More Information  · Supplied Accessories  · Images of Some Features

There is minimal chromatic aberration. Curvature of field is very low, as is astigmatism. There’s a little more pincushion distortion at the edges of the field than we like to see, but we feel this is a tradeoff on the part of the designer in exchange for the very low field curvature and astigmatism. The result is images that stay usably sharp across virtually the entire field, although vertical straight lines at the edge of the field are somewhat curved. Out in the field or woods, where straight vertical lines are somewhat rare, the effect is barely noticeable. Overall, this Pentax HS gives you a view that is a pleasure to use during extended observing sessions. This is good binocular, both optically and mechanically, at a very reasonable price.

Features of this binocular . . .

Roof prism optics. H-body roof prism design with internal center focus. BaK-4 prisms for high light transmission.

Fully multicoated optics. The Pentax multilayer antireflection coatings on all air-to-glass surfaces have visibly higher light transmission than many competitive larger-aperture binoculars for minimum light loss in dim conditions.

Phase-coated prisms. Special phase-correcting coatings are applied to the roof prisms for peak contrast, color fidelity, and resolution. The resulting improvement is easily visible as additional color and detail seen in the shadowed areas of a silhouetted or backlit bird. The roof prisms also have a new super-reflection coating for higher light transmission than conventional coatings.

Weather Resistant. O-ring sealed with a multicoated protective glass cover over the objective lenses to keep water and dust from entering the binocular body. They are weather resistant – not waterproof – to a JIS Class 4 standard (which specifies that neither falling rain at an angle up to 60° from vertical nor splashing water from any direction shall have a harmful effect). In other words, they can be used safely in the rain or on a water-soaked pelagic birding trip, but cannot be submerged.

Armor. Black rubber armor on the lightweight fiber-reinforced polycarbonate body absorbs noise and shock and provides a good grip when wet. Molded-in thumb grooves help position the hands properly for the best balance during extended viewing.

Twist-up eyecups. An eighth of a turn of the rubber-rimmed eyecups retracts them into the binocular body for eyeglass or sunglass use. An eighth turn in the opposite direction extends the eyecups for non-eyeglass use.

Good eye relief. Eye relief is specified at a good 16mm. While this is technically correct, the actual usable eye relief measures several mm shorter due to the recessed location of the eyepieces in the binocular body to protect them from unwanted scratches. A shorter eye relief than specified is typical of all binoculars. There will be some vignetting of the field for eyeglass wearers.

Close focusing. Only one and a third turns of the comfortably-large ribbed focus knob moves from the closest focus out to the horizon. Pentax specifies 9.8’ as the close focus, but we invariably measure it at about 8’ in our tests. Not everyone may be able to achieve this close a focus however, so we’ll stick to quoting Pentax’s more conservative 9.8’ close focus in our specifications.

Rotary diopter correction. A continuously variable diopter ring with soft clickstops on the right eyepiece allows you to match the binocular optics precisely to your individual eyesight for a sharp image.

Supplied accessories. The comfortable 1” wide woven neck strap makes the lightweight binocular even less of a burden to carry during all-day birding sessions. Press-fit rubber objective lens covers and an eyepiece rainguard protect the optics. A 1/4”-20 thread adapter socket is provided in the center hinge for using an optional tripod adapter to mount the binocular on a camera tripod for extended hands-free observing. The socket is covered by the thread-in Pentax logo. The supplied soft case is made of padded water-shedding Cordura-type nylon.