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Old 12-11-2005, 05:57 PM
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janoskiss (Steve H)
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Sale, VIC
Posts: 6,033
Thumbs up Initial impressions in daylight

Well, I have given them all a short workout in my ED80 (which is an f7.5), looking at leaves, tree branches, flowers and insects, and I am extremely pleased with these EPs so far. (But now it's starting to rain so I had to bring all the gear back inside.)

I compared the 21mm Stratus with the 19mm Panoptic and the 13mm Strat with the 13mm Nagler. I also considered how they compare with the 30mm superview.

The Stratus are a long way ahead of the SV and only a little behind the Panoptic. The main difference between the Strat and the Pan is that chromatic aberrations are more apparent within about 5-7 degrees of the edge of field in the Strat. But surprisingly, apart from the false colour, the Strat remains quite sharp to the edge. I suspect that at night these differences would be less apparent.

There is heaps of eye relief (ER, specs say 20mm), so glasses would not be a problem with these EPs. I prefer the tighter ER of the 19mm Pan though. (I generally like tighter ER than most people.) All four Stratus eyepieces are qualitatively very similar in optical performance (the quality of the image across the field of view). Eye placement is a bit more touchy with the 5 & 8mm (more like the Nagler 13mm) than with the 13 and 21mm.

I spent a bit of time comparing the sharpness of the 13mm Strat and Nag (looking at small insects 30-50 metres away), and could not see significant difference except for the slight dropoff in sharpness and the chromatic aberrations at very outer few degrees of the FOV in the Stratus. The Strat was actually more comfortable for me; less prone to black out. At night, with enlarged pupils, this wouldn't matter so much.

So, very happy so far...
I just wish the clouds and rain buggered off.
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