The 98 degree 7x32 Orion Expanse binos

What can you expect for $120? Al Nagler will not be loosing any sleep
soon. Obviously at 1/3 the cost of a Nagler ocular you are not going
to get two of them grafted onto a pair of premium binos. You will get
something like two erfles with the field stretched to the extreme with
declining performance as you approach the edge of field.

The usable field is approximately 1/2 of the quoted 98 degrees, beyond
that the image goes steadily out of focus. As vignetting sets in near
the field stop the image focus apparently increases slightly, and the
last 10 degrees the image is out of focus, in fact it cannot be
focused at all.

The eyerelief is usable.

Having said all that, if you are regarding the center of the field,
the total apparent field is indeed huge. Terrestrially there is a
certain Wow! factor, and the outer half of the field is sort of a
finder field. These types of ultra wides can be kind of fun on the
sky, but frustrating as well, because the out of focus stars look like
nebulas. Searching for "real" fuzzy objects can be irritating, because
there are thousands of red-herrings swimming around the edge of field.

The coatings are advertised only with reference to the prisms, leaving
unclear what coatings are on the oculars and objectives. Certainly
some of those other surfaces are coated, but wide angle oculars are
hard to analyze because some of the steep angle internal reflections
appear to be total internal reflections that you will not see in use.

Even so, they are actually pretty sharp at the center of the field.
And they are unique.

I suspect these will be popular at football games for two reasons. One is
that when there's fast action, you need the wide field to help you find
where the ball went. The other is that in daylight, with 1-mm pupils,
you'll get considerably better edge sharpness (probably).

I suspect these will be popular at football games for two reasons. One is
that when there's fast action, you need the wide field to help you find
where the ball went. The other is that in daylight, with 1-mm pupils,
you'll get considerably better edge sharpness (probably).

I think you are right on that. A friend had some Bushness 7x35s with a 10degree
+ FOV and he bought some Celestron Birdwatcher 7x35s with 10 degree FOV and
really likes them.

Something to consider, I think the Orion Expanses are binoculars designed for
daytime terrestial use. Certainly the outer field will be "bad".

I suggest this is not really important because rarely matters since
situations where one uses widefield binoculars, the field of view itself is not
flat. Looking at birds in a tree, only the bird will be in focus even if you
have a binocular made with 2 31 mm Naglers simply because everything else is at
some other distance. This is most often true I believe, whether one is
looking at a tree on a mountain top or an airplane in the sky. The foreground
and background are out of focus.

Jon

Update: There are serious internal reflections from outside the field
of view that appear both during the day and night. Unfortunately,
these reflections are essentially in focus with the primary image.
Very disturbing!