The RPO glass really screwed up with their non-existent/minimal AR coating. If they had a better anti reflective coating it would be a no brainer The signal to noise being the same with darker image… it just doesn’t make sense. ESP with the worse halo Halo and chromatic aberration is really important in mixed urban lighting. Add in the distortion… Idk for that cost I expected better. Much better.
Nice vid. Pennywise pound foolish skipping the coatings on the RPO if you would ask me. Downright foolish design flaw. Whats next? In 2 years there is V3 with AR-oatings for 1750 USD? AR coatings is standard in the optics industry, even for China manufactured optics. It would up transmitivity more on par with e.g. Carson as well. I would buy, but only when they have added the anti reflective coatings.
I would be surprised if the eyepieces dont have any AR coatings to increase transmission, and given how close they look in brightness I personally think it is safe to assume they are coated, just with different coatings that to the naked eye look different (the hue of the eyepiece looking like clear glass on RPO and orange/green hue on Carson). The objective lenses similarly look bluish which as far as I have understood is there to increase contrast, to actually block some blue entering.
Really cool comparison. I recently got a Nocturn Industries Tanto and went with the RPO lenses simply for weight savings. The RPO over the Carson optics was only a $200 up charge. Not sure why the difference is so large in Canada. I did notice quite a bit of flaring in areas with alot of light sources and it's made worse when coupled with a sacrificial lense. It's a bit frustrating at first but when using it practically I didn't notice it as much. As for the Halo effect, I've not experienced that. Not sure what gen is my RPO optics. I put a video show casing the Photonis tube it comes with on my channel. I'm wondering if thats a manufacture defect you're experiencing or do it's multiple RPO's you've seen with this Halo effect.
Very well done! Your videos are great. Humor my theory: RPO makes both front & back lenses. Is there one or the other that would be producing the bulk of the aberrations? Like install RPO ocular lenses for weight savings, but Carson up front to have less lens flare? Am I way off base on this? Thanks.
Unfortunately most of these lens systems are designed as a set. You could mix them but once you stray from true milspec lenses, the results become less than ideal. We have a forthcoming video dropping this week where we mix and match with the new RPO 3.0 lenses with some ... interesting results.
Awesome information. Random question I see you have the tubes connected to your a7s3 I've looked everywhere can't find a way to do this. Care to share?
We can no longer recommend DEP Ethers because of their limited application for binocular systems. Basically they were designed only for monoculars as they cannot be put into a binocular system and properly collimated. Yes it will "work" but you might end up cross-eyed as a result. Best to stick with more traditional eyepieces that use a translating lens cell vs the DEP Ethers that have a rotating one.
