Zeiss’ 8x42mm SFs are among my
absolute favourite binoculars. How do these smaller (but hardly small) 8x32s
compare?
Zeiss 8x32 Victory SF
Review
Zeiss’ 8x42 SFs are among my very favourite binoculars. I
like everything from their unique shape and handling, to their wonderfully
bright, sharp and wide view. Most of all there’s just something easy and
effortless about them. For astronomy I still prefer Swarovski’s 8x42 NL Pures,
but for birding I might opt for the SFs’ lighter weight and easy handling.
Recently, Zeiss have expanded the SF concept into 32mm
binoculars, pricing them as a more compact alternative, not a cheaper one. So,
although Zeiss finally have a competitor to Swarovski’s 8x32 ELs, it comes at
an even higher price: perhaps the most expensive 8x32s currently on sale.
So are these smaller-but-not-cheaper
8x32 SFs as good as the 8x42s, or have Zeiss had to compromise that wonderful,
easy view to squeeze the SF concept into a smaller format? In this review I put
them to a thorough test to find out ...
With binoculars like the SFs, it’s about the view ...
At A Glance
|
Magnification |
8x |
|
Objective Size |
32mm |
|
Eye Relief |
19mm claimed, ~16mm measured |
|
Actual Field of View |
155m/1000m |
|
Apparent field of view |
67° |
|
Close focus |
1.5m measured. |
|
Transmissivity |
90% |
|
Length |
152mm claimed, 150mm measured |
|
Weight |
605g 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 or FL.
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 8x32s.
8x32 SFs share styling elements with other Zeiss models.
Zeiss’ 8x32 Victory SF are not really a small binocular – compared
here with Leica’s retro-modern 8x40 Trinovid.
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. How long? Let’s compare ...
These ‘little’ SFs are 30mm longer than the 8x32 Victory FLs
they replaced as Zeiss’ top model and compared with the 8x32 Conquest HDs,
they’re longer too - 16mm longer. Put it another way, they are 5mm longer than
a pair of 42mm Leica Ultravids. The 8x32 SFs’ most direct current
competitor – Swarovski’s 8x32mm ELs – look similar but are almost a centimetre
shorter.
These 8x32 SFs are longer than the 10x model, too, at 150mm
vs 147mm on my ruler (though Zeiss quote 152mm vs 150mm!)
It’s easier to show than tell, so I’ve photographed the 8x32
SFs next to a pair of Leica 8x40 Trinovids (see above).
Large the 32mm SFs may be, but like the 42mm models they’re
light for their size: about the same as those Swarovski 8x32 ELs and only 40g
more than the much smaller 8x32 Victory FLs. Despite being bulkier, they are
actually a little lighter than the Trinovids shown above.
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 reinforced 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 open-bridge models.
The SFs armour is well fitted, only smells slightly rubbery;
and whilst grippy it isn’t too much of a magnet for dust and prints. 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 8x32 SFs are nitrogen filled and immersion proof to 4m.
Focuser
The 42mm SFs have one of the best focusers and the 32mm
models are 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 mid-price 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.
I measured close focus at ~1.5m, which is slightly closer
than the 10x model and significantly better than Zeiss’ quoted 1.95m. They do
actually merge comfortably at that distance, too. From close focus to infinity
is just less than 1 ½ turns of the outsized 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 numbered 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 and the 32mm SFs are an example. Although
they 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.
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 the need to retain good transmission with more
optical elements also explains the exceptional T* coatings: Zeiss’ signature
pink, but even darker than usual. And it doesn’t stop at the optical window.
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.
Instead of a focusing lens, the objectives move on internal carriages,
seen here.
Zeiss 8x32 SF (top) and Conquest 8x32 HD (bottom) both
supposedly have ‘T*’ coatings.
Complex SF eyepieces have seven or possibly eight elements
(Zeiss image).
Optics - Eyepieces
The 8x32 SFs’ eyepieces have slightly smaller eye lenses than
the 10x32s’ - 23mm rather than 25mm - and may be a different design because
their optical characteristics are very different, as we’ll see.
Zeiss’ original SF cutaway showed seven-element eyepieces,
but a recent Zeiss marketing image (see above) 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 such complex eyepieces?
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 hard to measure on these 8x32 SFs,
but it’s well down on the claimed 19mm at ~15mm. It’s less than the 8x42 SFs
and slightly less (I think) than the 10x32s too: whatever the exact numbers, I
can’t see the whole wide field with my specs on.
Apparent field of view at 67° is among the widest of any current
8x Alpha binocular, exceeded only by Swarovski’s new 8x42 NL Pures. That
translates to an impressive 9° true field (155m/1000m). Compare the
8° offered by SW’s 8x32 ELs and the old range-topping 8x32
Victory FLs.
One of the few negative things about the 10x32 SFs was
more blackouts and sensitivity to eye position than I’d like. Oddly, this 8x32
model seems rather better corrected for the spherical aberration of the exit
pupil that causes blackouts. Eye position seems less critical too.
