.
Ergonomics Comparison
The Svbony 8 x 32 ED(right) and the Celestron Trailseeker 8 x 32(left).
No doubt you’ve heard that possessing a magnesium alloy frame is a feature only common to upper-tier binocular models, I would like to take this opportunity to put this urban myth to bed, once and for all. Since both the Svbony and the Celestron Trailseeker models feature a magnesium body in this low price category, having this design feature is no longer the preserve of the best models but is now commonly available even in much more economically priced products.
The Celestron Trailseeker has a large plastic focuser that becomes very hard to move in Winter owing to the solidification of the grease used in its gearing. But in warm weather, it becomes much easier to turn. In contrast, the lower priced Svbony 8 x 32 ED has a much higher quality metal focus wheel, which is much smoother and easier to turn. Taking just one and a half revolutions to go from one extreme of its focus travel to the other, I would describe it as slow to progressive in speed, so not especially suited to either birding or hunting – more of a general purpose instrument than anything else.
Turning now to the dioptre ring located under the right ocular in both models, the Svbony’s metal dioptre ring is better designed than the plastic one found on the Trailseeker. Looking at a close up of the Svbony dioptre, you can see that the markings are easier to make out, helping the user achieve his or her optimum position better. And just like the Trailseeker, the Svbony dioptre ring is stiff and thus will not get nudged out of position so easily during field use.
The lower-priced Svbony model has a higher quality dioptre ring compared with the Celestron Trailseeker.
Looking next at the quality of the eyecups, I was delighted to see that the Svbony had good, high quality rubber-over-metal twist up cups, pretty much identical in quality to those found on the more expensive Trailseeker. What is more, they stay rigidly locked in place when fully extended. Yet again, that the Svbony possessed such high quality eye cups was a pleasant surprise to me, as I was not expecting anything as good as that on a compact binocular costing less than £100.
The matt black armouring on the Svbony is a little bit more grippy than the Trailseeker and the ribbing at the side of the former reminds me very much of the armouring found on the Zeiss Terra ED models I’ve sampled.
The ribbed side armouring on the Svbony 8 x 32 ED is very reminiscent of that found on Terra ED models.
The objectives on both the Svbony and the Trailseeker are equally well recessed to protect the glass from dust, rain and peripheral light. The anti-reflective coatings look to be completely different though, with the Trailseeker having a standard greenish reflection in bright daylight, as opposed to the more subdued purple hues seen on the Svbony.
The objective lenses on both models are nicely recessed but appear to have entirely different anti-reflection coatings applied. The Svbony model is at the top.
Overall, the Svbony 8 x 32 ED feels slightly lighter and more comfortable to use than the Celestron Trailseeker 8 x 32, which is a bit more ‘clunky’ in comparison, at least in my medium sized hands. That, together with the noticeably better focus wheel and dioptre ring on the former means that, from a purely ergonomic perspective, the lower-priced Svbony is the clear winner.
Optical Comparisons
Good ergonomics, of course, count for nothing if the optics are not up to scratch, so how well would the £99.99 Svbony 8 x 32 ED fare in comparison to the Celestron Trailseeker 8 x 32? Having reviewed the Trailseeker some time ago, I was quite impressed with how well it handled a beam of intense white light directed into it from my iphone. That’s because the same model is fully broadband multi-coated and has super-high reflectivity dielectric coatings applied to its Schmidt-Pechan roof prisms. I’ve seen similar results on dozens of high quality binoculars and so I expected the Svbony to yield good results too, if indeed it has those same coatings.
My efforts confirmed that the Svbony also passes this test with flying colours! Specifically, the image was devoid of any significant internal reflections and with no diffused light around the beam, which often betrays the use of lower quality optical components introduced into the optical train. What is more, while the Trailseeker did show a weak diffraction spike, the Svbony had none. Indeed, I would place the Svbony slightly ahead of the Trailseeker, based solely on the flashlight test. So far so very good!
But the good news only continued when I performed a daylight comparison test of both the Svbony ED 8 x 32 and the Celestron Trailseeker 8 x 32 . While both models have effectively the same field of view(7.87 degrees), I felt that the Svbony provided a slightly sharper image than the Celestron, with better contrast and improved control over veiling glare. Both instruments have a large sweet spot but edge of field performance was a little soft in both models, as was the degree of field curvature seen. Chromatic aberration, although quite low in the Trailseeker, was better handled in the Svbony under the same conditions. Whatever ED glass elements are present in the Svbony, it seemed to be doing its job well. Depth of focus in the Svbony 8 x 32ED is also good; a real plus if you’re a prospective birder. Close focus is just under two metres(1.98m measured).
Another way to ascertain whether similar coating technologies were applied to both the Svbony and the Celestron Trailseeker, is to perform a low light test by comparing the brightness of the image in both instruments at dusk. On paper, I expected both to behave rather similarly, and that is exactly the result I achieved. Both 32mm models produced a more or less equally bright image, with perhaps the nod going to the Svbony! As I have shown in many other comparisons, the ED element may have conferred a slight advantage to the Svbony in these challenging conditions but as expected, it was marginal if anything.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Note Added in Proof: If you go back and listen to the optics trade review of the GPO Passion ED 8 x 32 linked to above, the presenter informs us that GPO did not use ED glass in their largest 56mm models, citing their reasons in relation to the lack of chromatic aberration seen in low light environments. If ED glass really had a significant low light advantage, don’t you think they’d mention it or go ahead and use it? And why do so many binocular reviewers(in published magazines too) I have come across still perpetuate this myth?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Examining the 4mm diameter exit pupils on the Svbony showed nice, round pupils with no signs of truncation. There was also a nice periphery of blackness immediately around both pupils, which contributes to the high contrast images I detected during my daylight tests.
Exit pupil of the left barrel of the SvBony 8 x 32 ED.And the right eye.
Concluding Comments
The Svbony 8 x 32 ED was a very eye-opening and pleasant experience. In terms of both optical and mechanical properties, it proved superior to the Celestron Trailseeker. Indeed, I would put the Svbony more on par with the new Celestron Trailseeker ED, though I’ve not actually tested this model. The very few realistic reviews I’ve seen of the Svbony 8 x 32 ED claim that it performs like models double or triple the price; a sentiment that I wholeheartedly agree with. And at a retail price of less than £100, there is very little in this binocular that I can find fault with.
Very highly recommended!
Neil English is the author of seven books on amateur and professional astronomy. His next book, Choosing & Using Binoculars: A Guide for Stargazers, Birders and Outdoor Enthusiasts will be published by Springer Nature in late 2023.
Post Scriptum: I performed a measurement of the field size of the Svbony 8 x 32 ED just after local midnight, July 22. Turning to the Plough (Big Dipper) asterism high in the northwest, I was just unable to fit Phecda and Merak into the field of view of the binocular. These are separated by 7o 54′ or 7.9 angular degrees, so I’m confident that the stated field size(7.87o) for this binocular is fairly accurate.
