John Bambury and I had the opportunity to do a review/shootout of the 13mm Nagler Type 6, as compared to the 14mm Pentax XW, 14mm Meade Series 4000 UWA and the 14mm Meade Series 5000 UWA.
I've finally finished writing up the review, and it can be found on the IceInSpace Reviews page, or directly here:
And to think I was about to trade my 14mm series 4000 UWA in for a 12mm Nag t4 is CRAZY!!!!....I gave the person that was trading me an ultimatum: I get to trade them back the 12mm Nag T4 if I didnt like it , and they said "no way" so I immediately DECLINED the trade !!!!
Thats was a very Informative review there Mike !!!...Great stuff and thanks for taking the time to let us all know your initial thoughts about all of those eyepieces !!!!
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Mark
12" f/5 reflector
30mm 1rpd (coming soon)
21mm TeleVue plossl (on the way)
14mm meade series 4000 UWA
10mm Pentax XW
2" GSO Barlow
are you looking to eyepiece project your imaging????
what are you reading about eyepieces for???
Ice,
an excellent review, you have covered all my questions reagrding all these top end eyepieces. I am still putting together my star camp thoughts from the series 500 compared to naglers etc, but this review is so helpful.
Something to keep in mind with eyepieces is that whilst objective comparison testing is very useful, sometimes subjective considerations overide when it comes to personal choice.
eg. I like the eye relief and comfort of a pentax, and choose it for this reason, trading off some field and a little softness at the edge for it.
Whilst reviews are very helpful, the correct choice for the individual can only be made by looking through them.
I know if i went to bintel today, i would be overwhelmed very quickly and may make a decision i may regret later. It is a refining process to get down to a handful of ep's to look at and be aware of a few key points about each one.
These reports are great along with the very good discussions from rob for pentax and others for naglers have on this forum.
When the time comes, it will be my own decision, but I have at my finger tips, the best resources to make that final decision based on my own. IIS is great!
Davo, at least you're at a safe distance from the nearest Bintel shop. I'm not sure if the new one opening here in Melbourne is going to be a curse or a blessing. I can hear Roger saying: "You drool on it, you bought it!"
Something to keep in mind with eyepieces is that whilst objective comparison testing is very useful, sometimes subjective considerations overide when it comes to personal choice.
eg. I like the eye relief and comfort of a pentax, and choose it for this reason, trading off some field and a little softness at the edge for it.
Whilst reviews are very helpful, the correct choice for the individual can only be made by looking through them.
Geoff,
What you say is very true and something someone considering the purchase of an eyepiece in this class needs to keep foremost in their thoughts.
I recently recommended to Rod Berry (Rodstar) that the eyepieces that would best suit his needs and his budget were the 13mm Nagler T6 and the 22mm TV Panoptic. Rod spent some time "clearly" specifying to me on the phone what he expected of the eyepiece and in this case the 13mm Nagler was a better choice than the 14mm Pentax XW.
Whilst the Nagler barely got the nod on an overall basis in the review IMO, the 14mm Pentax XW is superior in some respects, it depends on how important to your observing needs those respects are. The Pentax certainly has superior on axis performance, not by a lot but its better. The EOF performance in the outer 20% of the FOV is behind the Nagler and this is quite noticeable when directly alternating the eyepieces, however when using the Pentax in isolation the field curvature is not so noticeable over long periods and I certainly have no issues using the eyepiece to the field stop on extended objects.
Like you the important issue to me is comfort and eye-relief as well as on axis performance. Consequently, I would not swap the 14mm Pentax XW for the Nagler as the Pentax better suits my needs despite its one minor shortcoming. In addition the 14mm Pentax barlows superbly in the 2.5X TV powermate to give an excellent high power combo with an effective focal length of 5.6mm. Another thing I like about the Pentax eyepieces is their cool neutral colour reproduction.