Just like the 10x32s, though, the eye cup action is too stiff
and rough for this class of binocular. I could only find one extended position.
Zeiss 8x32 SF eye lenses are smaller than the 10x32 model,
but the stiff, single-position eye cups are the same.
SF (top) and
Conquest HD (bottom) have completely different coatings on their eye lenses
(Note: SF 10x32 shown).
Accessories
These 8x32s 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. And in fact, these 8x32s have a little
more space to curl your fingers into than the shorter 10x32 model.
Zeiss got it right – for everyday use I’m more bothered about
weight and handling than size.
Eye relief for use with specs is tighter than the 8x42s and
perhaps even than the 10x32s by a small margin. I can’t quite see whole field
with my specs on, losing maybe half a degree (not that noticeable, because the
field is so wide). On the plus side, compared to the higher power model these
suffer far fewer blackouts during panning.
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).
The 8x32 SFs may be large for a 32mm binocular, but they’re
still light and unobtrusive to carry. I think they look great too.
The 8x32 SFs’
long barrels give them a full-sized hold.
The View
The view is outstandingly good, especially for a 32mm bino’.
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 67° 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, especially when the wide field is bright and flat and accessible (due to
good eye relief). This isn’t the wide field of their 8x30 EIIs (no disrespect
to Nikon, the EIIs are currently ¼ the price of these SFs!)
Such a wide field threatens to make 7x binoculars obsolete,
if you can hold 8x steady: the true field here is wider than any current 7x
bino’s.
I only really started to appreciate how good the 8x32 SFs are
on long walks out into the Lakeland countryside. High resolution and low false
colour gave amazing views of a Buzzard on the wing, out over the valley.
Looking towards the distant snow-covered mountains, winter woods are stunningly
rendered, every twig resolved.
Nearer to home, birds at the feeder show every detail of
feather. I watched a rare visitor to our garden – a wild Pheasant – his
magnificent russet tail feathers, red head and iridescent blue-green neck,
rendered in exquisite detail.
So, the 8x32 SFs’ view is very fine for a binocular of this
size. But is it quite as good as the 8x42s’? In this case it’s an easy no: the
view just feels slightly tighter (even though it’s actually wider) and less
easy. Partly that’s just down to less eye relief, but it goes beyond that to
something I can’t quantify. Or perhaps I can:
You see, these have a slightly less sharp and cut-glass view
than the 10x32s, slightly less snappy focus too, and it probably comes down to
worse (and different) off-axis aberrations...
Flat field?
Typically
for Zeiss, these 8x32 SFs have some field curvature to make panning more
comfortable, at the expense of blurring towards the field stop. So much so
normal. But viewing a ruler reveals a surprisingly early start to that off-axis
blurring: it starts from just ~50% and
the cm scale marks are unreadable from 70%. What’s more, unlike the 10x32
model, I can’t focus all the blur away. Testing on stars revealed why (see
below): whilst the of-axis blurring on the 10x32 model was mostly field
curvature, here there’s more astigmatism.
In terms of
off-axis aberrations, these 8x32s are significantly worse than the 10x32
version, despite a narrower apparent field. I think this results in a less
sparkly pin-sharp impression to the view.
My guess is that
squeezing the SF concept – bright, wide, flat, easy – into the 8x32 size puts
more strain on the eyepiece design than any other model in the range.
(Note
that the widest fields like these are hard to photograph in full, which is why
the FOV snap is truncated):
Off-axis aberrations are rather worse than the 10x32s’.
Chromatic Aberration
The 8x32
SFs are essentially free of chromatic aberration in normal use. Rooflines,
branches, birds in the treetops – no contrast-robbing rim of false colour here.
However, very bright conditions generate a blue ring around the unsharp field
edge when viewing with glasses, something I didn’t notice with the 10x32s.
To
discover that these do still suffer a trace of false colour after all, you have
to wait for maximum contrast against a brilliant twilit sky. Then, I noticed
just a trace when panning through layered branches in silhouette and around the
feathers of a roosting Crow. There is a touch more false
colour in the distorted edge part of the field than I recall from the 10x32s
too.
Don’t
misunderstand, though: false colour is still lower than most other HD roofs.
Stray Light and Ghosting
Under a brilliantly clear dusk sky I got no veiling flare at
all. Contrast the 8x42 SFs which gave a little under identical conditions and
Leica’s Ultravids which gave a little more.
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.
Viewing
around a bright, low Moon generated no significant flare or other stray light problems
as it often can.
In Use – Dusk
Despite the smaller objectives, these bright 8x32s function
well into dusk, albeit not as well as the 42mm version and without the
light-intensifier effect of large exit pupils.
In Use – Observing the Night Sky
The 8x32
SFs have an unusually wide field of view, so much so that they are among the
richest field devices of all, bino’s or telescope (even the smallest astro’ telescope with the widest 2” eyepiece would fall
well short of 9°). I’ve
illustrated this below by showing a 9° field swallowing the whole of the main Lyra asterism.
