Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70

Ratings:Top:Astronomy:Equipment Reviews:Binocular Reviews:Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70

 Info  Votes  Messages  More Stats  Up One Level
Vote
Page 1 of 2 Next

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Best bino in the 70-80 mm range (except pheraps Myauchi)

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41596

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
bright sharp image to the edge of the flat field. Tried orion 20x80 but was disappointed, sharp only in center of field, astigmatism very noticeable when focusing on a star. Went for the big bucks and am very happy with the fujinon. If you appreciate quality you will be happy with this instrument. About the only negative is the weight which makes a tripod absolutely necessary.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41597

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Good contrast, but not clear to edge of view. This is a heavy binocular. Mounting on a tripod is important for long viewing. Views of the double cluster rivel that from 8 inch reflectors in low mag. When held steady on a tripod, saturn's rings are just visible. A great pair for quick touring. The lifetime guarantee is reassuring.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41598

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
finally,a giant pair of binoculars that you can use without worrying about
chromatic aberrations or fuzziness near the edge of the field.Beautifully
sharp images,and lots of light gathering.Best binocular in the 70-80mm
category.A little short in eye relief for eyeglasses,but well worth it.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41599

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Excellent binoculars. Very bright and sharp to the edge. Very solid, you feel like you got your money's worth. My only complaint is the eye relief is a little short for glasses and my big nose winds up causing clearance issues with the large eyelenses, when I have the interpupillary distance set right it is a little tight on my nose.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41600

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
These are incredible astronomical instruments. The two pairs that I have used have extremely flat fields, yielding tack-sharp images right to the edge of the FOV. The images are very bright & very contrasty indicating excellent light throughput. I have used the 16x70's mounted on a tripod w/parellelogram & also hand-held. Despite what many people think, these can be hand-held, especially if you hold the objectives as far out as possible, rather than near the middle or closer to the eyepeices. This decreases the load on the wrists while holding. If you have a nice chair to lean back in, this will even extend the time for using these without a mount. For anyone intersted in daytime use, they are great for terrestrial viewing too.

All open clusters look wonderful through the 16x70's, as do globulars. In fact M13 & Omega Centaurii show some resolution. Galaxies such as M81/M82 actually show some detail, especially M82 where the dust lane is quite visible. Extended objects like Andromeda are better than an 8" scope.

My friend & I put these head-to-head with a pair of Miyauchi 20x77 semi-APO's. To call a clear winner was extremely difficult. The Miyauchis went slightly deeper & were better on tight open clusters & nebulae. They split the Trapizium with no problem. The Fujinons at 16x had a more difficult time, but it did make the split into four components.

But the Fujinons were better on the Pleiades, Beehive & Andromeda, and gave incredible sweeps of the summer & winter Milky Way with the 4 degree FOV as opposed to the 2.5 on the Miyauchis. As far as color correction for secondary spectrum, we could not tell the difference between the two pairs. Both showed a very slight purple halo around very bright objects like the limb of the moon, Jupiter, and Sirius, but that's it. There was no false color present on any other objects.

Both are great binos, but the Fujinons get the nod when it comes to price.
At $550-580, they are about $500 less than the Miyauchis. You cannot go wrong with a pair of 16x70 Fujinons.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 7 (Veritable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41602

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Heavy to handle, needs a tripod
Well made.
Excellent FOV

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41603

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Awesome binoculars! Sharp optics; on a stable tripod Mizar is easily split. Albireo is beautiful. Colors and light throughput are outstanding. Excellent terrestrially as well, even at night, surprising given the 4.4 mm exit pupil. Very generous field for 16x power.

Looking at the moon is like looking through a telescope with a binoviewer. From what I've heard, Saturn's rings are just barely visible with these. I believe it, because on my 8" telescope at 35x the rings are obvious.

One caveat is the individual eyepiece focus. Point at the moon or some distant detailed object, focus both eyepieces until you get the best image, then REMEMBER the diopter settings. For infinity focus (astronomy), perfect eyesight will be at 0 on both eyepieces. In the dark, you'll need to shine a light on the eyepieces to check the settings. But once they're set, they tend to stay there!

A couple more things I forgot to mention. They are HEAVY but can be handheld for short lengths of time. The weight actually contributes to stability. Hold them out at the ends so the weight rests on your face.

Also, there is a trace of false color on the moon. Looks kind of neat actually, kind of a greenish violet fluorescent tinge.

(moderator note: vote combined by ScopeDreamer2032)

A couple more things I forgot to mention. They are HEAVY but can be handheld for short lengths of time. The weight actually contributes to stability. Hold them out at the ends so the weight rests on your face.

