The 10x42mm Zeiss SFs are among the
very best bino’s money can buy and one of my absolute favourites. Are these 10x32s
as good?
Zeiss 10x32 Victory SF
Review
Now that Zeiss have fixed their early build quality issues,
the 42mm SFs are among my very favourite binoculars. I like everything from
their unique shape and handling, to their wonderfully bright, sharp and wide view. For astronomy I do just prefer Swarovski’s
NL Pures, but for birding I might opt for the SFs, that’s how much I like them.
Recently, Zeiss have expanded the SF concept into 32mm
binoculars, pricing them as a more compact alternative, not a cheaper one. So Zeiss finally have a competitor to Swarovski’s 32mm ELs,
but at an even higher price: these are (I think!) the most expensive 32mm
bino’s currently on sale.
So are these smaller-but-not-cheaper
SFs as good as their larger siblings, or have Zeiss had to compromise to
squeeze the SF concept into a smaller format?
And there’s another question I’d
like to answer: are the very finest 10x32s any use for astronomy? Let’s find out ...
At A Glance
|
Magnification |
10x |
|
Objective Size |
32mm |
|
Eye Relief |
19mm claimed, ~17mm measured |
|
Actual Field of View |
7.6° |
|
Apparent field of view |
69° |
|
Close focus |
1.95m stated, ~1.7m measured |
|
Transmissivity |
90% |
|
Length |
150mm claimed, 147mm measured! |
|
Weight |
590g measured. |
Data from Zeiss/Me.
What’s in the Box?
Zeiss have upgraded ... the box! Now
the SFs get an even fancier one with a magnetic catch and an even more striking
nature photo:
Design and Build
The SFs don’t have a Zeiss heritage
like say the HTs or older Victory FLs. Instead of building on previous great
Zeiss bino’s, like the Dialyts, the SFs were a
totally new design when they emerged five years ago.
The SFs aren’t really like anyone
else’s bino’s either. Their open bridge looks a lot like Leica’s Noctivids’ or Swarovski’s ELs’, but
the SFs are a much more radical re-design than just putting an open bridge on a
Victory HT.
Radical in what way? The SFs have a different optical design
from other premium models, as we’ll see. That optical
re-think has a knock-on effect on the appearance and handling too. So the SFs have a unique style and feel and view. I’ll go into the technical details in the following
sections.
Zeiss clearly see the SFs as a pure birding (as opposed to
hunting) binocular, so they only make four classic sizes: 8x42, 10x42, 8x32 and
these 10x32s. I’d love to see an astronomy-worthy
10x50 or 12x50, but I’m not holding my breath.
Body
The SFs
are an open bridge design like Swarovski’s ELs, with long simple barrels that
lack thumb-indents or other sculpting to fit the hand.
The first thing I
noticed about the 42mm SFs back in 2015 was just how long they are. The 32mm
models are the same. This is puzzling, even off-putting, at first: the 10x32 SFs are just plain large for
their aperture. How large? Let’s compare ...
These ‘little’ SFs are 30mm longer than the 10x32 Victory FLs
they replaced as Zeiss’ top model and compared with the cheaper Conquests, they’re longer too - 16mm longer. Put it another way, they are
5mm longer than a pair of 42mm Leica Ultravids.
The 10x32 SFs’ most direct current competitor – Swarovski’s 10x32mm ELs – look
similar but are almost a centimetre shorter. Odd, then, that Zeiss overstate
their length at 150mm when I measured 147mm!
Large the 32mm SFs may be, but like the 42mm models they’re light for their size: about the same as those Swarovski
10x32 ELs and only 40g more than the much smaller 10x32 Victory FLs.
Zeiss’ philosophy with the SFs seems to be that weight and
handling in a bino’ matter more than size for most people. They might be right.
The old Victory FLs pioneered a composite (yeah alright,
plastic) body construction. I liked it because it was warmer to hold in freezing
conditions. For the SFs, Zeiss have reverted to a magnesium alloy. Possibly plastic
premium bino’s made life hard for the marketing department, but more likely it’s because the open bridge was difficult to implement in
composite.
The two-finish black armour is smooth on the barrel insides,
lightly textured and flattened on the outside for a more comfortable grip. The
open bridge sections are left as coated bare metal, just as SW and Leica do
with their similar designs.
