Optolyth Alpin 8x30BGA
Mfr: Optolyth, Germany
Date: circa 1980's
AFOV: ~64 degrees
TFOV: 140m/1000m (~8 degrees)
Eye Relief: ~12mm
Prisms: high index porro
Serial Number: 123437
The Optolyth Alpin 8x30BGA is a compact and light weight 8x30 porro prism design. It is rubber armored and has rubber eyecups that fold down. According to Optolyth, the design uses 16 lenses (implying a 6 element eyepiece) and "Ceralin" multicoatings. The coatings do appear to be of high quality, with subdued reflections.
This 8x30 provides good views with some field curvature, astigmatism, and pincushion distortion towards the edge of field. There are a couple of obvious prism leaks though they don't seem to affect the image much. The folding eyecups are nice but there isn't quite enough eye relief for me to see the full field of view when using glasses. While this Optolyth doesn't have outstanding performance, I consider it a good all around binocular for such applications as birding.