Talk:Binoculars

Roof Prisms

How do Roof Prism Binoculars flip the image around horizontally? according to the diagram you should see an upside-down F but not a backwards-upside-down one

Correction

"Due to the way binoculars are made, the resulting ratio is the diameter of the final image on the oculars. For example, a 10x50 binocular produces a 5 mm image. For maximum efficiency, this image should match the diametor of the eye's pupil, which in dark environments grows to about 7mm. This ratio is also a measure of the brightness of the image. Thus, 10x50 and 8x40 binoculars have the same brightness, although the latter has a smaller image."

♥

I find this somewhat confusing; if "a 10x50 binocular produces a 5 mm image" because 50/10 = 5, wouldn't an 8x40 binocular produce a 5 mm image because 40/8 = 5? The article says that the latter would be smaller. Could someone who knows something about binoculars clear this up for me?--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo|TALK]] 20:48, Jul 2, 2004 (UTC)

It was simply wrong. I fixed it. Jeff Albro

In a sense the 10x50 pair has the smaller image, since it's more magnified (narrower in field). In another sense it's the other way around - with less magnification, objects in the 8x40 pair will appear smaller (and this is probably what the original phrasing meant). Another difference is that the 8x40 pair gathers less light overall (35% less), which is precisely why the exit brightness is the same despite the wider-field, less magnified image. - toh 04:13, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)

Extenal links

I have added an external link to my page about choosing binoculars for astronomy, **www.nightskyinfo.com/binoculars. I think it provides useful information and is more comprehensive than most articles on the net. I think the external link to "Doctor Binoculars" **binoculars.com/help/pick_binoculars_learn.php should be removed, as it contains very little information and lots of advertisements. However, I let this decision to more experienced contributors. Later edit: i have removed the "Doctor Binoculars" link. (AstroMalasorte)

I've removed most of the extenal links, since they were little more than advertising. I've restored one link to opticsplanet.com, since at least that page has some semi-decent content. Feel free to change or revert, if you disagree. --Bob Mellish 18:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I removed the Opticsplanet link since if you check the contributor’s history you will see their sole purpose in life was to add Opticsplanet links (linkspam) to as many articles as they could on 30 different occasions. They have been continually spaming other articles under different IP's names. So spammer is as spammer does. Halfblue 01:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I really don't know how to edit, and don't want to touch the article myself, but there's at least one instance of "Porro" prism being changed to "Porno" which obviously doesn't look much like an accident, anyone mind fixing this so I don't have to break anything? Robinivich 17:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree about the comments regarding Dr. Binoculars from the Binoculars.com website. This was the only animated tutorial out there. It conveys numerous concepts in a visual manner that no other site does. I have added it back because I find it unique.

I have added an external link to my bird watching binoculars page, birdwatching-bliss.com/bird-watching-binoculars.html. It has very detailed information about birding binoculars and I have received comments from visitors thanking me for the info. I cover topics such as Magnification Eye Relief/Eye Cups, Objective Lens Diameter, Field of View (FOV), Exit Pupil, Lens Coatings, Prism Design Weight, Close Focus, Waterproofing, Ease of Focusing and Rubber Armorine.

As i partly disagree with the removal of the external links in the manufacturer section by Danny, i added internal links to the wikipages of the various manufacturers. The real bicky 09:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC) - BinocularSearch

Title

Am I the only one who thinks the title should be changed to "Binocular"? Even though there are two sets of lenses, the instrument itself is a binocular. "Binoculars" is actually plural. It's certainly acceptable in common usage to add the "s" to the end, so maybe this is okay here, but it occurs to me that an encyclopedia article should try to be as correct as possible. It's really not an issue for me, but I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks about it. Kafziel 16:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Kafziel - Binoculars is definately the correct title. Although it may seem plural, binoculars is a noun whereas binocular is an adjective :-> Peripitus (Talk) 12:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not correct. "Binocular" is both an adjective and a noun. See [1] and [2]. Also, I don't know about other brands, but Bushnell never uses the word "binoculars" in their manuals. Kafziel 12:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Apologies but you appear to be correct - I've been mislead by common usage and [Wiktionary] [[3]]. My Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary confirms that (in the US) binocular was correct (in 1952). Current Australian usage seems to be uniformly binoculars. Web searching seems to show that binocular glasses is a term in common usage - Peripitus (Talk) 12:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Astronomical

Hi, this whole article needs a carful revision. Too many repetitions and too focused on astronomical use, thus the obsession with large binos. Too many military images. I corrected some minor mistakes. ViM sept 4th, 2006

I was just cleaning up some of the asto sections. It looks to me like all the astro stuff could be conglomerated under one heading "Astronomical use" or some such. It is a little spread out and confused right now. Halfblue 01:57, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Use at sea

There seems to be a distinct bias to astronomical use. I bet most binoculars are sold for use at sea - every ship and most boats have a pair or three. Most of those seem to be 7x50. The best are nitrogen filled, and equipped with a built-in compass and a scale for judging distances. I added one sentence about sea use of 7x50.

(Side note - this is what I have learned in Europe (Denmark and Finland) - do sailors elsewhere use other kinds???)

I have heard that the Finnish ice breakers don't use 7x50, but only 5x magnification, because of the vibrations of a heavy engine. On the other hand, there seems to be historical evidence of using monocular telescopes on sailing ships with magnifications of over 30x. Even without engine vibration, those must have been hard to use. (This may be too much detail for this article, I don't know - one of my first contributions to wikipedia...)

- Heikki

I have seen binoculars specifically made for use at sea. They were of the 5x or 6x you noted above. The other attribute they had was very large prism sets combined with eyepieces designed to give generous eye relief. They were built that way to make them usable on a ship that is pitching and rolling and ships with high vibrations like you listed. That optical combination meant that you could see through them even when they were pitching and vibrating in relationship to your eye without the image Vignetting or going dark. Information like that may be usful in this article. Maybe this article needs to be devided up with futhar headings "Astronamical Use", "Naval use" ect 69.72.93.165 21:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Choosing binoculars

The section "Choosing binoculars" seems to be giving advice on Choosing binoculars which is in contradiction to WP:NOT, specifically the concept "Wikipedia articles should not include instructions or advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes". I may re-edit it into something else unless someone sees a good reason to keep it. There is a lot of "application" info floating in that section and in others that could be moved to a new heading "Applications". Fountains of Bryn Mawr 20:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Rearranged article and cleanup

I cleaned up the article by rearranging the content and removing a lot of repetition. I moved the content from the intro and from the Choosing binoculars section that was not "Advice" into its relative sections. Other sections were also converted from "advice" into "description". Fountains of Bryn Mawr 02:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The parameters section

Perhaps someone with more knowledge about this topic can improve the parameters section? It's a bit sparse in terms of explanations. The first external link[4] seems to have a great deal of info. Xiner (talk, email) 01:46, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I have taken a whack at this and added an explaining image. Halfblue 02:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

External links cleanup

I have added "Notes" section and added the http://www.europa.com/~telscope/binotele.htm link to "References" since it was used as a reference source by me. I have also added Binocular Buying Guide to references because it was used by me and posibly the editors above as a reference source. It is by title non-conforming to WP:EL since a "Featured article" would not contain "advice" but most of its content is description so may pass muster. Fountains of Bryn Mawr 13:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Distance estimation

From the intro:

...the two views ... merge to produce a single perceived view with a sensation of depth, allowing distances to be estimated.

Maybe relative distances to various objects can be seen, but does the unfamiliar parallax perceived through a pair of binoculars actually let one accurately estimate the distance to an object? (of course distances can be estimated with a stadiametric reticle, but that is not what the intro is saying) —Michael Z. 2007-06-21 20:21 Z

porros versus roofs

The article makes the (unsourced) claim that, theory notwithstanding, in practice the best roof prism binocs are comparable to the best porros. Um, OK, comparable as in you can compare them, but most people who have directly compared Nikon Superior E's with the best roof prisms, from Leitz, Zeiss, Swarovski, whatever, will not agree that they are as good. I've seen good, objective testing results that backed this perception of mine up, but unfortunately, my source for binocular testing seems to have disappeared -- does anyone know a good one?

(Incidentally, I'm not biased -- I used my Swarovskis yesterday; I just wouldn't claim they're nearly as good as the Nikons.)

atakdoug (talk) 02:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I have re-edited this section with supporting references. I have moved the below un-sourced statements to talk. This stuff needs sources and the middle bit seems to be a little crystal ball-y.