The SFs armour is well fitted, hardly smells rubbery and
whilst grippy it isn’t too much of a magnet for dust
and prints. It’s a big improvement over the HT’s
armour and now looks and feels almost identical to Leica’s. In photos it looks
like the armour on Zeiss’ cheaper Conquest HDs, but it’s not – theirs is more rubbery, fluff collecting and markable.
Like all modern Zeiss,
the SFs are nitrogen filled and immersion proof to 4m.
Focuser
The 42mm SFs have one of the best focusers and this is the
same. It’s not the very fastest, but in terms of
fluidity, intuitiveness and absolute precision, they just don’t get any better.
Swapping between a pair of basic Conquest HDs and these, the
focuser (not the view or the handling) is the first thing you notice: the
Conquests’ focuser is good, but this is much more fluid and intuitive. In a
sense it’s also necessary, because the focus snap of
these SFs is so extreme you need the most precise focuser to find it.
I measured close focus at ~1.7m, which is very close for a
10x binocular and slightly better than Zeiss state. Even more impressively,
they do actually merge comfortably at that distance.
From close focus to infinity is about 1 ¼ turns of the outsized and twirly
wheel.
Dioptre adjustment
on the SFs is by a separate knob at the front of the bridge, which you pull out
to adjust. It’s smooth, accurate and a has positive
détente for neutral. Compared with Swarovski and Leica the only thing it lacks
is a scale.
Optics - Prisms
The SF have
modern-standard Schmidt-Pechan (a.k.a. Roof) prisms,
not the low-loss Abbe-König prisms of the HTs. Zeiss
quote the 32mm SFs at 90% transmissivity, much the same as other Alpha roofs
but 2% down on the 42mm models.
Optics - Objectives
One of the many interesting things about reviewing bino’s is finding
unexpected design features. Although these 32mm SFs seem like (and are marketed
as) a scaled down 42mm SF, optically and mechanically they’re
different.
Like the larger SFs, these employ a long-focal-length doublet
with an Ultra-FL ED glass crown, instead of the usual triplet, to reduce weight.
But instead of focusing with a moving lens behind the objective, here the
objectives themselves move on a carriage behind a thin optical window. Those
promo’ images aren’t photoshopped, the pink circles at
the barrel ends look flat because they are!
Moving-objective focus isn’t new -
most Canon IS bino’s work that way. But it is unusual in a top-line Alpha bino’. Advantages might include better false colour suppression
(the focusing lens can be a source of chromatic aberration). The downside is
another optical element in the light path, perhaps explaining part of
that 2% loss in transmissivity compared with the 42mm model.
Perhaps it also explains the exceptional T* coatings: Zeiss’
signature pink, but even darker. And it doesn’t stop
there. Shining a bright light into the objectives, there isn’t
a single reflection that isn’t dark pink, perhaps the first time I’ve seen such
complete coatings.
Here, T* means something different from T* on a Conquest HD,
whose pink coatings are noticeably more reflective (see below). As a an aside, I
recently compared the 8x42 Conquest with the 8x42 SF and found a much more
subtle difference in their objective coatings.
The lenses have micro-ridge-baffled rings, but internal
baffling seems minimal, which is ... baffling, because stray light suppression
seems good.
Objectives move on carriages, seen here, to focus.
Zeiss SF (top) and Conquest HD (bottom) both supposedly have
‘T*’ coatings ...
... as do these 16 year old Zeiss Dialyts. T* is variable!
Complex SF eyepieces have seven or possibly eight elements
(Zeiss image).
Optics - Eyepieces
The SFs’ eyepieces, with their almost-flat 25mm eye lenses, are
a complex design. Zeiss’ original SF cutaway showed seven-elements, but a
recent animation shows even more! All those air-glass surfaces may help explain
the 32mm SFs’ 2% lower overall transmission figure.
So why, then, do these small SFs need some of the most
complex bino’ eyepieces in current production? Partly optical performance: a
combination of high eye relief and a wide, well-corrected field in a compact
design. But complex eyepieces are also part of Zeiss’ ErgoBalanceTM
concept: a combination of light objectives and heavy eyepieces move the balance
point backwards and takes torsion off your wrists
Real world eye relief is a few millimetres down on the
claimed 19mm at ~16mm and less than the 42mm models. It still feels plenty with
my glasses, but that’s thanks to the super wide field.
