Zeiss 10x42 Conquest HD Binocular

For the past five years I have used a great pair of Swift Audubon 8.5x44 binoculars. Since much of my birding occurs around bodies of water, however, I felt the need for something that could bring the birds a little closer. I read all the reviews of mid and high-priced 10x optics and settled on the Zeiss 10x42 Conquest HD.Boy,am I glad I did!
The lens bring in much more light than my old pair, and the resolution is phenomenal, resulting in a crisp, bright picture. In addition, the Zeiss focus wheel needs only fractions of an inch to move from near to distant birds. I was somewhat worried about more difficulty in locating birds by going to the 10x, but the Zeiss offer a terrific field of view and seem to rise naturally to the eyes. I could not be happier with my purchase and recommend these fine optics to anyone with a wish to upgrade.

Just prior to a recent birding trip to the Rio Grande Valley, I purchased a pair of Zeiss 10x42 Conquest HD binoculars. I have been going to the Valley birding for many years and saw bird details like never before! I considered upgrading my binos for several years and could not be more satisfied with the price/performance ratio of the Zeiss Conquest. In addition to the excellent optics for the price, the balance and operation of the Zeiss Conquest are outstanding. I did a substantial amount of research and narrowed down my options to about 5 binoculars before calling Eagle Optics and received excellent information from them. I highly recommend the Conquest HD and could not be more satisfied with the service from Eagle Optics.

As expected, this Zeiss pair of binoculars was an excellent (though quite pricey) choice. Eagle Optics was no less impressive. Five stars all around. However, the objective lens rubber cover just won't stay in place. Any suggestions to fix it? Also, there was no string thing (ike the objective lens cover) that secured the rubber eye lens cover to keep it from being misplaced. Wonder if that was missed during packaging. I will definitely recommend this product.

I own a pair of 8x30 zeiss conquest binoculars and my dad has a pair of 15x45 zeiss conquest binoculars and i have to say that i am very impressed with the of the performance of the 10x42 conquest HD binoculars. crisp, clear picture in the early morning and at dusk and during the day...... awesome. i am a hunter and a bird watcher and this pair of binoculars work great for both. wide field of view, fit nicely in the hands and smooth focus nob. well worth the money. great $100 rebate before the end of 2012.

My first impression upon receiving my Zeiss Conquest HD 10x40 binocs was Wow, these are sharp!

My reference for comparison: my wife and I each own a pair of Zeiss 10x40 B/GATs (1988, $1085, considered at the time to be among the best optics available) which we mainly use for birding, and a pair of Eagle Optics 10x42 Ranger PCs (2003, $399) which we bought for their ability to focus down to 5 feet for butterflies, dragonflies, etc. I’ve also tried other folks’ Leicas and other brands.

In side-by-side comparison the Conquests are, as expected, sharper than the Rangers, and they close-focus to 7 feet, which is acceptable and much better than the older Zeiss’s limit of 16. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Conquests are not only significantly brighter than the B/GATs, but they are also noticeably sharper -- every detail of a bird’s plumage looks incredibly crisp. (To go beyond this level of sharpness is to reach or exceed the limits of human vision; in the independent on-line review I checked before purchase, various brands were mounted on a tripod, photographed through, and the pics enlarged 32x for analysis; they found that the Conquests were nearly as sharp as several manufacturers’ $2000+ binocs, including Zeiss’s Victory model.)

Eyecups: with my deep-set eyes and thick glasses, I now use binocs with the cups all the way in, and I’ve never been completely satisfied due to inadequate eye relief. With the Rangers I receive very slightly less than the full circle; with the older Zeiss, it’s much worse. The Conquests get me to full circle, just barely, in the right eye, and almost there for the left. Another millimeter of two of eye relief would be better. [As a side note, manufacturers’ specifications help but don’t tell the whole story; relief is measured from the eyepiece glass but usable relief for eyeglass wearers is reduced by how much the eyecup protrudes in front of the eyepiece.]

Depth of field and focusing: Even at close focus, the zone of sharpness is longer than a songbird. Zeiss has a reputation for narrow DoF, but I’ve never noticed a problem in the field. With any binocs, I usually keep one finger on the focus knob to be prepared for movement or the next great sighting. The older Zeiss B/GATs require only three-quarters turn of the knob to go from infinity to close focus of 16 feet. The Rangers focus to 5 feet and take one-and-a-half turns. The Zeiss Conquest focuses to about 7 feet in 1.2 turns; this middle ground feels familiar and works well.

Chromatic aberration: if I intentionally shift my eye off center from the eyepiece and look toward the edge of the field of view – an unnatural act -- I see a very narrow blue band on the outer edge. In normal use I don’t notice this, nor do I see it when stargazing.

