I bought a pair of the larger 50mm, they do gather a lot of light and I could see far more starts than the naked eyes, even in polluted city lights. But when you use it in dark areas, you really see much much more!
I got a similar pair for my birthday. I thought they would be a bit of a novelty for star parties. But I have found myself using them for picking out alignment targets at dusk. They help to show stars a few minutes earlier which is quite useful. I just wish they had a proper headband...
I think everyone on Earth should have wide angle binoculars. I have the Vixen 2.1 x 42's. I wish they existed when I was a kid. Actually, now that I think about it. that's what they remind me of. . .looking at the sky when I was a kid. Super fun. Way more stars. P.S. Never mind looking up. Lay on your back and just let them rest on your face.
I was considering these but after hearing your views I am passing. Thanks for the info! You saved me some money and aggravation. I’m looking for Nikon 8x42 M5’s now.
I've owned the Orion version for a few years. They're great for finding things when I take my glasses off to use another pair of binos or a telescope. They also amplify light for your eyes at night so I call them my passive nvg's. A little tough to walk in the dark with though due to the slight magnification and distortion... Kind of like trying to run stairs when you first get a pair of progressive eyeglasses. You trip and bump into stuff a lot. But when you look up, you can see entire constellations much easier from light polluted areas! If your eyes don't get along with cheaper binoculars, don't get these. The edge of field distortion doesn't match from eye to eye and your pupil absolutely must be exactly on the optical center and the proper distance for your brain to compensate. I have 0 trouble with any other reasonably collimate binoculars but I find that these are less forgiving and take a few minutes to adjust to. Other than that, I really like them and use them quite a bit!
I bought a pair of 3 x 50 Constellation Bino from Aliexpress for about $50. I like them a lot on moonless nights in my bortle 4 sky. The halo or vignetting is similar to yours. Very distracting in daytime, less under a full moon and much less noticeable on a dark night. I was surprised at the number of satellites visible for a couple hours after sunset. I was able to see magnitude 6 on clear dark nights.
I have a similar pair that is 2x54. I have discovered that you can use them with a red dot finder on your telescope to aid in finding dim objects. The low magnification of the binos allows you to stand behind the red dot finder and still see both the red dot and the background sky. So if you are using a manual mount and in light polluted skies they help you see the constellations and help you point the red dot to the appropriate area of the sky to find the object you are looking for. Also, just to let you know they seem to exaggerate the field of view on these type of binos. Best thing is to look at the sky and use planetarium software to determine their true field of view.
I've been debating buying Helios Starfield 2x40 binoculars. I hear good things about them. I just wish they had a bit more apparent FOV. I'd use them to aid me in locating objects and useful guide stars for star hopping, in addition to just panning around the milky way.
Many thanks for sharing your experience with this great binoculars! I like them a lot, and they really offer a completely new impression of the nightsky 👍
I bought a similar product off of AliExpress for almost half the price ($49). My unit is a 3x magnification instead of a 2x. I agree with you that they provide an enhanced viewing experience revealing many more stars in any field of view. It is quite "magical". But I would not say the binoculars I bought provide an immersive experience. It has a slight tunneling view which is somewhat disappointing (I wonder if that is an exit-pupil consequence?). However, I still like them very much! I also wonder if there is less of that tunneling with a 2x version, or if the SVBony version ($140 list) is better in that or other respects? I guess we cannot answer these questions unless we can compare both side-by-side. Another good video. Thanks!
@jpastroguy Thanks for your feedback! As far as I know the 3x version of this binoculars design offers only an angular FOV of 17° or so while the 2.1x increases that to 26°. This might be part of the explanation for the tunneling view. But $49 bucks is hard to beat. Glad you enjoy yours as well.
There are 2x40 models, but I just bought 3x50 thinking they might have less distortions. Not sure if it's the right choice, but for that price you can buy both, and it still will be cheaper than these.
It looks good, but a bit pricey for me. I would probably recommend the cheaper Helios 2 x 40 Star Field Binoculars, or build my own 2 x 50mm monocular with an old slr camera lens and a DIY eyepiece.
i love these for what they are... i would suggest adding Bino Bandits ....i use them on a lightweight tripod also ..they are great for Asterism and constellation viewing
Hi Bogdan, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I have two questions: I assume that the technical data you show at the beginning of the video, are from SVBony. Do you know why they say, that the exit pupil is 9 mm? Typically the exit pupil is calculated by dividing the diameter of the lens by the magnification. Therefore it should be 20mm. Any idea why SVBony claims it is 9mm? Second question, also in regards to this: Typically the max. exit pupil of a human eye is around 7mm. At my age (and yours as well, I assume ;)) it is rather around 5mm. So even if the exit pupil is 9 mm, we are losing a lot of light. What‘s your opinion on that? CS, Martin
@martinpawlik340 Hi Martin! Even though I screen the videos multiple times before publishing, every now and then a typo gets through. This is exactly the case here as well. The correct value for the exit Pupil is 19mm (as stated by Svbony as well) and not 9mm. I've updated the video description with the correct value. Sorry for the confusion. Even though the 19mm is much more than the eye can utilize, I don't see it as an issue because at the end of the day the eye gets 100% saturated with light information, which is good. It's bad if it's the other way around and the eye doesn't get all the light information it can process. Clear skies!