In fact, I can’t quite see the whole field with my
specs on and this is an area where these 32mm SFs lose out to the originals.
Apparent field of view at 69° is among the widest of any current
Alpha binocular, exceeded only by Swarovski’s new NL Pures.
That translates to an impressive 7.6° true field (130m/1000m). Compare the
6.9° offered by SW’s 10x32 ELs and the meagre 6° of the 10x42 Nikon SEs which were once my 10x reference
standard.
One of the few negative things about the 10x32 SFs is more
blackouts and sensitivity to eye position than I’d
like. Another is the eye cups ...
The 8x42 SFs I tested recently had excellent eye cups, but on
these 32mm SFs the action is stiff and rough. I’m not
even sure if there are meant to be two positions or three. I don’t
know if this is sample variation, but such expensive bino’s deserve better.
SF (top) and
Conquest HD (bottom) have completely different coatings on their eye lenses.
Accessories
These 10x32s have almost the same list price as the 10x42s
and their design is several years more recent. So why have Zeiss dropped the
rather stylish slim case of the 42s for a much more basic Cordura
item hardly different from the Conquest HDs’?
The neoprene strap is standard Zeiss, with no equivalent to
Swarovski ‘Lift’ strap or ‘Field Pro’ quick release system. The caps are
standard too, though for some reason, the eyepiece cap for the SFs is less
flexible and rubbery than the Conquests’.
In Use – Daytime
Ergonomics and Handling
Zeiss’ ErgoBalanceTM
concept, that throws the weight backwards and off your wrists, worked for the
bigger models and it does for these too. Those long barrels make for a secure
and comfortable hold, even with gloves.
Eye relief for use with specs is really
excellent for a 32mm binocular, but is still a little tighter in reality
than the 42mm models’ and I can’t quite see the whole field with my specs on
(not that noticeable, because the field is so wide). Another possible comfort
issue is blackouts ...
My daughter found the SF 10x32’s blackouts so annoying she didn’t like using them. I wouldn’t
go that far, but they are a genuine downside. You don’t
notice them on a static view, but start to pan or swivel your eyes and you get
regular kidney-bean patches flash into the view.
As I said above, the focuser is the very best: the
ultra-large wheel has a light, fluid feel and is super accurate. More
importantly, the focus point is identical focusing in or out (it often isn’t). That and the super precise focus snap make finding
focus super-fast and easy, a real feature of these SF 10x32s.
The 10x32 SFs may be large for a 32mm binocular, but they’re still light and unobtrusive to carry. I think they
look great too.
The 10x32 SFs’
long barrels give them a full-sized hold.
The View
The view is outstandingly good, especially for a 32mm bino’.
Pin sharp, with extreme focus snap, it feels vivid and full of crystalline
high-res detail. Brightness is excellent and colour rendition cool and natural.
The most remarkable thing is that field. At 69° apparent, it’s
a proper wide field, putting the field stop in your peripheral vision and
giving an immersive airiness to the view. I’ve said it
before, but narrow fields are hard to go back to.
Such a wide field means that there’s
no need to drop back to an 8x binocular if you can hold 10x steady: the true
field here is as wide as many 8x32s.
I only really started to appreciate how good the 10x32 SFs
are taking them on long walks, birding and nature
viewing. Detail is staggering. I can ID birds at extreme range, including on
the wing. The filigree of winter woods across the bay is stunningly rendered,
every twig picked out and visible. Resolution is so high that I spot things in
the villages on the opposite shore that I’ve never
noticed.
Nearer to home, Blue Tits, Coal Tits and Great Tits at the
feeder show every blue, yellow and black feather. I notice that the Great Tit’s
yellow breast feathers overlap the darker plumage on his back in delicate
sprays.
So, the view is exceptionally fine for a binocular of this
size. But is it quite as good as the 10x42s’? Hmmm ... In most ways it really
is. However, I can’t explain why but it doesn’t feel quite
as relaxed and easy somehow.
Flat field?
Like
many premium bino’s these days, the SFs have field flatteners in their
eyepieces. But flat seems to mean different things to different folks. To an astro’ imager flat means flat – pinpoint stars to the edge.
To Swarovski, flat means a completely usable view at the field stop. For the
SFs, neither of those things is quite true.
