CN FORUMS ARCHIVE Telescope Reviews: Re: Burgess 20/40x100 Astro Binos

I am responding to the very first post in this thread, the one from Geomason (George?). Anyway, from your description and your photo, the 20x100 binoculars you have are the Mark II version, not the Mark III version which are supposed to be available now. The reason I say that is Bill Burgess sent me his original prototype for testing back in April of 03, followed in August by a pair identical to your photo. Like the first pair they were still remarkably "Miyauchi like" in build with the same silver paint job. See the picture attached to this post showing the August 03 Burgess binoculars compared to the Miyauchi.

In March of this year I spoke to Bill again after he had sent me (unsolicited) a pair of armored military grade waterproof 7x50 binoculars. He wanted me to test these and to give him my impressions. He says he will be carrying 8x50 and 10x50 versions of this binocular. Anyway at that time he did say he was going to send me the new version of the "Miyauchi like" binoculars. The new (Mark III for lack of a better designation) would be painted white and would have completely new and redesigned prism housings. The new housings would be 20% larger and would not look like Miyauchi housings at all. Hence my belief that what you have pictured is not the latest version but the first improved version from last summer. If collimated there is nothing wrong with them, in fact we found that their imaging ability was very good save for the collimation in our test pair. They still had a bit more prism cutoff/vignetting than did the Miyauchi 20x100's, but not bad at all, especially considering the price.

As to the 7x50's that I am still holding hostage, awaiting a return label from Bill and an example of the new Mark III 20x100's to test; their imaging ability was very good, optically pretty much the equal of the Fujinon FMT-SX 7x50. Bill claimed that they are really rugged and shock resistant. They can be dropped multiple times without a loss of collimation. They are also supposed to be waterproof to 10 to 15 feet. I told Bill that if he did not hurry up and send along the other pair plus the return labels etc., I was going to test these suckers in the swimming pool. I plan to sit at the bottom of the pool and see how good the other end of the pool looks using goggles. I will have a friend take a photo so we can post it here. Look for this photo soon.

Barry Simon

Edited by BarrySimon615 (05/19/04 06:34 PM)

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