I would say that the Zeiss (West) 10x40 BGAT* is marginally more yellow than the Meopta. Anyhow, the low magnification grants a wide TFOV.Ħ) Their colour renditon is only slightly warm. In that sense, these can't be called wide angle binoculars. Their AFOV though, is visibly smaller than the Fury's due to their lesser magnification - probably around 50 degrees. I'd guess it's around 8.3 degrees or 145 m/1000 m or 435 ft/1000 yds but this may be proved wrong. I'll get back about that.ĥ) The field of view is only a smidgeon narrower than the Fury's. Unfortunately there is no clear sky now to provide any pin-point star test conditions.
The edge sharpness suffers from some curvature of field, but about 70% of the FOV can achieve full focus. These look and feel more field-worthy than the sleek and delicate pre-war porros.Ĥ) These are sharp! When boosting them 2.5x, on-axis CA is nonexistent. The central bridge can be rocked by about a millimeter but moves back promptly. Everything seems very solid - imagine a Jenoptem with unnecessary bulk and weight removed. I haven't measured it, but it seems negligibly slower than the Fury's wheel. It is surprisingly fast for such an old binocular. The central hinge is very stiff and the focus wheel - which of course goes clockwise towards infinity! - is easy to turn. The ocular lenses are about 10-11 mm in diameter, but even the outer diameter of the oculars is liberatingly thin.ģ) Apart from the freely turning diopter the mechanics are superb. The binoculars are very lightweight, but not to the extent that they lack that reassuring solidity one has come to expect from vintage bins.Ģ) They are surprisingly small and svelte - much smaller than I remember that the Jenoptem 8x30s were.
Then again, not so at noon or (obviously) when looking away from the Sun.ģ) Possibly as a result from restauration, the diopter moves too easily.ġ) When I carried the parcel home, I harboured a gnawing suspicion that there's an empty leather case within. When the Sun is low, reflections become bothersome. For me it's OK, for someone else they may have too little eye relief.Ģ) It does suffer from considerable ghosting in less favourable circumstances. My wish was granted, by a very small margin against too low eye relief.Īnother millimeter higher the rigid eyecup, and I would not be able to see the field stop. I was after a binocular with short eye relief. The short story: This is a gem! I have preferences that never will be met by vintage binoculars, but in every respect they did meet or surpass my (admittedly low) expectations.ġ) Since I have the Vortex Fury 6.5x32 and usually wear spectacles, the Meopta was bought for the intended use with contact lenses. I'll mention about my initial impressions and make some superficial comparisons to a couple of other binoculars. This is not going to be a full-scale review. By the look of the logo I can tell it was made somewhere between 1947 to 1956. Today I received an old Meopta 6x30, single-layer coated and with center focus.