Yes, the
SFs have a more viewable field edge than Leica’s Ultravids.
But, typically for Zeiss, they have included a little field curvature to make
panning more comfortable, at the expense of some blurring towards the field
stop. Viewing a ruler (yes, geeky, I know) shows that the field degrades
gradually from 50% until the fine scale isn’t quite
readable in the last 10%.
The
Zeiss compromise is best for birding or nature viewing where you’ll
be panning about a lot. But for more static use – from a hide or for astronomy
– I’d take Swarovski’s.
Chromatic Aberration
These
smaller SFs are essentially free of chromatic aberration. The objectives
generate no false colour, something you can see focusing through layers of
silhouetted branches.
Then
there are the eyepieces, which are often a source of false colour off-axis. But
here, most unusually, there is almost no false colour in the distorted edge
part of the field, where other Zeiss models have a lot.
The
upshot is that a crow’s black feathers silhouetted against a bright cloudy sky
are un-spoiled by purple or green fringes. Panning through branches there are
no flashing false colours to distract and annoy. Use in the brightest
conditions, over snow or bright water, induces no contrast-reducing purple
wash.
An
internal focusing lens is known to make false colour worse, so is that why
Zeiss have ditched it in favour of moving objectives for these newest SFs? If
so, it worked ...
In Use – Dusk
Despite the smaller objectives, these 10x32s function well
into dusk, albeit not as well as the 42mm version. I watched my local badger
ambling about in the copse at twilight, wrongly
confident he was unobserved (we call him Mr Scratchy due to his horrible habits
on my lawn).
Under a brilliantly clear dusk sky I got no veiling flare at
all, whatever I did. Contrast the 8x42 SFs which gave a little under identical
conditions and Leica’s Ultravids which gave a little
more.
In Use – Observing the Night Sky
I was keen to find out how the very best 10x32s would fare
for astronomy. Why? Because 32s make a great travel bino’ and travel often
takes you to dark skies.
Few binoculars give such pinpoint stellar images centre
field. Off-axis, stars stay perfect until ~70% field width. After that, a tiny bit
of distortion creeps in, but you can focus it away – it’s
just mild field curvature. Only in the last 10% of this very wide field do
stars become slightly astigmatic, but it’s not
intrusive for astronomy. My usual test of squeezing both the belt and sword of
Orion into the field, results in only very slight distortion of Mintaka and
Nair al Saif at the periphery.
Very, very few binoculars give such an absolute focus snap on
stars: the tiniest breath on the wheel nudges it to perfection. But this has a
downside. The focuser is so light that it’s all too
easy to nudge it out of focus again, especially in the dark with gloved hands.
In other respects, comfort is good for astronomy. The light
weight and rearwards balance help reduce fatigue. I like the long barrels which
allow a hold around the objectives for extra steadiness. Those blackouts noted
during the day didn’t trouble me for astronomy.
Viewing a very bright security light generated four long dim
prism spikes, but no ghosts with the light in field and no flare when viewing
around it.
The Moon
A
crescent Moon was a perfect view – sharp and contrasty, full of tiny crater
detail and with no false colour, minimal flare.
Mars
The Red
Planet wasn’t at its brightest, but still focused down
to a tiny dot different from a pinpoint star, with no spikes or flare at all.
Testing
the 10x32 SFs on deep sky.
Deep Sky
Conventional
wisdom would have it that 32mm bino’s can’t do deep
sky, but these can ...
The
hugely wide and pretty flat field means sweeping the Milky Way is addictively
enjoyable, the field stop receding into peripheral vision to leave you immersed
in a vast and spacious star field. It’s an effect I’ve
previously experienced only with SW’s NL Pure.
Panning
up through the Milky Way from Deneb, I find a distinct patch of misty
nebulosity which is the North American Nebula. Further up, the star fields are
wide, rich and enthralling. I stumble across open
cluster M39, nicely resolved, that leads on to many more clusters which have only
NGC numbers.
Surely
not galaxies with a 32mm? Panning either side of orange star Mirach in
Andromeda, I easily find M31; On the other side, M33 is easy too and is really
picked out well, showing some shape, more than just a vague misty patch. After
some averted-vision searching, I locate M51 in Ursa Major, not so much the
Whirlpool galaxy as the faintest smudge, but there it is nestling in the
darkness off Alkaid.