Also, there is a trace of false color on the moon. Looks kind of neat actually, kind of a greenish violet fluorescent tinge.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 7 (Veritable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41604

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
the best of the best john maryland

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41606

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
I traded a set of FMTR-SX 7x50s for the FMT-SX 16x70s. All optical imperfections in the smaller Fujinons will be that much more noticeable in the bigger aperture. Bright white objects will have edge coloring especially if your eyes are off the optic axis. This is true in all binoculars but diminishes as the power drops. The 16x70s are best for uniform brightness terrestrial viewing ie bird watching using a tripod or viewing starclusters, the Milky Way and bright galaxies ie M31. They are not optically perfect but give a wonderful view of objects when you are in a hurry to set up your equipment. Long focal length 1/20th wave well figured Newtonians blow away all binoculars for detailed high magnification viewing but to get the big picture quickly the Fujinons are at the top.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 4 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41607

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Fantastic views! While not completely color free (as is to be expected in achromatic optics)nor completely sharp at the edge of the field, these binoculars are extremely sharp in the center of the field. Eye relief a bit tight with glasses on, but still workable. The 16X magnification really brings out detail in the brighter deep sky objects and allows some of the fainter ones to be glimpsed, too. I tried out the 10X Fujinons before buying the 16X70 FMT-SX and was really surprised by how better these are for viewing most deep sky objects, especially when used in less than perfect sky conditions. A tripod is a must for these large binos, and a parallelogram mount is highly recommended for maximum viewing comfort. Very high quality mechanics with excellent fit and finish. One of the best buys in portable astro equipment I've made in years. Well worth the extra cost over less expensive models of similar size.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41608

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Great binoculars for astronomy. The eyecups are too big though, too little width adjustment for narrow-spaced eyes. TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!

Overall Rating: 8
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41609

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Adding to my review way up there somewhere, I have confirmed that Saturn's rings are quite easily visible with these binos, as well as Saturn's largest moon Titan! In addition, the Trapezium in the Orion Nebula appears as a tiny trapezoidal shape barely resolved into three or four stars. This is all on a tripod of course!

The secret is getting the focus just right which can be a tad tricky due to the eyepiece focusing.

Overall Rating: No Vote
Weight: <none>
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41610

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
Very nice binoculars! Very sharp in the center of view, but a little
soft at the edge of view. Eye relief is somehow too small for a glasses
wearer, normally I remove the soft rubber eye cup during observation.
Tripot is a must for this bino, I use a Bogen.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41612

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
This one succeeds where others fail. If a bright, contrasty, good field of view is what you want, this binocular is what your looking for. They are well made and look impresive. They are very compfortable to look through for long periods, though it wouldn't hurt my feelings if it had a few more milimeters of eye relief. Daytime views are wonderful and at night stars are pinpoints and bright. My binocs have a small amount of internal reflection on bright objects, but nothing I can't live with. The moon is fun to look at with many craters visible with little or no visible color fringing.(I'll take no color over small internal reflections any day) Immages are sharp across the field. I bought these mostly for astronomy, but have been using them alot durring the day. You can find ways to hand hold them steady enough, though for extended viewing I have the adapter and tripod. I wish I could say more, I love my Fujinons!

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 2 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41613

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
i love these bino's. you will need a good tripod for steady viewing. i really don't think i can add much to the above comments, in really dark skies wow factor is high. one of my most memorable views was M31 in very dark skies, the galaxy took up almost the entire field of view, absolutely awesome!!!!!!!

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 2 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41614

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
I got a pair of these a couple years ago in lieu of getting a small refractor. Since then I've used them often and gotten to compare them to other giant binos such as the Oberwerk 15x70's and small scopes such as the TV Ranger and Pronto. When I first got them, I would have been one of the people giving them a perfect "10" since they were so much better than everything that I'd had up to that point. Since then, I've used them often enough, and compared them to enough other optics that my attitude about them has changed substantially.

The pros are that they are *MOST* of the things that people report about them above. They give very good clear views on most celestial objects. But they do in fact have several negative attributes.

For one thing, they show a small bit of false purple coloring on the edges of bright objects that are not in the central 50% of the viewing area. You have to look for it, but once you see it, the color is always there. For another thing, they are very good in terms of edge resolution when compared to the usual 80% performers, but even the Fujis do show edge dropoff and distortion at the very outer perimeter.

Perhaps their most negative aspect is that they weigh 4.76lbs. (over 5lbs with case, straps and lens covers) and they are individual eye focus with virtually no close range capability. That all means that they are USELESS for terrestial viewing from anything but a fixed, mounted position.

