[Leica] Binoculars; was Photographing birds

[Bud Cook <budcook@ibm.net>]

Thanks for the information Roy.  One thing I don't like about the higher power
binoculars is they don't focus close enough for me to see my bird feeder.

If I didn't like my old Zeiss 8X30's so much it would be a no-brainer for me.  I'd
get the new Ultra 8X30's.

Sorry for wandering so far off topic but a Leica product is a Leica product:-)

Bud

Roy Zartarian wrote:

> 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.
>