Orion Vista 10X50

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Orion Vista 10X50
Excellent sharpness in the center, but a little soft on the edges. Very good light gathering and slight chromatic aberation when viewing stars. Comfortable to use and well made.

Overall Rating: 7
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41586

Orion Vista 10X50
Very lightweight and comfortable to hold. Wonderful contrast and color correction. Was able to split Albireo cleanly unsupported, and the blue/gold contrast was very discernable. Edge sharpness very good owing to smaller FOV. Exceptional coatings and matte of interior eliminates flare entirely. Very bright, perfectly circular exit pupil. Eye relief at 16mm very comfortable for non-eyeglass wearer.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41588

Orion Vista 10X50
Excellent optics and coatings, very comfortable to hold due to the light weight construction. Mechanics are supurb, an overall quality feel.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41589

Orion Vista 10X50
Much nicer binocular than the 10x50 Ultraview. The Vistas are sharp to the edge where the Ultraview began to soften about 60% of the way from the center to the edge.They are good looking, feel great and have dark green coatings on all air to glass surfaces.Very good contrast and pinpoint star images with no noticable chromatic aberation.Did not like the twist-lock eye cups on the Ultraviews.A very nice Binocular.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 4 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41591

Orion Vista 10X50
Excellent binoculars, have a high quality feel to them and are comfortable to use. Use them on a parallelogram mount, since it is difficult to hold hands steady enough to appreciate views to the maximum otherwise. Very bright clear out to the edge, excellent, crisp view of stars. Pleaides and Orion nebula are clear and show much detail. Only one thing on the downside is that the brightest objects, such as the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Venus, do show some chromatic aberration. A purple flare on bottom of Jupiter & yellowish green limb on top. The moon is very clear, can see much detail in crates and seas, although there is a slight yellowish green tinged limb on the top edge of the moon with these binoculars. I understand that this is normal for achromatic refractors, telescopes and binoculars alike. Overall, feel like I got a lot of value for the money.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41592

Orion Vista 10X50
Outstanding. Performed as advertised. Comfortable to hold, bright and clear to the edge. A keeper!

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 4 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41593

Orion Vista 10X50
Absolutely incredible. Crystal clear. Lighweight made them so easy to hold. Not much shake at 10X with these. Feels like quality. Well made

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 4 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41594

Orion Vista 10X50
Very Nice. Bright, clear, comfy.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=41595

Orion Vista 10X50
Simply a best buy at this price!

Overall Rating: 10
Optics:10 Value:10
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=73269

Orion Vista 10X50
Done side by side with a brand new pair of Celestron Ultima 10x50's:

Filling in the Vote figures was a little difficult for the Orion Vista 10x50's. Why? Because I happen to think very highly of Orion and my history of making purchases from them has always been top rate. Until now. Opening the box revealed an awesome hard leather case with a metal snap enclosure. "$200 buys me this?! Awesome!" I thought. Typical Orion experience so far, always getting better than you'd ever expect for the money. Out come the binos. Beautiful feel, nice balance. Time for the close, and I mean close inspection. Now these Vistas are touted by Orion to be one of the few binoculars that pass their Japanese factory's "Exceptional Inspection" standard. When looking through the objective of the right barrel it revealed TWO large (and I mean LARGE) shavings that hung down deep inside right about where the prism is. 2 things came to mind: that they would definitely hurt image contrast and that an inspection done by the snot riddled fingers of a two year old would have revealed it to even him. How strange this should get by the closely inspecting Japanese inspector who would no sooner leap upon his own Samuarai sword than let this shabby sample get by him! Sorry Orion, as much as I love ya I felt a knife stick me in the back. There is no way they could have received an inspection of ANY kind (much less the "exceptional" one advertised) with that defect making it to the hands of the consumer.

Right there I knew they'd be going back. How sickening indeed since in my zealousness I payed for non-refundable next day air. But, nevertheless the inspection continued. Fit and finish seemed pretty darn good so I got really picky. A slow twist of the diopter adjustment revealed a metal against metal rubbing noise isolated to a specific area. Hmm.. well, it wasn't really attached straight on the eyepeice barrel, slightly cock-eyed, slowly wobbling as twisted. The Celestron Ultimas showed diopters to be dead on straight with no noise or rubbing nonsense.

Optically they gave very bright images, slightly brighter than the Ultimas and the barrels were perfectly parallel on both models. Thank God for that. Surprisingly, contrast on the Vistas seemed excellent so I could only imagine how it could have been without those darn shavings hanging in the FOV(which were noticeable only when looking through the objectives, the opposite of normal use). Independant barrel tests really didn't indicate much of a difference either, again, a surprise. Stars were bright but exhibited unacceptable coma, in both barrels. Star tests would show a star as a horizontal coma(like this: "_") that got shorter and shorter as I got close to optimum focus, then before the coma totally went away a vertical coma would begin(looking like an "L") then out of focus it became an "I". Whatever the star was, it was never a pinpoint, in either barrel. The Ultimas exhibited NONE of the problems mentioned here except for a very very slight star coma, as does every binocular no matter how expensive. Ultimas were about as close to a pinpoint as one could wish in binos under a thousand dollars. In a tiny defense of the Vistas, the Ultimas come with a crappy case and a one peice dual eyepiece cover which I find objectionable, so chalk that one up in favor of the Vistas.

Like I said, I think very highly of Orion as their products have always impressed me(except with this incident) and they're nice people to deal with. And if it wasn't for them mentioning how their Vistas meet the Exceptional Industry Standard I wouldn't have written this negative review at all. I would have just thought an oddball got through, it happens. But to have so many problems with them mechanically, AND optically, AND fit and finish.. Oh well, you get the point. So, consider this a dual review. If you're considering 10x50's for $200 go with the Ultimas or try the Vistas and keep your fingers crossed. I didn't get them replaced by the way, I kept the Ultimas. I'm willing to give Orion another shot, MAYBE, because there's always the chance I got the freak of nature reject of Vistas where everything just went wrong. I don't know.... If it weren't for these problems I can say that what was good on the Vistas was excellent and I'd be 10's all the way through.

Overall Rating: 5
Optics:7 Value:8
Weight: 5 (Veritable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=156915

Orion Vista 10X50
Good glass, but the focus has become sticky over the last year that I have owned mine. I think I might try a pair of Oberwerks next since they are a bit cheaper for the same "extras" Bak-4, FMC, etc...

Overall Rating: 8
Optics:8 Value:6
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=288388

Orion Vista 10X50
I've had these for a little over a year. The first pair were
optically perfect but the focuser locked up after a week.
Orion replaced with a new pair which are mechanically fine
but seemed to be somewhat out of collimation. I recentally
sent them to Cory Suddarth ( binofilxer @aol.com) and
for $45.00 he collimated and adjusted the optics. I've
since had the opportunity to compare them to binoculars
costing four times as much and could see no significand
difference. These are great binos for the money.

Overall Rating: 9
Optics:9 Value:9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=357135

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