The
obvious stuff looked good too. The Pleiades were sparkly, with the sharpest
pinpoint stars. The Double Cluster and nearby Stock 2 resolved lots of stars in
a rich and super-wide field. Only at the edges was a narrow band of minor
blurring. Panning over into Cassiopeia, I happened upon the Owl cluster off Ruchbah.
The
clusters in Auriga – M35, M36 and M38 were all starting to resolve with direct
vision, once my eyes had fully adapted. Only M37 remained star-mist. The
Beehive open cluster was dimmer than I’m used to, but
showed all the major stars in their distinctive pattern.
Brighter
nebulae look good too. Orion’s sword region revealed a surprising amount of
glowing nebulosity. Meanwhile, the belt region was densely populated with stars
– more so than I expected. I was really astonished to find that with averted
vision I could pick out M1 (the Crab Nebula) across in Taurus, something that
troubles some 8x42s.
One
thing smaller apertures don’t do so well is star
colours. The Garnet Star, a rich amber even in 7x50s, looked pale gold; ditto
La Superba.
The Zeiss
10x32 Victory SFs were certainly not built for astronomy, but their wide field,
supreme optical quality and premium coatings mean they work amazingly well.
Zeiss 10x32 Victory SF
vs Zeiss 10x32 Conquest HD
Zeiss’ ‘budget’ range, the Conquest HDs, are an excellent
binocular, especially in the smaller sizes. The SFs are almost three times the
street price, so what extra do you get for your money?
·
The
SFs are larger but lighter
·
The
SFs’ long barrels and rearward balance makes for a comfier hold
·
The
SFs have nicer armour – less rubbery and fluff attracting
·
Centre
field view is very similar
·
The
SFs may have slightly higher resolution centre field, but not by much
·
The
SFs have a wider, better corrected field
·
SFs’
brightness seems only a touch better, if at all
·
The
SFs appear to have much better coatings, especially on the internal elements
·
The
SFs have a little more eye relief, but worse blackouts
·
The
SFs focuser is much more fluid and intuitive, even though the Conquests is good
by general standards
·
Zeiss
quote identical 90% transmission and indeed brightness seems about the same
·
The
Conquests’ optical quality is excellent, these SFs have some of the best I’ve ever seen in a binocular, evident on star images
All those little refinements do sum up to make the SFs a
significantly nicer binocular ... but three times nicer? Go ahead and treat
yourself to the SFs, knowing the Conquests were probably all you needed.
Summary
There’s no
question that the 10x32 SFs are the best 32mm binoculars I’ve ever tested.
Smaller bino’s once had a narrower field, less eye relief
and a dimmer view in return for a lower price. No longer.
The view is super-wide,
well-corrected and full of brilliant high-contrast detail. The focuser is among
the very best. Handling is great: I like the long barrels for secure and steady
grip, appreciate the rearwards balance point. Optical quality is peerlessly
high, giving some of the best stellar images I’ve
seen. So forget the 10x42 SFs and buy these then? Hold
on ...
These may be the best 10x32s and
the view is the equal of the 10x42 model in most ways, even exceeding it in
sheer width. But there are a few areas where these 10x32s fall short. The
eyepieces have a bit less eye relief and rather worse blackouts – they feel
tighter and less easy somehow, requiring more careful positioning. The same
goes for the view: it’s just as bright, vivid and
crystalline; but less easy, less relaxed (a feature I really value in the 42mm
SFs).
Then there is simple physics: 42mm
objectives grab 70% more light than 32mm ones. So
although these smaller SFs do work remarkably well at dusk and for astronomy,
the 42s will inevitably work better at lower light levels, in winter or at
dusk, go deeper on the night sky.
Meanwhile, the price difference
between 32mm and 42mm models is small. So
the question is really whether losing 200g of weight and 25mm in length is
worth a slightly less relaxed and capable binocular? If you’re
traveling, hiking or trekking, then yes. For regular birding, maybe buy the
10x42s and a harness.
If you really need the smaller size and weight of a 32mm
binocular, these are the best I’ve ever tested. But
they cost almost as much as the 10x42 SFs and don’t
quite have their easy grace in use.
Buy Zeiss 10x32 Victory SF from Wex here:
