G'Day All
Abuse and neglect from bouncing around in 4WDs and fishing boats off the
Kimberley coast over many years had just about wrecked my old Nikon
bino's and it was time to replace them. My intention was to find a
good quality pair of 10X roof prisms. So before making my decision, i
decided to try out as many different types that i could get my hands on
including Zeiss 10X40 "Victory" and Swarovski 10x42 "SLC", but the price
of these top shelf bino's was alarming due to brand posturing and the
low Pacific Peso. After reading John Leonard's message, 13/07/01 about
his choice ( Pentax DCF HP model), it seemed that the recently released
Pentax DCF range would be worth a look.
After locating a pair of Pentax 10X42 DCF WP (weather proof) binoculars
at a local camera store, i was able to field test them at the local
wetlands in wet and windy conditions. In difficult light their image
definition is remarkable, it being easy to see leg colours of waders
when looking across choppy water towards the sun and identify the head
colour of Fairy Martins at about 300 meters on this partially overcast
windy day. The resolution is bright and crystal clear from the centre
to the edges of the 6 + deg. field of view even in low light, their
columniation (alignment) and balance seems perfect allowing the eyes to
relax while viewing. The diopter adjustment of the minor lens is
notched and does not move once set and their construction appears good
quality. Easy to use and comfortable to hold (shape, texture and 750
gm. weight) they focus to a short 8.2 meters and are water proof to one
meter being nitrogen filled. As soon as i held them and looked through
their eye pieces, I knew these were the binoculars for me. And the
price at $840.00 AUD is less than half the cost of comparable Zeiss and
Leica and about 1/3 of the Swarovski and Nikon.
No. i am not on the Pentax payroll but hope that others who may be
considering their next set of glasses may find this message useful.
Regards
Ian May
PO Box 666
Enfield Plaza SA 5085
Tel 0409 474 575
PS. Warranty horrors? The weatherproof feature of the Pentax
binocular is important to me because once, I had a very bad experience
with a pair of 10X50 wide angle Zeiss Oberkochen? binoculars. They
were dropped into flooded Lake Callabonna (salt) and i was unable to
find them until the lake dried back two months later. After that, the
adjustments were stiff to use and a very fine mist developed on one
prism, so i dried them out in a moderate oven for several hours but
this just baked the rubber seals and although they were still usable,
these glasses were never much good after that. Is it just that the West
German Zeiss binoculars are not adequately weatherproofed or could it be
that my pair had a manufacturing fault? I wonder if Pentax would cover
this under warranty?
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