I have no doubt that the original zoom was a good eyepeice and is the one garnering all the rave reviews.
I however have been shipped a mark iii.
I strongly suspect that in spite of the advertised improvements over the previous model, it really was just window dressing to hide the shoddy workmanship that now goes into the mass production of these.
I mean if they have geared upfor say 10 units a day and all of a sudden they have orders for thousands, well something's gotta give doesn't it?
Either they start working the employees longer hours so that they are more tired and therefore more likely to make a mistake and forget to do something or do it right,
or they hire more new recruits who are not yet well trained and more apt to screw up,
or cut corners so that each one takes less time to build,
or not bother testing them.
And since this is China we are talking about, I can see all 4 things happening at once.
Also there would be a strong push to cut costs and maximize profits if they already had piles of confirmed orders don't you think?
It would just make good business sense wouldn't it?
And that has happened so many times before, even in astronmy as the big C and M took a dive after Halley's.
The downside is that the occaisonal guy like me gets the shaft.
No big deal.
The keeners (sorry!) who's opinion matters all got theirs last year, while they were still well made.
And have gotten to rave about them for almost an eternity to us late comers who have been kept patiently waiting.
Why?
So that Baader can pile up more and more orders before pulling the old bait and switch?
Why mess with a good thing? Mark iii... yeah right...
You know, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out my zoom is in fact a Baader knock off! lol
Corruption in China is among the worst on Earth so why wouldn't it spread into the relatively lucrative expensive astro/optic business?
I wonder if I tore mine down piece for piece along with an original, what I would find lol!
Anyways I'm done my rant for now and I am sorry if this seems to have gotten personal.
I'm well within my right to be firing shots at Baader right now as I have been screwed by them!
If you don't want to get hit, don't stand in my line of fire!