Finally, there's the issue of cost. At $600, these aren't cheap, but that doesn't even include the cost of the mount and tripod that most any serious user is going to require. They can be handheld from a braced position, but the whole point of these is image clarity, and that's best appreciated from a good, stable mount. There was a time in which the Fujinons had so little competition that all these negatives were worth putting up with to get the fantastic views that they give. But since then there've been lots of others entrants into the giant bino market. The Fujinons are a bargain, even at that price, given the images they can offer, but there are other better bargains. Since getting a pair of $149 Oberwerk 15x70's I basically don't use the Fujinon 16x70' despite the fact that the image quality in the Fujinons is so much better.

Contrast= 9
Brightness=8
Color & Clarity= 8
Ease of Use= 3
Versitility=2
Overall construction quality=10
Value= 5

Mike Swaim

Overall Rating: 7
Weight: 20 (Notable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41616 

Were you able to compare these to the Steiner Senator or Commander 15x80s?  Thanks


>I got a pair of these a couple years ago in lieu of getting a small refractor. Since then I've used them often and gotten to compare them to other giant binos such as the Oberwerk 15x70's and small scopes such as the TV Ranger and Pronto. When I first got them, I would have been one of the people giving them a perfect "10" since they were so much better than everything that I'd had up to that point. Since then, I've used them often enough, and compared them to enough other optics that my attitude about them has changed 
substantially.

[cropped by ScopeDreamer2032]

Since getting a pair of $149 Oberwerk 15x70's I basically don't use the Fujinon 16x70' despite the fact that the image quality in the Fujinons is so much better.
>
>Contrast= 9
>Brightness=8
>Color & Clarity= 8
>Ease of Use= 3
>Versitility=2
>Overall construction quality=10
>Value= 5
>
>Mike Swaim
Mike,
even if i agree with you on many points, i think these binos are essentialy made for astronomy and the weight is not a real criteria in astro viewing considering you can't have any serious 
observations without at least a good tripod.
Concerning the price, it's a good value, even if the optics shows a very little chromatism these binos remain for me a best seller exept if you
can afford to pay for perfection, but who can pay 2200 bucks for a pair of zeiss 15x60 ? 
So i would highly recommend this product to the astronomers and the stargazers who prefer a good pair of binos instead of a bad MONOCULAR scope. 
Emmanuel Antuna
Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
It's pretty hard to find fault with the Fuji's, at least these big ones. Only thing is, they're quite heavy - and if you don't have them with you when you need them, they're useless. Love the flat field and sharpness, these (and also the 10X version) are a real pleasure to use, well-finished and probably the best of their breed, in spite of being relatively affordable. In fact, they appear to be a little cheaper now than they were a few years ago! If you get a chance, compare as many of these large binoc's (Orion, Celestron, Fujinon) as you can, and you'll probably agree. Maybe what impressed me most when comparing them was the much better color, contrast and lack of aberration at the outer edges. They really got their act together on this one, and I'm pretty fussy.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 2 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41617

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
I've been using my Fujinon's now for 6 Months and I have to say that they've made me want a telescope!! I couldn't believe what I've been missing. The views are breathtaking. I have never owned a pair of celestial bino's in the past so I really have nothing of this quality to compare them to, but I have been completely impressed thus far.
The Galilean moon's of Jupitor jump right out, and I was able to just make out the rings of Saturn. You must use a mount though, and I use a quality camera tripod which works well.
If I have to give a downside, it would be the color distortion of very bright objects. For instance, the full moon has a greenish hue around the top and bottom if not centered directly in the field of view. They are a bit difficult to focus with the individual eyepieces and for any quality viewing, a mount must be used. Also, at the edge of view, there is slight distortion. Other than that, spend the money and you will not be disappointed.

Overall Rating: 8
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41618

Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70
I have had a pair of these for about 6 months now. I also have the 10x70 version and have mounted side by side. Fully the equal in terms of utility with the 10x70. What these lack in true field, they make up in magnification. In short these two do complement each other. If you want darker backgrounds and higher magnification, get the 16x. The shorter eye relief (15~16mm) is not a problem at all for me as I don't wear glasses when observing.

These guys may be 3 to 4 times the price of the Oberwerk 70's but there is a clear marked difference in image quality. Also no image shift with the Fujinon's. As I consider them a lifetime investment, the higher price was not an issue.

Barry Simon

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 8 (Veritable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41619

Page 1 of 2 Next

[Click Here to Login]
Don't have a login? Register!

Starting out in Amateur Astronomy
 
How to use This Site
Why Register?
Voting Guide
Searching with Fact200