Zeiss Conquest 8X40 T* Binocular Review
Let me introduce this review with who I am and why I am submitting a review on this Binocular. I am a retired mechanical engineer that loves hunting and shooting sports. Unfortunately, I also love a number of other hobbies as well. This causes me to not be able to spend big bucks on any of them. When I buy a relatively large ticket item for one hobby, the others suffer for a while. This means that I have generally not spent money on the high dollar items in any of my hobbies.
I probably would not have owned or had a chance to use this binocular except for the fact that I entered the CameralandNY drawing for December 2013 and was picked for this second place reward. So, first of all, I must thank gr8fuldoug for giving back to the communities. I appreciate their support of our interests.
Doug asked me to use this item and provide a review of it, so I will do that here to the best of my limited abilities and scant optical knowledge.
The binoculars arrived in early January and in the package with the binoculars was a Cameraland Tee shirt with a large Zeiss logo on the back. Bright red, a good looking shirt, but I digress this is not about the shirt, but the binos. It was a miserable day weatherwise when the binos came, but I immediately grabbed them up and headed outside in the misty rain to see what I could see. And I could see a lot with this excellent binocular. However, I noticed a small blurry spot which I assumed was a water drop on the objective, but which turned out to be a speck of something on one of the internal lens surfaces which was plain to see when looking into the objective. I emailed Doug about this and they had me return them. Oh me! I really didn’t want to send them back, but you have to do what has to be done. Doug and his team and the Zeiss people were absolutely on top of this and got a replacement out to me in short order. So, stuff happens. I could not ask for a better customer service experience from anyone. Two thumbs up for Doug, Cameraland, and Zeiss.
Back to the binos now. They are what I would call full size as they are definitely not “compact” but not so large as to be ungainly and bulky. They are thus not what I would call lightweight either, but again not so heavy as to be burdensome on a hunt. Now, we get to an area that I feel really inadequate to give a technical or quantitative review – the optics. These binos are not Zeiss’ top end binos, but they are unquestionably the best pair of binos I have ever had the pleasure of using. Very clear and sharp with no discernible color bias and only the slightest bit of “barrel distortion”. I had to really pay attention to long straight edges to be able to see it at all. The replacement set was actually better in this regard. I had a chance yesterday to compare the binos with a brand new Trijicon ACOG sight which has excellent optics. The Trijicon was very nice and clear at dusk and I was impressed. Just for grins I fetched the binos and compared them to the ACOG. The binos clearly had better twilight performance than the ACOG. I also compared them with our best riflescope optic, a Nightforce 3.5-15x hunting scope with 56mm objective. As it got closer to dark, I had to turn the power level on the NF down to keep enough light to see detail. The binos were able to resolve better in low light than the NF. At the far end of the comparison, it was dark enough that both the ACOG and the NF would have been able to take a deer, but I’m not sure I could have seen it unless it was moving. The binos were able to “see” well enough that a deer could have spotted standing still. Not easily, but definitely doable. A hunter would have been able to see the animal. To me, this is where “the rubber meets the road” so to speak for field glasses. This bino was able to meet and exceed the performance of our best shooting optics. I give them two thumbs up, one for performance and another for value. Check them out at Cameraland’s (or your favorite supplier’s) website or store; I think you will like them.
There are a couple of things that are a little different from the binos I have used before and that is the eyecups are twist out rather than the rubber fold down eyecups I am used to seeing. The center focus works smoothly and is easy to adjust for distance. It is a little bit heavier than ones I have had before but then they are more likely to stay put when you are moving around a bit. The other new to me feature is that the diopter adjustment to make up for eye to eye difference is located on the front part of the focus/pivot assembly. It is pretty stiff, but again, that should not need to be changed after you get it adjusted to your eye and is pretty much set it and forget it.
One of the pieces of equipment I have that really needs to be significantly upgraded is my range spotter. I should say my “short range” spotter. I am going to be heading out to the range in a few days for some shooting at 50 and 100 yards with my rimfires and will see if I can see .22 bullet holes at 100 yards. I’ll report back on that. At this writing I have not yet done this as the wind has been so bad that I just didn’t want to waste hard to get rimfire ammo just for the test. So, I’ll have to come back here for a report. I don't really expect the binos to out perform our spotter for spotting bullet holes at 100 yards, but I want to see if they could be used "in a pinch" as a substitute when I am shooting with irons and not a high powered rifle scope.
All in all, I have to say after using these binos for the few weeks so far that I have been spoiled and probably will not be happy with less ever again. These are very good binos and I am just as proud of them as if I had actually paid for them.
Now for you folks that never enter any of these give aways, I entered the drawing just a few minutes to an hour before the cutoff for entry. Imagine my surprise to see my name listed as a winner! Yes, you too can win one of Doug’s give aways. If you enter. They give away some really cool stuff.
Thanks again Doug & Cameraland for the drawings.
EJ