To each their own, I like mine a lot. I take them everywhere. They don't replace my standard binocs but then again I didn't buy them to replace my regular ones.
Hi Bogdan, sorry for the silly question, as I think the video does confirm it, but... I've always thought you need a prism in the light path to get a correct left-right, up-down image orientation! Could you confirm (for my confusion!), that the SV407 does give a correct image view, like a regular pair of binoculars. Many thanks...
It is a Galileo telescope, where the objective is a converging lens and the eyepiece is a diverging lens. This type of telescope does not flip the image, unlike the Kepler telescope.
@@alphalunamarebecause these are visual binoculars, not a astrograph. Cameras also can't capture what a dark-adapted human eye can see, so there is almost no point for a night-time shot.
@@hunter133official Well OK I dont know what astrograph means ..Maybe you have just answered my question? Thinking about it, having a camera get a view through two sets of lenses at the same time is a bit of an ask. Well Duhhh just call me stupid! I feel such a dick now :-)
Don't feel embarrassed because of other people's -ve droppings. You thought about something that others didn't think about. ¹) A telescope reviewer, ²) reviewing binoculars that have high light absorption due to visibly big elements, ³) made by a telescope company, ⁴) compared to other telescope companies. Obvious thought comes to mind "why did he miss the opportunity to show its low light performance". People use non astro equipment for astro anyways 90 out of 100 times. So your concern is valid. And anyways I did not even see much practical demonstration. For 98% of the entire video, I saw only an explaining man.
This pair of binoculars might have a 26° field of view, but the outer half of the image is blurred, so the real field of view with decent image is aroud 13-15°. Also, if the diameter of the objective lens is 42 mm and the magnification is 2.1x, then the exit pupil is 42/2.1=20 mm, NOT 9 mm as it is stated in the video. The pupil of the human eye in the night sky is somewhere between 7 mm (young people) and 4 mm (old people) A midddle aged eye has a pupil of approx. 6 mm. So, you lose a lot of light bc of the 20 mm exit pupil cannot be fitted in the 6 mm eye, only about 11-12% of the light provided by the exit pupil of these binoculars can be taken up by your eyes... A 24 mm objective diameter with the same eyepiece would give about the same brightness with narrower field of view of course.. Try it out by putting a cardboard diaphragm in front of the objective... So this stuff smells like scam to me, especially at the price they demand for it. A better alternative is a pair of Nikon Aculon 7x35 binoculars with a colossal 9.3° field of view. It's my favorite. And it also costs almost half less .
@MrKA1961 Thank you for your feedback and also for pointing out the error regarding the exit pupil. The correct value is 19mm and not 9mm as displayed at 2:49. Sorry for the typo! I've updated the video description and included this later edit. I haven't tested the Nikon Aculon 7x35 yet, but I plan to do so in the future. I've heard a lot of good things about them.
Good point. So with this exit pupil you lose most of light, basically you use only a portion of 40mm aperture - these binoculars can have 15mm lenses, and be just as bright.
@ronstewtsaw Yes, definitely! Just not like in the pictures on the internet, but a more pronounced monochrome object in the night sky compared to what Andromeda looks like to the naked eye.
This is nothing more than a new take on an old fashioned, non prismatic field glass. During WW2 the British issued on like this for "combined operations". Nothing new under the sun, or in this case, the stars.
This is just a waste of money, I have a Vanguard Endeavor binos that are tack sharp and offer a great viewing. Agree the smaller 2.1x mag on this offers a better FOV. But I would move on considering the cost.
You can make the same with second-hand lens doublers for about 30 usd. But they are 3d printed plastic. I put a pollution filter on the front and with a decent sky, constellations look really great.
With such a large exit pupil, most of the light won't enter the eye. Even a young healthy iris cannot grow bigger than about 8 or 9 mm. Why was it not made with a smaller objective like 20 mm or even less. I really don't see the point.
i spent half the video only to find out that they literally and useless to observe anything on land. If you'd explained the intended use at the beginning, then me and half the earth's population would have realized they'd be losing five minutes of their lives to this impractical device. I hope this comment helps your algorithm at the very least. Anyone else thinks this is a dumbass product?
Poor recension. It's a Galilean type of binoculars, so it doesn't have a prism. An old well now thing, and it is made from a teleconverter for compact digital cameras. Prefab and very overpriced (ie very expensive). This is a classic marketing pitch. The point here is to increase the magnitude range. ... It is pointless to compare these binoculars with classical binoculars.
I'm used to reasonably priced camera lenses, binoculars and rifle scopes and I have never seen anything remotely as bad as these "toys" They may have a wide field of view but if most of it is out of focus what's the point? It honestly looks like there was an error when moving from prototype to production. There is no excuse in these days of computer aided design for producing something as bad as this.
