Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/10/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I recently had the opportunity to do some birding with both my own two-year-old Swarovski 10x42 and a demo pair of the Leica Trinovid 8x32. I found that as far as power was concerned, the 10x did not seem to offer an advantage. At a distance where I could see a bird clearly with the 10x, I could also see it clearly enough to identify with the 8x. Where I could not see a bird clearly because of distance with the 8x, the 10x did not provide an improvement. To my eyes, the image of the Leicas was a tad brighter than that of the Swarovskis. Also the Leica weighed less, focused faster and provided a wider field of view. The two latter traits were especially important to me because much of my birding is in wooded or brushy areas where it was difficult to get on target with the higher power glasses. The upshot of this rambling is to see if you can arrange to use a pair of binoculars under "real" conditions to see how they perform for you. Looking out a store window doesn't really tell you much. Someone else's opinion may be helpful, but their eyes aren't your eyes. And if you haven't done so already, you might look at the Better View Desired web page (http://www.biddeford.com/~sing/BVD.html) which contains a lot of useful and objective information about birding optics. Bud Cook wrote: > This is a bit off subject but do you use binoculars in your birding > activities? I have a pair of Zeiss 8X30's and a pair of Leitz Trinovid > 7X42's. I'm thinking of replacing the 7X42's with a new pair of either Zeiss > or Leica 10X40's. > > Do you (or anyone else) have an opinion on this subject? Zeiss vs. Leica? > 10X40's or keep the 7X42's? > >