Weight: The Conquest 10x40s are heavy, a couple of ounces heavier even than the older Zeiss B/GATs. After five or ten hours of trekking off-trail, that’s a lot of weight on the neck. At age 56, rather than join the chorus of geezers misdirecting newbies toward 8x products for birding, I’ll continue my practice of replacing the original neckstrap with an over-the shoulders binocular harness, available from any of several manufacturers.

The eyepiece cover works as intended. I never use objective lens covers, so I haven’t tried them.

There were no manufacturing or packaging defects in the unit I bought. The binocs come with Zeiss’s lifetime warranty and 5-year no-fault return policy. My wife, who uses the eyecups fully extended, liked them well to enough to buy a pair for herself. I would recommend these binocs to anyone.

I really wanted to like these binoculars...but....

First disappointment:
I opened the box and there was the Snazzy binocular box. I opened up the nice packaging to find them flopping around inside. They are supposed to sit in the middle of the box in a nice cardboard display. The cardboard failed and they must of been flopping around in there. No lens covers. Unprotected. I looked them over. No scratches they looked fine, but I was worried.
Second disappointment:
To make sure that nothing was flopping around on the inside of the bino, I held them up and looked through the Objective lens. They looked clean, but I noticed something strange about the image in one barrel. There was a straight hairline going from one edge to the other. Not a scratch, but a seam of some sort. I'm not a binocular scientist, so I figured, "maybe it's supposed to be like that"...but I was worried.

Other problems:
Annoying objective lens cover. The objective lens housing isn't round, which I don't mind; however that means you can't use normal lens covers. Which I don't mind either, except the covers they designed for them won't stay on. Having a cover that doesn't stay on, is like having no cover at all. I had no faith in them. Good luck finding an aftermarket lens cover for that barrel design.
Eyecups. All the way in, I was getting black outs. At their first click stop, I was loosing FOV. Why sell a binocular advertising FOV with eyecups that don't have precision click stops to achieve it. If your eye relief magically corresponds with the the two intermediate click stops, you have nothing to worry about.

Now on to the major problems.

After adjusting my eye relief, the first thing I saw when I looked through them was......Chromatic Aberration. In an HD? Yes. The center of the image was fine, but there was blue halo around the outside edge. It was if there was a blue neon sign just out of sight causing lens flare. Imagine taking a binocular view, printing it on some photo paper and then pulling out a blue highlighter and drawing a ring around the outside edge. I wasn't even looking for it, but there it was. If I looked at a bird and lifted my bino up so the bird was on the edge of the field, a blue wash overtook it.

With all this being said, with all the negative things I brought up...Once I looked at a bird and brought it into focus...wow...amazing.
I saw things on birds I never noticed with my $300-ish binos. Crumbs on the beak, feather groupings. When I looked at a Dark-eyed junco, I could almost see an iris. I let my friend look through them, and he said," You could feel things with these binoculars." That's what it felt like. You could see the textures of the bird feathers. A redpoll landed about 7ft away. It was like a microscope. If that bird had lice, I would of known about it.

When you spend $1000 and want a $2000 view, I expected there to be some compromise. If I looked for CA on the edge, I saw it. When I was looking at a bird, I forgot about it. My compromise...stop looking for CA. Even the annoying lens cover wasn't that big of a deal. If they do fall off and I scratch the lens, Zeiss has a no fault policy for 5 years... and after 5 years maybe they'll come up with better lens covers. The FOV? I was missing some due to the click stops, but it was kinda blue anyways, so why miss it.
I definitely wasn't going back to my $300-ish binocular view over these problems. Besides I was going to the East coast for first time, and was going to see a lot of new life birds. With these binos, I could really see them. These binos require a lot of mind-over-matter. If you don't mind, the problems don't matter.
Besides , they melted in the hands. I never though about them once, ergonomically. The focus wheel was superb. It was hard to let them go...but I did.
The deal killer......
Depth of focus was too shallow. I didn't notice it at first. Whenever I looked at a bird I had to re-focus. My finger never left the focus wheel. I don't think there was a time that I lifted the binos and saw a bird that was in focus. See a bird, then focus, see a bird then re-focus. I'd even have to re-focus on the Junco when it was running around on the ground. Times that by 50 and at the end of the day....eye strain. Times that by a couple days and I had to return them. I had to return that great view.


The story has an happy ending. I talked to Eagle Optics (great customer service), and they told me to return them no problem and talked with me about binos. I thought I'd order different binos from them when I got back from my trip( leaving the next day.) I ordered a different model bino and they're going to send them to my friend on the East Coast so I won't miss any good views. I'll be able to use them to see my new life birds! Way to go Eagle Optics!

Epilogue: The Conquest 10x42 HD binos might of been a tad (and I mean slight) dimmer then the Alphas (maybe.) Looking at birds with sand or gravelly backgrounds was not as nice as looking at birds among green leaves (still sharp both ways)
If you're not going to be focusing them very much, you might like them.
Even though the depth of field is very shallow, the focus knob is superb and will get you in focus no problem.