[PocketPixels]

No selfies with endoscopes then?

I got an endoscopic selfie for you right here, buster…

[Digitalis]

The monocular, on the other hand, is fairly reasonable priced and IMHO (as someone who doesn't know a thing about these things) has an incredibly clever design.

The design is unique and ergonomic: the curved portion of the monocular fits in the palm of your hand superbly and it is little details like that that give me the impression a lot of work was put into the design of the product.




My only gripe with the monocular the eyecup is not substantial enough to reduce glare from ambient sources, but I suppose the rationale for this is to facilitate viewing through glasses - and I will point out the Pentax monocular has an eyepoint of 17mm which is substantially higher than either the more expensive Leica 8X20 monovid or Zeiss T*8X25 monoculars.

Optically I'd say the Pentax monocular is on equal footing with the Zeiss T*8X25 with better clarity and flare control than the Leica monovid 8X20.

[stihlmania]

Two weeks with these binoculars, VD 4x20 WP, so far. Here are my thoughts. These work perfectly for what I want, instant focus on moving birds and animals. Almost like fixed focus/insta focus. Thankfully my eyesight is very good so I can use these as binoculars or monocular with no issues. Sharp, clear images for me, even in low light. I have Bushnell, Nikon and Pentax binoculars already, all thumbwheel focusing and to me slow! The VD unit is lightweight, I have many heavy things to lug around already and the included pouch has a belt loop, very nice.The spotting scope function however might be an issue, for me. It is blurry so far, more testing is needed to figure out how I can be using it incorrectly to get such results so far. I will post back when I know more...I just found out the object side does have an adjustment, mine are very stiff [ after reading the instructions numerous times I finally figured there are adjustments, the rubber ring ] so I did not want to bust anything yet, spotting scope is now clear and sharp.

[kwb]

I never tested the cellphone adapter until yesterday, here are some examples with and without macro stand.

The bee/basil picture was shot without macro stand, so this is a telephoto configuration. As you see the image circle is smaller than the field of view of the phone, so you probably want to crop on the phone by digitally zooming. Though I don't have any experience with any other telephoto "adapter" for phones, 1:1 crop looks pretty good to me for a cellphone picture. The third picture was shot from roughly the same position as the previous one but without the monocular to show you how far I was from the bee. Oh, the cellphone is google pixel 3, these are in-camera jpeg (down-sampled or 1:1 crop using lightroom).
I was NOT using an eyepiece hood (comes with the kit) to block the ambient light, i.e. there was a big gap between the monocular eyepiece and the cellphone lens. Yes I'm lazy. I used my hand to block as much light as possible but the black area outside of the image circle in the first picture is not really black, I suspect that the contrast could have been better if I used the hood.
One serious drawback of this is, since the phone screen is REALLY off to the side of the optical axis of the monocular, and since this was a fairly long telephoto looking at a close range, it wasn't easy to figure out where I was pointing the lens at. This was less of a problem when shooting an object really far away.

Salt crystals as well as PF Marketplace on the ipad screen were shot with the macro stand. I used built-in LED lights for the former. It's sharp at the center but quite out-of-focus and also with significant yellow/blue fringes as you go closer to the edge. This might also be dependent on the phone and how well the phone's optical axis is co-aligned with the monocular's. FYI, that " Marketpla" is about 7/16" or 11mm wide on my ipad.

You can only focus at around a plane where the macro stand is standing on, you cannot really change that by moving focus rocker, and DOF is really thin. I tried to picture a tiny basil flower and it was impossible to keep everything reasonably well focused (not shown). And forget about macro of moving creatures.

The phone clamp allows the phone to slide sideways, and the thumbscrew could be loosened to move the phone up and down (6th picture). Adjusting the phone-monocular alignment this way is cumbersome, I need at least a minute or two of trial and error, you start over each time you attach the phone, and this is equally true for telephoto configuration. This is definitely NOT something for "hey what's that bird, take a picture now!" type moments. Since my cameras are more convenient for that kind of thing and are ergonomically much better (look at the last photo), I think my usage of the cellphone adapter will be limited, but I have to say it's kind of fun to look at tiny things on the phone screen that is MUCH better than my camera LCD once everything is set up properly.

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Last edited by kwb; 10-16-2020 at 10:15 PM. Reason: oops^2, fogot to strip gps info from pictures.

[Digitalis]

I never tested the cellphone adapter until yesterday

I'll admit I was tempted to get the close up kit with my monocular, but considering I own some of the best macro lenses ever made it would have been a bit superflous.

[kwb]

Since the last post I have found that the focus distance with the macro stand could be changed by a large amount by turning the green focus range ring on the monocular. Of course DOF is still super thin, but at least you can focus on something that is higher than the plane the stand stands on.
I completely forgot that the ring was there because the monocular itself covers 1.5m (about 5ft) to infinity with the ring at "Normal" position and that's all we need when we go for a walk. If you want you can go as close as ~70cm (~27.5") but it seems that we didn't feel the need and the ring was stuck at "Normal" all the time.

I'll admit I was tempted to get the close up kit with my monocular, but considering I own some of the best macro lenses ever made it would have been a bit superflous.

I understand. But you don't need a cellphone to enjoy the macro stand, the performance of the stand with the monocular is pretty impressive for visual observation, and ergonomics without cellphone is great.

[Digitalis]

The added bonus with the font focus mechanism on the monocular is that infinity focus can be adjusted - which cannot be done easily on the either Zeiss or Leica monoculars.

Check out the serial numbers:

[mmx_4]

Few questions to owners of VD 4x20 binocular.

What about eye placement and overall comfort ?
Focus ring move all oblective lens block or internal focus lens ?

May be, anyone tested, what's maximum diopter correction (minus dptr.) in this VD 4x20 on infinity ?

[pete-tarmigan]

These new products are offering something that I imagine would be more difficult to produce in the larger objective sizes and magnifications – anything that comes apart and goes back together again that easily would need greater structural consideration with heavier components.

The 4X magnification 3 in 1 binocular wouldn't work for higher magnifications because the two barrels wouldn't be collimated with sufficient accuracy to produce a binocular image that wouldn't give you a headache. I know this from decades of birding and having been presented with binoculars that have been knocked out of alignment.

These are clearly aimed at concert-goers and people who travel light, not to mention young people who have expensive phones dangling out of their pockets and not much else being carried. They aren't necessarily aimed at photo-enthusiasts who are used to lugging large, expensive cameras and lenses, although those of us who do walk a lot with our gear tend to appreciate light extra gear.

I agree. This is a clever attempt to target an under-exploited niche, rather than throwing something into an already crowded market. I've never seen a 3 in 1 binocular8 before. Now if only they would use the mechanical optical stabilizing technology from the 645 lenses in a 10X42 weather-resistant binocular...

[LaurenOE]

I got one too.
I wish it came with lens covers and some kind of case.
Also, it would have been good for the cell-phone holder to also have a 1/4-20" thread somewhere.

[hongman]

They are both interesting ideas. The monocular as a smart phone telephoto lens may be a new direction for Pentax - dipping into the smart phone sector.

Agreed...I would buy either product, but would like to see the binoculars get to at least 8x vs. 4x