"However, as of 2005, the optical quality of the best roof-prism binoculars with up-to-date coating processes as used in Schmidt-Pechan models is comparable with the best Porro glasses, and it appears that roof prisms will dominate the market for high-quality portable binoculars in spite of their higher price. The major European optical manufacturers (Leica, Zeiss, Swarovski) have discontinued their Porro lines; Japanese manufacturers (Nikon, Fujinon, etc.) may follow suit."

Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 21:18, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

notable binocular manufacturers?

I am moving the whole list in this section to talk until some references can be cited that these are "notable". Leaving in article any manufacturer that has its own article own article or mention in a another article... at least that is some kind of "vetting" . Names below should be re-added when a reference is found. 64.0.112.10 (talk) 20:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Manufacturers

Some notable binocular manufacturers as of 2008. Sorted in alphabetical order:

• Acuter – Spotting Scopes
• Alfred Kärcher
• Alpen (USA). Also sells OEM products manufactured by the KAMAKURA KOKI CO. LTD. of Japan.
• Apogee Electronics Corp.
• ATN
• Audubon
• Baigish (Russia)
• Barska Optics(USA)
• Bass Pro
• Bausch and Lomb
• Bilora
• Binoculars.com
• Bresser
• Bright China Industries
• Browning
• Brunton, Inc.(USA)
• BSA
• btc
• Burris / Burris Sawy Optics
• Bushnell Performance Optics(USA); Also sells OEM products manufactured by the KAMAKURA KOKI CO. LTD. of Japan.
• Byrtrek
• Canon Inc. (Japan) – I.S. series: porro variants?
• Carson Optical
• Celestron
• Chongqing Yangguang Photoelectric
• Coronado
• Delta Optical (Germany)– binoculars, riflescopes, microscopes
• Docter (the former Carl Zeiss Jena plant in Eisfeld) (Germany)Nobilem 7×50, 8×56, 10×50, 15×60: porro; Docter 7×40, 8×40, 10×40: roof prism.
• Eschenbach Optik GmbH (Germany) – Farlux, Trophy, Adventure, Sektor...: some are roof prism, some porro.
• Fujinon Co. (Japan) – FMTSX, FMTSX-2, MTSX series: porro.
• KAHLES (Austria)- – riflescopes, binoculars
• Kowa Co. (Japan) – BD series: Roof prism.
• Kronos (Russia)
• Leica GmbH (Germany) – Ultravid, Duovid, Geovid: all are roof prism.
• Leupold & Stevens, Inc.(USA). Also sells OEM products manufactured by the KAMAKURA KOKI CO. LTD. of Japan.
• Minox
• Miyauchi Co. (Japan) – specializes in oversized porro binoculars.
• Nikon Co. (Japan) – High Grade series, Monarch series, RAII, Spotter series: roof prism; Prostar series, Superior E series, E series, Action EX series: porro.
• Olympus Co. (Japan) – EXWPI series: roof prism.
• Optolyth (Germany) – Royal: Roof; Alpin: porro
• Optolyth (Germany)– Royal, ViaNova: roof prism; Alpin, Alpin Classic: porro prism.
• Pentax Co. (Japan) – DCFSP/XP series: roof prism; UCF series: inverted porro; PCFV/WP/XCF series: porro.
• Russian Military Binoculars – BPOc 10x42 7x30, BKFC series.
• Sicong (from Xian Stateoptics) (China) – Navigator series: roof prism; Ares series: porro.
• Simmons Optics - devision of Bushnell (USA)
• Steiner GmbH (Germany)– Commander, Nighthunter: porro; Predator, Wildlife: roof prism.
• Swarovski Optik (Austria) – SLC, EL: roof prism; Habicht: porro prism, but to be discontinued.
• Vixen Co. (Japan) – Apex/Apex Pro: roof prism; Ultima: porro. Also sells OEM products manufactured by the Kamakura Koki Co. Ltd. of Japan.
• Vortex Optics (USA)
• Weaver (USA)
• William Optics (USA)
• WDtian (from Yunnan State optics) (China) – porro.
• Yukon Advanced Optics (Russia)
• Yunnan State optics (China) – MS series: porro.
• Zeiss GmbH(Germany) – FL, Victory, Conquest: roof prism; 7×50 BGAT/T porro, 15×60 BGA/T porro, discontinued.
• Zenith (Japan)
• Zen-Ray Optics (USA)– SUMMIT, Vista Series WP.

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