Telescope Reviews: Short review of Kite Birdwatcher 8x42

I apologize for the long absence from CN and for not publishing the review until now. I have been working and my old computer stopped to work.
Last week I purchased a complete new computer package and will be active again.

Kite Birdwatcher 8x42

It's now about two months ago I tried this model and will reproduce my impression.

The outer performance feels nice and is rubber armoured.
The body is marked with "Japan" or "Made in Japan", I don't remember which. I find it comfortable to hold.

The eyecups are twistable and when fully downfolded I can see the entire FOV with my eye glasses on. The ocular lens diameter is 22mm diameter, the same as Oberwerk 11/15x70 models. The coating has (I I recall right) some grey/light-green tint, not the dark green which is typical for many fully multi coated optics. The Kite Birdwatcher is claimed to be fully multi coated. When looking into the objective I can see a white reflex, however. It seems like an uncoated prism surface.

I measure the exit pupil to at least 5mm but it's very slightly cut-offed at two sides.

The sharpness is good to approximately 70% of the field and then strongly softens off towards the edges. In this respect the "Lidl-Bargain" Bresser 10x50 is far superior. In comparison to the Bresser 10x50 the Birdwatcher is significantly brighter, has better contrast and the image is crispy and white. This is relying to as well better coating and larger exit pupil (Bresser 10x50 has around 4,2mm). I found the on-axis sharpness be quite similar but suspect the Bresser would be superior with better coating. (I think a better coating can improve even the experienced sharpness because of the better contrast, am I wrong here?).

The image has a slight barrel distortion, but this is to a level I wouldn't notice if I didn't tried to find it. I could not see any "rolling ball"-effect when panning.

Looking towards lights sources there is a bit too strong reflections and ghost images for my expectation of a good "fully multi coated" binocular.

Conclusion:

The Kite Birdwatcher 8x42 is a decent binocular in the budget (or isn't it midprice for porro binoculars?).
But in the same price range you can find binoculars as Nikon Action Extreme and the discontinued Konica Minolta Activa serie. According to my several views of both these models my clear impression is that the Kite Birdwatcher does not really reach up to their standard. If the price of the Birdwatcher had been 2/3 of the actual price I had found it worth.

I am at the moment going to upgrade my present binocular selection (recently received one model and waiting for another next week). These models I have tried before and they are "keepers".

Hope my short and somewhat linguistic faulty review was of interest.

Patric

--------------------
*2,3x40 Constellation View Wide-Bino
*Leupold 6x30 Yosemite
*Leupold Katmai 6x32
*Swarovski SLCNew 7x42B
*Bresser (Lidl) 10x50
*Oberwerk 11x70
*No name (Kunming) 15x70
*Scopos ED APO 66
*Meade 5000 26mm Plössl, Vixen LV 10/5mm

Psalm 19:2

Post Extras