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BuckRimfire's Review of Hawke Sport Optics Endurance ED 8x42mm Monocular
Very good image quality, fairly compact and light weight. At this price point, you could probably get as good an image from a 7x35 porro prism binocular, but they would be much bigger.
To get close to this size in a binocular, you'd have to choose a tiny roof-prism binocular that, at this price, would lack phase-correction on the prisms and would therefore have crummy image quality. No one should EVER buy a non-phase-corrected roof prism! The micro-roofs would also have a tiny exit-pupil, which makes them less easy to look in if you're, say, on a boat that's moving around...
I looked at a sharp-edged dark object against a bright white cloud background and could see almost no chromatic aberration along the edge of the object. Just a touch of gold color, which you'd never notice unless you were specifically trying to judge the CA.
Eyepiece design seems pretty good: I focused on something in the center then panned that object toward the edge of the field of view, and it stayed pretty sharp at least half way out. 2/3 of the way to the edge, I was able to refocus somewhat, so some of the loss of sharpness was focal plane curvature, not other errors. I haven't looked at the stars at night yet to judge coma, but my bet is that the outer parts of the field will have the stars looking pretty wonky. There is just a tiny bit of pincushion distortion at the edge of the field, but not enough to give a weird feeling of things moving as you pan that I've seen in some optics. So, the eyepiece wouldn't be confused with Al Nagler's best, but at this price I'm pretty happy.
The only objection I can make after using this a few times is that it is not super-well baffled and there is some internal reflection. If you are in direct sunlight and aiming at a target fairly close to the sun, say within about 30 degrees, you'll see some bright swipes of reflected light in the image. I would rate it 4.5 stars for this reason if half-stars were allowed.
To get close to this size in a binocular, you'd have to choose a tiny roof-prism binocular that, at this price, would lack phase-correction on the prisms and would therefore have crummy image quality. No one should EVER buy a non-phase-corrected roof prism! The micro-roofs would also have a tiny exit-pupil, which makes them less easy to look in if you're, say, on a boat that's moving around...
I looked at a sharp-edged dark object against a bright white cloud background and could see almost no chromatic aberration along the edge of the object. Just a touch of gold color, which you'd never notice unless you were specifically trying to judge the CA.
Eyepiece design seems pretty good: I focused on something in the center then panned that object toward the edge of the field of view, and it stayed pretty sharp at least half way out. 2/3 of the way to the edge, I was able to refocus somewhat, so some of the loss of sharpness was focal plane curvature, not other errors. I haven't looked at the stars at night yet to judge coma, but my bet is that the outer parts of the field will have the stars looking pretty wonky. There is just a tiny bit of pincushion distortion at the edge of the field, but not enough to give a weird feeling of things moving as you pan that I've seen in some optics. So, the eyepiece wouldn't be confused with Al Nagler's best, but at this price I'm pretty happy.
The only objection I can make after using this a few times is that it is not super-well baffled and there is some internal reflection. If you are in direct sunlight and aiming at a target fairly close to the sun, say within about 30 degrees, you'll see some bright swipes of reflected light in the image. I would rate it 4.5 stars for this reason if half-stars were allowed.
Would Recommend:
Yes
7 of 7
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