The Steiner Peregrine 8x44 (and 10x44) XP

Everything but Elegant

By Pete Dunne, CMBO Director

SYNOPSIS: A German company that built it’s reputation manufacturing precision, rugged binoculars for the military and hunting market introduces a stellar performer for the birding market. The 8x44 Peregrine XP combines a great optical package and birder-speced performance and then puts it in a light, intelligent, super-rugged, rubber-armored, magnesium body. Few would call it “elegant”. However, most people buy binoculars to look through, not at, and there are going to be a lot of people out there who are going to wish this glass was out before they bought the instruments they own now.

THE ROAD TO GETTING IT RIGHT

I’d steeled myself to be disappointed. After reviewing the proto-type instrument over a year ago and noting several potential flaws (not the least of which was a severe color bias), I wasn't confident Steiner could address these late in the development stage. I’m delighted to say I was wrong.

Since 1947, this German company has marched in lock step with the military and sport hunting market. Steiner binoculars were armored and waterproof before Zeiss and Leitz (now Leica) became birding icons and Swarovski was only a generation removed from making chandeliers.

And it wasn't like Steiner didn't know about the birding market. They certainly did, as the names of their two most popular instruments, Merlin and Peregrine, attest. But try as they might, when the chips were down, the folks at Steiner just couldn't shake their military and hunting halter. The Merlin and Peregrine binoculars were, and are, worthy instruments. They won converts among birders, particularly those who put an accent over “rugged.” But in their heart of hearts, when the folks at Steiner made binoculars, the R&D people opted to build glass that would appeal to their core constituency first and, hopefully, to birders too.   

Well this time the boot is on the other foot. This time Steiner got it right. As past-proven by the Swarovski EL, a glass designed by a committee of birders (which I helped to organize and served on), if you can build a glass that meets the persnickety demands of serious birders, it will certainly work for hunters.   

I've often wondered how many hunters know the glass advertised under the slogan: “The Ultimate Hunting Glass” was designed by a bunch of bird watchers?

SPECED TO BIRD

Steiner did it’s homework. The 8x44 XP mates birding’s most popular magnification (8x) with a generous 44mm objective--a functional fusion adopted by other top performing instruments (with an extra 2mm of slop thrown in for performance and marketing purposes). At 6.5 inches long; 4.5 inches wide, itis almost identical in size to the Zeiss FL 8x42. At 30 oz. it weighs in about 2 oz. heavier than the Leica, Zeiss and Swarovski EL.

Like the Swarovski EL, and the old Hensolt binoculars before them, the barrels are linked by hinged mounts fore and aft (not a single wide bridge).  Most users will be able to wrap their fingers around a barrel for comfort and stability. The magnesium body is rubber-armored and the color is low-glare gray-green with spare gold trim. Twist down, semi-locking eyecups offer 20mm of eye-relief and are engineered tightly enough to permit mid-range adjustments for eyeglass wearers who do not need a full 20mm. More about the eyecup assembly later.   

The generous 390 ft. at 1000 yds. field of view is similar to that offered by the comparably speced Leica Ultravid, and Swarovski EL. Close focus to 6.5 ft. is about 4 feet closer than the Leica Ultravid and almost identical to the Zeiss FL.  

The well positioned focus wheel goes the full range of focus in just over 1.5 turns of the wheel (about 4 pulls of the finger). Unlike most premium binoculars, close focus is clockwise (right handed users will pull, not push the wheel). Also unlike almost every other instrument on the market, the individual eyepiece adjustment ring is on the left, not the right barrel.   

Neither of these are particularly important points.    

This is; you put it all together and what you have is a binocular that is ideally speced for birding. 

But does it perform?

WHERE THE RETINA HITS THE FEATHER

In this age of near 100% light transmission and superlative challenging resolution, we have all become pretty jaded about optical performance.  Parity, in the high-end optics field, is just about all any new product can hope to achieve. The bar on high resolution was actually set by the Nikon LX way back in the last millennium and everybody has been within quibbling distance ever since.

Well now there’s one more glass in that pack at the esteemed top of the glass pyramid. This one. The image offered by the Peregrine XP is crisp, clean, sharp, bright...everything that a high quality, premium performance binocular is supposed to offer. The resolution is center weighted with commendable overall field quality.        

Two testers noted a very slight color bias toward green; one thought yellow; one noted no discernable bias. Out of three instruments tested, one showed diminished resolution at the center of the right barrel. One instrument had a problem with the focusing mechanism. The left barrel would not focus closer than 20 ft.  One instrument offered an image that in direct comparison out-resolved an out-of-the-case Zeiss 8x42 FL employed for comparative purposes.   

Also and certainly related to the Peregrine’s close focus capacity, parallax (image separation) was evident at 15 ft. and pronounced at 6.5 ft.   

