Minox BF 10x42 - Reviews

(4.6)

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13.1.2015

I used to own what I thought was a perfectly decent, abeit budget, 10x42 roof binocular. But it was recently upstaged by a Nikon 10x21 compact porro when it came to observing fine detail on a chimney pot at around 150ft. Apparently, and I was not aware of this 4 yrs ago when I bought the first one, roof binoculars have a dirty secret - the light through their prisms is actually split into two beams, that lag slightly, before they recombine as one path through the eyepiece. Special 'phase correction' coatings have to be applied to the prism surfaces in order to force the beams back into phase. Needless to say, budget models don't have these coatings,which accounts for their lack of clarity at distance compared with a traditional porro.So I bought a very fine porro - the Nikon Aculon 10x42 for £80, the same as I paid for the old roof binocular. It gave, as expected, all the clarity and sharpness of the 10x21 but with a wider field of view, better depth of field, and impressive light gathering. Its stargazing performance was particularly impressive - binocular favourites such as Orions belt area, Auriga 'fuzzy ball' open clusters above Orion, the pleides, and the double cluster in Perseus all looked bright, sparkly and sharp. In contrast, the stargazing performance of my old roof binocular was pitfiful - yes, it showed my favourites reasonably well, but the Aculon pulls in way more stars and shows many more as faint points. But the casual stargazing sadly revealed the shortcoming of the Aculon - namely it's quite heavy and hard to hold steady for 10x power. And the jiggery stars were starting to annoy me after a while.As much as I hated to admit it, I prefer and really missed the feel of a roof binocular. Their ergonomics are such that you can comfortably clasp your hands over the barrels, and just sink into the view at 10x power without hardly any shaking of the image. Call me insane, but I HAD TO HAVE another 10x42 roof binocular, this time with the requisite phase correction! And if it meant spending at least double what the Aculon cost, I didn't care! Well, actually having some christmas gift money to spare was a deciding factor too. ;)Sadly, my original choice, the Nikon Prostaff 7 10x42 was out of stock everywhere, or p-takers were charging almost as much as the Monarch 7 ED glass equivalents. While deciding between a Celestron Nature DX and Vortex Diamondback (both in yucky green colours), I spotted these and decided to investigate further. Just about everything I could find online about them was positive. The hunters liked them, the birders liked them, I liked the look of them, but with some trepidation I placed my order.They arrived a couple of days later from Camarthen Cameras well packaged with bubble wrap for extra protection. Any misgivings I had at this point began to rapidly fade away as I unwrapped the binocular from its polythene packaging. In my hands, this felt like one well built instrument. Heavy, yes, but also an assurance of quality. This was solid aluminium construction, and not the polycarbonate plastic found in cheap binoculars. It got better - half expecting to find the familiar 'made in china' sticker underneath, instead the label read 'Minox, Germany GmbH', together with a serial number. Inside the box was an official looking quality assurance note, together with a handwritten signature to say it had been tested to Minox standards. Yes, that's right, this instrument was MADE IN GERMANY, although I read somewhere that the optics themselves are made in Japan by a company called Vixen.Coatings on the lenses appear to be high quality. The claim is multi-coated, but I compared the objectives carefully with the Aculons which are also multi-coated. In the Aculons I can easily make out my facial features, but in the Minoxs' I can sort of see an outline of my face but no features. This strongly suggests FULLY MULTI-COATED lenses, or at the very least better quality multi-coatings compared to the Aculons. And at this stage I conducted an impromptu test I rather wished I hadn't: as I packed the Minox back into its soft case, it suddenly slipped from the fingers of my right hand. In a desperate effort to catch it with my left hand, I inadvertently slammed it down hard on my computer's scanner/printer where it then bounced off on the carpeted floor. Fortunately no damage was done and optics were still in perfect alignment, but it was just one of those horrible heart-stopping moments. This thing is clearly built like a tank, but I strongly recommend you don't try this particular test yourself!Eyepiece lenses are lovely and oversized compared with the Aculons, and remind me of the ones I've seen in pictures of premium binoculars by Swarovski or Leica. Although I don't wear glasses myself, the eye relief appears to be very good, and you should see the whole field of view, if using spectacles, just by leaving the eye cups down. They also have a nice rubber rain guard which fits snugly over them, but strangely no objective lens covers are supplied. No loss for me as I find them a nuisance anyway when out in the field, but you can get stay-on covers with rubber rings for around £10 on here if desired.And finally, the seeing through these things: Wow, what I can say, every bit as lovely as the Aculons. Phase correction works! I see the same level of detail very sharply defined with excellent contrast, including the moss and lichen spots on that chimney 150ft away. I see collar doves sitting high in my tree as if I was sitting literally feet from them, I see white fur strands on a neighbours black cat 50ft away, I see a swarm of midges beside a leylandi tree 200ft away, I can clearly make out birds 400ft away on a roof clearly as pigeons, and I can even focus down to see the grime that's built up on the outside of my double glazed window. The focusing knob isn't as smooth as the Aculon, but I expect it will loosen up in time.Yes, there's the obligatory chromatic abberation - purple or yellow pencil thin lines that appear intermittently on roof or chimney edges against the bright blue sky. The worst example was when viewing a magpie atop a neighbour's tree 100ft or so away - with the sun shining against the pale blue sky, there was a pencil thin yellow outline around the bird bottom left, and a faint purple outline top right, but I could clearly see its features in the centre no problem at all. It's the same deal with the Aculons but doesn't spoil the view too much, and you have to remember this is a £140 instrument, not a £500 ED glass binocular.I was hoping to evaluate the Minox's stargazing performance, but as luck would have it, I have had this a week now and every single night without fail has been overcast or soupy. But I'll be expecting at least the same performance as the Aculons on account of the Minox's superior lens coatings, but without the jiggery stars this time!So to sum up, the Minox BF 10x42 has more than met and exceeded my expectations. I just wished I'd taken the trouble to research these instruments four years ago, and made the right choice then. But better late than never. If you're looking for a quality roof prism binocular that won't break the bank, I doubt you could do much better than this - it's sleek, stylish, robust, comfortable to hold with lovely optics that should last a lifetime. And if you're on a budget, the Aculon, despite its weight and shakier images, would make a far better choice than a similarly priced roof binocular without phase correction.