Telescope Reviews: Re: Coatings compared on a dozen binocs

Kenny,

another dozen or so binoculars out the front door. OK here ya go.

Here's how I check the coatings on binocular objectives.

If you look at the Action Extremes with no other binocular next to them to compare, the coatings look great. I have three pair of the Nikon AE's, the 12x50, the 10x50 and the 8x40. The coatings are perfectly consistent across the three.

When you compare the Nikon Action Extreme coatings up against all these others, the Swift Ultralite 8x42, the Oberwerk 15x70/'03, my 5 year old Orion Ultraview 10x50, a new Pentax PCF WP 10x50, it's a different story. The Nikon AE objective coatings reflect more light than all of them. What you want is coatings that reflect the least amount of light.

My Pentax binoculars were all made at different times. The new PCF WP 10x50 is very good, the best of the Pentax coatings. It's better than the Orion Ultraview and about equal with the '03 Oberwerk. My oldest Pentax, a PCF III 12x50 is more purpulish, but fairly reflective, more reflective than the Swift, Orion and Oberwerk and Pentax PCF WP 10x50. The Nikon AE appear to reflect about the same as my Pentax PCF III 12x50. The PCF WP 16x60 are completely different coatings than the other two Pentax, yellowish green and highly reflective. Here's the description of the Pentax coatings.

I'd say the only binoculars the Nikon AE beat out were the older generation Oberwerk'02 and my yellow/green Pentax 16x60s.

The Nikon Action Extreme coatings should not even be considered for comparison to the Fujinon FMT-SX or the Nikon SE. They don't even come close.

edz

edited Nov 04
Both the Celestron Skymaster 25x100 and the Oberwerk Giant 22x100 have objective coatings that appear purple/green with very little reflection off the objective lens. Looking at reflected light inside the Oberwerk 22x100 shows a green reflection off the prism face towards the objective. The same prism face in the Celestron 25x100 shows a light blue reflection. The coatings on the Oberwerk eyepieces appear greenish. The eye lens and prism coatings on the Celestron 25x100 appear like they might be single coated MgF.

The 20x80 Oberwerk Standard has a fine coating on the objective that produces almost no reflection with full daylight. The coatings on this 20x80 binocular seem to reflect so little light, they appear better than the Oberwerk 15x70/'03 and maybe should be considered nearer to the Fujinon 16x70. The coatings on the Oberwerk BT100, judged by the amount of reflections coming off of them and the difficulty of seeing any detail in those reflections, appear to be one of the finest coatings I have seen.

The Nikon SE, Fujinon FMT-SX, Oberwerk BT100 and Oberwerk Standard reflect less than the Celestron 25x100 and the Oberwerk 22x100. These two have objective coatings probably closer to the Oberwerk 15x70/’03. Keep in mind the Celestron appear to have single coated prisms and eye lens.

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Edited by EdZ (11/07/04 11:33 AM)

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