Minolta Activa binos

MooEy · Post by **MooEy** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 1:41 am

Ok, my confession. Just got my pay, so I decided to grab a pair of binos. My workplace happens to be lucky plaza. Having heard all the rave reviews of the Minolta Activa binos from richard and the other members, i went around asking if any shop sold those.

Seems like most shops doesn't sell this, but managed to find one shop selling the 12x50 version. 2 versions are available, WP & FP and the FP. WP means water-proof, FP means fog proof. The FP version is suppose to be the slighty older version, not sure why it cost more than the WP & FP.

I tried both in the shop and decided to get the WP & FP version. Not going to tell anyone about the price, since the one i bought is the last piece, i have no idea if they will ever sell another piece at that price.

The box of the bino contain a leather carrying case and the bino itself. The usual waranty and manual is included. Straps is also included.

The first thing i played with is the focusing. Smooth and easy to turn with just 1 finger. It's a center focus bino, not individual focusing, which some may think of it as cheapo. First you close your right eye and focus thru ur left eye, then u close your left eye and adjust the diopter on the right side. the diopter adjustment have click stops, quite easy to get the right focus.

Next thing i played with, eyecups!!! The eyecups can be adjusted just by turning, comes with click stop. i must say, this is one of the best designs i have ever seen, although a little loose.

This bino is advertised as fully multi-coated, looking at the objective and eyepiece and you will see nice green multicoatings. Mine had dirt stuck inside the objective, think i will need to send it to the service centre.

Eye relief is comfortable, 16mm of it. Works well with my specs on. When i take my specs off i just have to adjust the eyecups.

Ok, enough of the nonsense, how does this thing perfoms? I took a peep at a bright and big light source. On-axis the performance is reasonably gd, but once u get off the axis, astigmatism comes in, Once u reach the last 20% of the field, images becomes soft and unusable.

But on stars, things are different, scanning around the skies shown lots of nice little dots inside the bino, although the last bit of the field remains blurred.

Considering that this thing cost less than $200, i would say it's worth the money. in fact i got it so cheap(since it's has a little dirt inside it), it's cheaper than any of the accessories i own.

~MooEy~

ariefm71 · Post by **ariefm71** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:02 am

do they make the 10x50 version?

MooEy · Post by **MooEy** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 1:35 pm

yep, they do make 10x50 and 7x50, but not sure if anyone have them in stock, and not sure abt prices.

~MooEy~

Post by **Airconvent** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:35 pm

they are available at sim lim square the last time I checked a few months back...Alan Photo. I think it cost around $180 now....used to cost almost $300 a few years back...
good investment, mooey! although I personally feel that x12 would be too heavy and high for comofort without a tripod. 10x50 is about the max you should go...