Telescope Reviews: Optolyth Royal 15x63 B/GA

Mark,

Thanks for that link about the Royal. I also enjoyed your 10x42 roof comparisons, I guess there wasn't a 10x42 LX or LX L on hand to compare to the other top guns?

I owned a 10x42 LX briefly (sent it back, bad sample) and now own a 10x42 LX L. I also used Walter Locke's 10x42 LX, and his 8x42 LX, and I owned two sample 8x32 LXs.

I've tried Steve Moore's 10x42 SE several times (I have it now, in fact), and own a 8x32 SE and have had two sample 12x50 SEs. I also tried Walter's 8x30 E2 and had two sample 10x35 E2s of my own.

So I have a lot of experience with high quality Nikon porros and roofs but virtually none with the other top gun brands unless you count my Carl ZEISS Jena 8x50 Octarem (I don't think they'd let me in the Zeiss club with a DDR porro :-).

It doesn't surprise me that few people responded to this thread since Optolyth keeps a very low profile, particularly in the US/North America where Deutsche Optik is the exclusive distributor.

I've been corresponding with Justus Bauschinger, president of Deutsche Optik (quite a character!), who bought the business from Mike Rivkin two years ago. Around the same time, Optolyth went bankrupt and was bought by Justus's friend, Berndt Zingrebe, the owner of Sill Optics, who is slowly resurecting the brand.

Berndt brought back the original style Alpin bins. The new/old style Alpins are identical, optically and mechanically, to the originals, whereas the NGs where "heavier and chunky". Birders didn't seem to like them as much as the older style, according to Justus.

Now if he could only convince Zeiss to resurrect their old top porro line! :-)

In their latest incarnation, the Royal line contains a 8x56, 10x56, 9x63 and 15x63, and are Optolyth’s first roof-prism bins. The line formerly included a 8x45 and 10x45. He didn't say why those configurations were dropped, but it would seem from the existing configurations, that the Royals are aimed primarily at the hunting market.

There is also a newer line of roofs, the ViaNova, which are heavier and have more modern looking, smooth armor.

As far as why I was interested in the Optolyth Royals, I'm quite happy with my 12x50 SE for stargazing, but not as happy with it for terrestrial use since I can't hold it as steady horizontally as I can vertically.

So I figured if I'm going to use a mount anyway, why not have MORE power, but I would want a bin of equal optical quality. The Zeiss 15x60 B/GAs are hard to come by, and when they do show up, they usually cost as much as a high mileage used car. With the claims about the Optolyth being competitive with similar top models, and having A/K prisms, and a robust roof design, they seemed worthy of a look-see.

However, since "sharpness and contrast" are at the top of my revised Top Five Bin Features, they don't sound appealing, particularly at that price. You may have had a bad sample, from my experience with the LX line, I know that bad samples exist at the top. Given that the Royals you had probably did not have the latest advances in coating technology like the top gun roofs, it wouldn't surprise me if your experience was typical.

Was the box or Royal labeled as being phase-coated? That would certainly make a difference in sharpness and contrast. Or course, even if they were, the design is relatively "old" compared to the latest offerings by Zeiss, Leica, and Swaro, so the optics may not have the advanced multicoatings.

You never mentioned how much CA the Royals showed on that white rain pipe, but having seen the difference in CA between the 8x32 LX and 10x42 LX, I would imagine that the CA would be porportionally greater with the larger aperture and higher power.

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The Grinch
Troublemaker Extraordinaire

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