In addition, as we mention in the review the shorter focal length Pentax XW's namely the 5mm,7mm and 10mm which I have used exhibit no field curvature whatsoever and provide a superb flat field view across the entire FOV and IMO are superior performers to the Nagler T6's in the shorter focal lengths. We are hoping to conduct another premium widefield review in the 7mm focal length range in the near future and in this case I am pretty confident the result will be reversed. We will also include my 7mm UO HD ortho as a planetary performance benchmark. We just need to talk Don and Mike Smith into loaning us the 7mm Nagler T6 It would also be nice to be able to include the Meade Series 4000 6.7mm UWA but I have no idea where we could get 1 of those to include.
When you mention that the Nagler had slightly "warmer" colours...I've noticed the difference between the TV and Pentax too.
I don't mind the warmer colour..not sure if I prefer it either way but I am not bothered by it it either...
At the top end of town it gets difficult to sometimes seperate "best"...
As others in the posts have mentioned (I too have some TV and a Pentax) it gets difficult for me to "remove" the subjective parts of my own comparisons...there are many outstanding attributes to many eyepieces...it is important to try them all out if you can before you buy so that you can get the one(s) that are right for you.
Whilst reviews are very helpful, the correct choice for the individual can only be made by looking through them.
I agree,
Nice indepth report guy's. However when I had the chance to
compare 14mm XW side by side with 13mm t6. My conclussions were
some what different. Yes I agree with the EFOV performance in the 14mm
XW. I would have to disagree with the on axis comparisons between the
two. And the EOF performance of of the 13mm t6. I also find that the XW's
are more critical of eye placement than the 13mm t6 but that's something
you get used to fairly quickly
Personally for me the EOF performance in the 14mm can be minumised if you
use an ER of 15mm, give it a try John you might be surprised. I mean it
doesn't fully fixed it, but it does make a huge difference. The contrasty
nature of the XW also show a definite darken of the background sky between
the two
Still if you have a brand name in your head your always going to lean to it.
I wont be selling my 14mm XW to get a 13mm t6 that's for sure.
I personally don't like the 13 mm. ER is tight and field curvature is a lot in a small Ep. I reackon imo the pentax is a lot better. But as Geoff said its all in what people like personally. The 14 mm UWA is a super Ep but its heavy, its only down fall.
Look foward to your 7 mm shoot out. The 7 mm Otho will win
When you mention that the Nagler had slightly "warmer" colours...I've noticed the difference between the TV and Pentax too.
I don't mind the warmer colour..not sure if I prefer it either way but I am not bothered by it it either...
I think this is quite true of the Pentax XW they do have a cooler kinda
crisper feel. But I dont or haven't really found any advantage to that. It
seems to me to make no difference on dso's and maybe only slightly
edge ahead on planetary.
I guess I must be the only person who owns a 3.5 XW and can say I find
it's performance pretty much the same as the 10mm XW. It has a lovely
flat field with minor chromatic abbreviation at the very EOV. It my favourite
planetary ep albeit on nice nights.
Still if you have a brand name in your head your always going to lean to it.
I guess you're trying to say that my conclusion that the Nagler was the winner was because I had a bias towards the Nagler brand? I'm afraid that's just not correct Rob and not fair to imply it either.
I had no prior bias, in fact I'd heard more about the Pentax from John so if anything there would've been a bias towards the Pentax.
It was my conclusion based on the factors that we tested and which eyepiece had the least flaws. It's not going to be the conclusion of everyone, and the eyepieces will perform differently in different scopes. Yours is an f/6 so the EOF in the Pentax will be more forgiving.
Eyepiece reviews are always subjective, and the aim is to provide people with some information about the eyepiece, as well as an opinion. It's up to the individual to take what they want from it and hopefully test them for themselves before buying.
I have no doubt that many other people would've concluded differently, in fact on CN others have said that they prefer the s4000 UWA over all of them, so go figure.
Quote:
I wont be selling my 14mm XW to get a 13mm t6 that's for sure.
I wouldn't expect anyone to.. the Pentax is a great eyepiece. I won't be selling my s4000 UWA to buy a Pentax or a Nagler.
All of these 3 are superb and the differences between them are so minor for the majority of the viewing that people do, I couldn't see a reason to sell one to buy the other unless you needed the extra ER of the Pentax.
Review: 13mm Nagler Type 6 Shootout
