Hi People,
Please forgive me if I write in English, but my wrote German is not so good.
I've just received my new binocular a Pentax 10x50 PCF WP II.
I had the occasion of testing it today by daylight, and I am very positively impressed of its performances.
At the first impact the binocular seems solid like a tank. The fit and finish is
very good and compatible with the high Pentax standards. In two words it does not seems
at all a made in China binocular.
The focusing is very smooth, even if it feels a little hard (this seems to be a common feature for WP binoculars)
and with a very light backlash. The dioptric regulation functions with small "clicks". The right eyepiece advances at very
small steps. It was pleasant to see that this steps are very small and this allows a perfect set up of the dioptric difference.
The field of view is not very big (5 deg.) but very sharp up to the extreme border.
To test this I looked at a distant building, and its border remained straight over the 100% of the field. Yes I'm not
exaggerating!!! In practice I couldn't notice any geometrical distortion up to the extreme border.
To give you an idea is like looking in a good Ortho eyepiece, small field of view but very well corrected.
However a field curvature was noticeable. Objects at the border appeared to be slightly out of focus in the
respect of the optical axis. This is however noticeable only in the last 15% of the field.
The chromatic aberration seemed also to be pretty small, I could not notice any colored halo around
bright lights (for example street lamps).
The binocular is not too light so, after half an hour my muscles got tired and I could not keep it steady anymore.
So my advice is to mount it on a good tripod for astronomical observations. In conclusion I find this binocular very
good, and if compared to the price, exceptional.
Summary:
Things I liked:
1) Very good build quality.
2) Tank chassis
3) Very good optics.
4) Very good mechanic.
5) Price under 300 Euro.
Things I didn't liked:
1) Focusing is a little hard
2) A little too heavy (need a tripod)
3) Click-stop dioptric regulation could cause problems
4) The shape is not very anatomic.
I hope you'll find this test useful!
Pasquale -Tuebingen