In sum, and performance shortfalls notwithstanding, the optical performance of the Peregrine XP is very impressive given the physics pushing demands made upon this glass. The focusing problem and resolution issue found on two of the three instruments tested may give some potential buyers cause to pause.  It should be remembered that some Zeiss FLs also had field quality issues when this glass was first introduced and that the Swarovski ELs had a congenital problem with their innovative focusing system. Both of these production and design flaws were addressed and resolved, as the acclaim for and success of these instruments attests.

Once again (and particularly with any new instrument) it comes down to testing the instrument you buy, which we at FeatherEdge Optics do with every instrument we sell.

ROAD TESTED

A company that prides itself on building instruments built to military specs invites the abuse of people just like me. To test how waterproof Steiner waterproof is, our primary test instrument was submerged in a basin of water whose initial temperature was 110 ° F and allowed to languish for over an hour. 

Test instruments are commonly submerged for only fifteen minutes but, heck; Steiner claimed this thing was rugged.   

Following emersion the instrument was placed in a freezer for one hour.    We commonly put instruments in the refrigerator (not the freezer), but, well, once again....   

The results?  The interior left barrel (after the exterior ice was cleared) was fog free. The right barrel showed very slight fogging on one internal element which dissipated almost immediately. Clearly there was some very slight leakage but given the severity of the test it is more astonishing that both barrels did not fog markedly.    

Twenty-four hours later the same instrument was returned to the freezer.  There was no repeat fogging.    

The instrument was then dropped, objective lens first, onto a lightly carpeted wooden floor from a distance of 5.5 feet (a test designed to simulate a neck strap failure). Then dropped on it’s side--your basic oops off the kitchen counter maneuver. The glass was then chucked 100 feet, landing ocular first onto grass topped soil.     

No problem. The binoculars remained in alignment. 

THE LITTLE THINGS YOU LOVE AND DON'T

Many years ago I wrote the copy for a Zeiss advertisement. Referring to their 7x42 Classic I called it rugged and beautiful. The advertising agency flagged it. “We can’t say beautiful”, they said. “Hunters will never go for it.”

Steiner is not going to face this problem because few buyers this side of Vogue or GQ are going to look at the proletariat lines of this instrument and accuse it of being beautiful. 

Distinctive? Yes. Utilitarian? Absolutely. Sexy?  Well, in a Charles Bronson sort of way, I guess, yes.

Beautiful? Elegant? That's a stretch.

It is not the kind of binocular that will ever go up to a bar, order a cosmo and then send it back because the glass is dirty.

It is the kind of binocular that will go up the bar, order thirty-year old bourbon neat (and the glass you'll want on your side when some beer-drinking lout at the end of the bar accuses you of being a tree-hugger).

It’s a glass that puts performance first and last and that’s exactly the way it looks.

OK. Now let’s examine some of those little make and break things that distinguish one glass from the next.

I mentioned eyecups earlier and promised to get back to them. The XP’s offer an innovative and adjustable flared eyecup. Popped up, they block peripheral light and turned down they work like any other eyecup.

People who are disconcerted by peripheral light (and for some people this is a major distraction) are going to love this option. Me? First thing I’m going to do is take a razor blade and cut the things off. I don’t need to do this.  Cups turned down are innocuous enough. I just don’t like flaired eyecups on principle. Never have and never will.

The focus knob (yes, it is more a knob than a wheel) is well positioned, very comfortable, very responsive, very smooth, with no skips or mushiness end to end. The raised, rubber ridges give added traction during wet conditions.  Right out of the freezer it was very slightly stiffer but still smooth, responsive, tacitly friendly.

The imbedded, snap-in neck strap clips are easy to insert and easy to remove but designed to hold. The adjustable braided nylon neck-strap comes extra-long for those of us to like to wear instruments bandolier fashion. Very innovative (and something most reviewers are going to be agog about) is the gel cushioning set on the undercarriage of both barrels--about where a users thumbs will fall. It makes the barrel slightly squishy.  “Cushions for your thumbs” is the way the literature describes them. The purpose is to make the surface of the instruments more “gripable.”

Me? I thought the slightly ribbed, rubber armor was accomplishing this just fine and I find that my thumb likes to rest just above the cushion but, heck, anything that adds comfort and stability is a bonus on a binocular.

The objective lens is recessed 5/16 of an inch. (I prefer a little deeper).  Every instrument comes with a rugged fabric case, neoprene rain/dust guard, and a thirty-year limited warranty.

EXIT RAMP

So is Steiner in the premium glass pool? Absolutely. The 8x44 Peregrine XP is a real contender. A glass designed for birding that will live up to your highest expectations and take whatever abuse you, or an unsympathetic universe, can dish out.

Now. You'll have to excuse me. I'm going to try and best my last throw. Anybody want to bet I can’t top 125 feet with these things? Don’t bet more than you can afford to lose.