Quote:
Originally Posted by ausastronomer
The DELOS line only goes where the Pentax XW's went 9 years ago in terms of cool neutral colour tone, high light transmission, high contrast and high on axis sharpness. The first step Televue made to the cooler colour tone over their traditional offerings came with the 13mm ETHOS which was released in May 2007.
You're going to read a lot of reports on US internet forums about how the DELOS is better than the Pentax XW's. Your also going to read reports about how the difference beween them is minimal. Don't lose sight of the fact that Americans are a very patriotic race and very loyal to their own brands and a lot of those reports are not going to be as objective as they might be. I haven't used the DELOS yet but I have used the ETHOS countless times in a number of different focal lengths and in none of those focal lengths does the ETHOS outperform the equivalent focal length Pentax XW in terms of light throughput, contrast and sharpness. Their performance is extremely close, but if I had to split them, I would lean very slightly to the Pentax XW's. That is academic because I prefer more eye relief than what the ETHOS offers. I read countless internet reports on US forums about how this ETHOS and that ETHOS outperformed its Pentax XW equivalent, on such and such a target. That is just plain poppycock. There is barely a struck match between them. Credit to Pentax that Televue took 11 years to catch up as the Pentax XL's, which pre dated the XW's and are almost the same performance wise, were born in 1996; 11 years before the ETHOS. The DELOS line uses the same lens, glass and coating technology as the ETHOS so you can assume its performance will be almost the same as the ETHOS and the Pentax XW's, which BTW is very top shelf.
Cheers,
John B
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Hi John,
Absolutely agree that people may bias their reviews towards the "home team". I have an old Pentax XL 21mm and love it. Ironically it's about the only eyepiece I've never sold, while several Televues have come and gone over the years, although that was usually due to changing scopes and wanting other focal lengths.
I certainly don't think that TV eyepieces are better than the Pentax line, but TV are definitely top drawer and I think cheaper than Pentax. So if you factor in the price then Televue may arguably be the "best" of the premium eyepieces.
Going back to your main point, the differences noted in reviews probably reflects the differences in the reviewers themselves more than the eyepieces.
Bottom line, either will serve you well and it's great to have options.
Morton