Few binoculars give such pinpoint stellar images centre field
as the 10x32 SFs I tested and these 8x32s are almost as good: significantly
tighter and with less spiking than most roofs, perhaps due the absence of a
focusing lens.
Off-axis, stars stay perfect until ~50% field width. After
that, they begin to distort into arcs, but unlike the 10x32 model you cannot
focus them back to points, turning them cross-shaped if you try – here most of
the off-axis aberration is not field curvature, but astigmatism.
So in the last 20% or so of this wide
field, stars become slightly astigmatic, but it’s not too 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.
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. The focuser makes
finding perfect focus easy, though it’s so light that it’s too easy to nudge it
out in the dark.
Zeiss SF 8x32 FOV
captures a huge chunk of sky!
The Moon
A thick
crescent Moon was a perfect view – sharp and contrasty, full of crater detail
for the magnification, with Theophilus and Catherina easily spotted near the
terminator. Even focusing through produced no hint of false colour, and minimal
flare.
Mars
The Red
Planet wasn’t at its brightest, but still focused down to a tiny dot, with no
spikes or flare at all.
Testing
the 8x32 SFs on the deep sky.
Deep Sky
Conventional
wisdom would have it that 32mm bino’s can’t do deep sky, but the 10x32 SFs
proved they can and these are not too far behind.
The
hugely wide 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
8x42 NL Pures which share that 9° field of view.
Panning
up through the Milky Way from Deneb, I found the distinct patch of misty
nebulosity which is the North American Nebula. Further up, the star fields were
wide and rich and expansive. I stumbled across numerous open clusters which
have only NGC numbers, some just faint fuzzies, others resolved into stars.
Panning
either side of orange star Mirach, I easily found the Andromeda Galaxy, M31. On
Mirach’s other side, M33 was more like a faint misty patch than it had been
through the 8x42s which hinted at the galaxy’s shape – these are just 8x32s
after all.
Easier
stuff looked good. The Double Cluster and nearby Stock 2 resolved lots of stars
in a rich and super-wide field, once my eyes were fully adjusted. Panning over
into Cassiopeia, I found more clusters in the star fields off Ruchbah, some just smudges at 8x.
However,
on the densest star fields, the off-axis curvature showed up in a ring of
blurred and smeared-out stars around the edge of the view, something that other
richest field bino’, Swarovski’s 8x42 NL Pure, doesn’t do.
I
struggled to resolve the clusters in Auriga – M35, M37, M36 and M38 – more so
than with the 10x32s. Larger clusters like the Beehive, and the Pleaides were
sparkly, with the sharpest pinpoint stars, but got kinda
lost in that vast field of view. But the upside was being able to pan from
constellation to constellation without looking away to get my bearings.
Orion’s
sword region still looked beautiful, framed together with belt stars, even if
the Great Nebula itself is small at this magnification.
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 8x32
Victory SFs work well for astronomy, within the limitations of their aperture
and magnification, and give a huge field of view. Overall, though, its higher
power and flatter field make the 10x32 model a better bet for the night sky.
Zeiss 8x32 Victory SF
vs Zeiss 8x32 Conquest HD
Zeiss’ ‘budget’ range, the Conquest HDs, are a really
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, but in this case not 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
Conquests may have slightly more eye relief: I can see their whole field
with specs on, but not with the SFs
·
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 of both is excellent, evident on very pin-point star
images
All those little refinements do sum up to make the SFs a
significantly nicer binocular ... but there’s no escaping the fact that the
Conquests are far better value and all you really need.
Summary
There’s no question that the 8x32
SFs are the best binoculars I’ve ever tested at this size. 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 very wide, with a large
well-corrected sweet-spot, bright and detailed. 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 very high, giving
some of the best stellar images I’ve seen.
These may be the best 8x32s and the
view is the equal of the 8x42 model in some ways, even exceeding it in sheer
width. But there are a few areas where these 8x32s fall short. The eyepieces
have a bit less eye relief than the 8x42s (and even than the 10x32s). They feel
tighter and less easy than the 8x42s somehow, too. The same goes for the view:
it’s seems to me just a little less bright, vivid and crystalline, maybe due to
more off-axis astigmatism.
Then there is simple physics: 42mm
objectives grab 70% more light than 32mm ones.
So unless you
really need the 8x32s low weight, I’d buy the 8x42s which are only slightly
more expensive.
If you do want the 32mm SFs – maybe
for travel, trekking or long countryside walks – which model do you buy? This
is harder because both are slightly imperfect but in different ways. These
8x32s are a little larger and heavier. The 10x32s have a slightly wider
apparent field and more eye relief, but worse blackouts. More troublingly,
these 8x32s have quite a lot more off-axis blurring due to astigmatism. So,
despite the blackouts, I slightly prefer the 10x32s overall.
If you really need the small size and low weight of an 8x32,
these are the best I’ve ever tested. But they cost almost as much as the 8x42
SFs and don’t quite have their brilliant, easy view.
Buy Zeiss 8x32 Victory SF from Wex here:
