I'm not sure if this goes here, as it isn't a bin and I'm not sure this is the right place for a review, but I did want to share my experience with this little gem.
I don’t like knife fights, but I do like the one-liner: “the best knife in a knife-fight is the knife you have with you (and not the custom made one at home)”. So if it’s to big, clumsy or flimsy, you won’t carry it and you don’t have it when you need it. This applies to most of the stuff I want to carry daily and also to binoculars.
A few years ago I wanted a small and light binocular. The smallest binoculars where compacts and they weren’t good enough, or at least I didn’t like what I saw at the time. At the time was around 1999/2000, budget was quite limited and I wanted something really good or something cheap.
I handled the Zeiss monoculars as well in the shop and they felt cheap and not very cheerful. One Zeiss monocular I used in the field was absolutely unusable for me. I could hardly see anything because the eye-relief is so short, it blacked out way to easily and it was flimsy plastic IMHO. I’m not sure what model it was, but I think it was a miniquick 5x10. After these experiences, I decided to buy some cheaper porro-prism bins that where almost as good as the much, much more expensive top of the line Zeiss. They weren’t small, certainly not lightweight and I found out the hard way they weren’t waterproof, by flipping over in my foldable klepper kayak. After that accident I bought some Conquest 8x30 T* bins from a shop that stopped selling the Zeiss bins altogether and I got a nice 60% off the MSRP. The Conquest bins still weren’t as portable as I wanted, not as bright as the cheap porro’s, but they where waterproof, quite good and a good deal. I enjoyed them for about 5 or 6 years now and will continue to use them.
Last year I heard about the new Leica Monovid, so I decided to try them when I had a chance. Three weeks ago I was at a big camera store that had them, so I tried them, liked what I saw and felt and bought them.
I didn’t buy the Monovid as a replacement, but as an addition to my growing collection. The Conquest is to big for daily use, it doesn’t fit well in my briefcase and if I carry a backpack I need to protect it against bums and shocks, so it becomes to cumbersome to unpack it.
That is where the Monovid comes in. It is small (around 100mm in length, around 35mm at the biggest diameter) so it can even fit in my wife’s clutch. I can’t think of any situation where she would want to be caught with a monocular in her clutch, but that is something else.
It is also not too heavy with 115gram but it feels very well build and surprisingly sturdy.
I’m going to compare the Conquest with the Monovid as I know the Conquest very well. On one hand they are quite close, being 8x20 and 8x30, on the other hand they couldn’t be more apart, being a binocular and a monocular, being 132x115mm and weighting 550g (Conquest) or 100x35mm and being 115g (Monovid).
I’ve used the Conquest on day trips where I was pretty sure I would get a lot of chances to see birds at 50-500m distances. I wear the bins around my neck, often walking 10 kilometers at least, but usually more than 20 km with a little backpack, a thin Gore-tex jack, my sandwiches and some water for the day and that’s it. But I found the bins to be annoying, swinging around when walking and being to slow to grab for an opportunistic view when it’s in the backpack.
For me the view through the Conquest is reasonable. It doesn’t do very well at dusk, but during the day it is quite good.
Side to side comparison the Conquest and the Monovid, the Conquest is just a little bit better in definition/sharpness. E.g. I just couldn’t read the name on a moored ship at around 500 meters away with the Monovid and with some trouble I could read them through the Conquest. The letters where red, on a white surface, approx. 80cm high and the weather was overcast and quite hazy, no fog but you could clearly see the haze. White letters on a black hull at the same distance where much better readable with both.
The edges on the Monovid have a bit more blur and are perhaps a tiny bit more distorted. It’s not enough for me to make a clear distinction when using it in the field. There is, under less than ideal circumstances, a little bit more color fringing on the Monovid, but again it is only a tiny difference and it doesn’t bother me.
On paper both have the same eye-relief, 15mm, but in the field and with glasses, the Monovid does much better. It does block out when your eye isn’t properly aligned, but overall it works better. Even though I have used the Conquest for years and one could suggest I would get used to the Conquest and adopted my viewing technique accordingly, the Monovid is pleasant to use.
All in all the Monovid holds up well against the (on paper) better Conquest.
When using Monovids in the field, I adopted a technique that seems a bit odd to me, but it worked pretty well. I hold the mono fully gripped in my right hand, to my left eye, supporting it with my thumb on my left cheek and index finger on my forehead. It makes quite a stable way to hold them, even over my glasses and its even more stable than the way I hold my conquest. YMMV, but I read so many people complain about the stability that I was pleasant surprised. You don’t want to hold the Monovid with your fingertips, that would give indeed a pretty shaky image and a nauseating feeling after a few minutes of looking through them.
Another pleasant surprise was the DOF that was quite good. Or at least a whole lot better than my Conquests. I almost constantly need to adjust the Conquest, where the Monovid is able to be sharp from infinity to an estimated 25 meters without turning. 25 meters to 2 meters takes less then half a turn.
There is a little disappointment in the fact that it isn’t possible to turn this monocular with one hand, because the ring is on the bottom part so you can’t turn it. It’s a bit nitpicking, but it would have been nice if it would have been possible. On the other hand I almost never have to adjust when I’m walking in the fields because of the enormous DOV. Very positive is the firm but fluent way the focus works. It doesn’t just slide or turn, it moves with a fluent motion, precise and without any play I could notice.
When playing with the Monovid at my desk, trying out the close-up lens, I found that when you invert the Monovid, place it at aprox. 15-25mm from the object and keeping your eye at about 25cm from the Monovid, it enlarges the object with about 20-25x (estimated with my eye MkI and compared to a loupe that I have and is 15x). For me this functions like a loupe, which is much more handy than the close up lens. The close-up lens is screwed in the lid of the case, a bit fiddly, but well protected against bumps, scratches and reasonable protected against dust. I planned to place a clear M25x0,75 lens on the Monovid to protect the lens
The case is made from nice leather, really nice thin leather, but a bit of a dressed up version and a little to flimsy for my daily use and/or field use. I plan to have a custom made case from thick, strong vegetable oak tanned leather, hand made by Gfeller Casemakers.
All in all the Monovid is a pleasant instrument to use and easy to carry. It is pretty expensive, but for me it feels a lot better than the Zeiss monoculars and it feels like it is made to last at least a 150 years; solid in construction, solid materials, very well put together and there wasn’t any skimping on materials, construction, production or quality control.
After I bought the Monovid for €350, I found out the Zeiss 8x20 sells for €319 and 12x25 for €349. Not very cheap either and they are made from plastic, plastic and more plastic. I’m not saying it’s bad, these Zeiss Mono Design’s might be much better than the miniquick I used for all I know, but I value the aluminum housing that is nitrogen filled, waterproof and feels like it’s made to last at least a 150 years makes me pick the Monovid.
Some other points I noted, but with a nitpicking alert. If you pull out the eye-cup, the sides underneath the rubber ring have two small burrs from casting the aluminum and they aren’t removed perfectly, leaving a small burr that is just a little bit sharp. You’re fingers won’t go there very often, it’s not sharp enough to cut and as I said it is nitpicking. I would like to carry them around my neck or in a pocket. The top side has a plastic protecting cup on it, but the bottom side is open and unprotected. This always annoyed me on the Conquests as well. Last point is the eyelet for the neck/wrist cord is just beneath the rubber eye cup when it is in. It’s quite small, and partially covered by the cup. If you pic a string that is just a bit to thick, but small enough for the eyelet, the eye-cup won’t go in all the way. I know, it is nitpicking, I warned you.
And if you are a LEICA MAN, this one isn't made in Germany but in Portugal.
So, bottom line, for people wanting possibly the best monocular for daily carrying, don’t hesitate! If you want the Leica, it’s really nice and works quite well for me.
I don’t like knife fights, but I do like the one-liner: “the best knife in a knife-fight is the knife you have with you (and not the custom made one at home)”. So if it’s to big, clumsy or flimsy, you won’t carry it and you don’t have it when you need it. This applies to most of the stuff I want to carry daily and also to binoculars.
A few years ago I wanted a small and light binocular. The smallest binoculars where compacts and they weren’t good enough, or at least I didn’t like what I saw at the time. At the time was around 1999/2000, budget was quite limited and I wanted something really good or something cheap.
I handled the Zeiss monoculars as well in the shop and they felt cheap and not very cheerful. One Zeiss monocular I used in the field was absolutely unusable for me. I could hardly see anything because the eye-relief is so short, it blacked out way to easily and it was flimsy plastic IMHO. I’m not sure what model it was, but I think it was a miniquick 5x10. After these experiences, I decided to buy some cheaper porro-prism bins that where almost as good as the much, much more expensive top of the line Zeiss. They weren’t small, certainly not lightweight and I found out the hard way they weren’t waterproof, by flipping over in my foldable klepper kayak. After that accident I bought some Conquest 8x30 T* bins from a shop that stopped selling the Zeiss bins altogether and I got a nice 60% off the MSRP. The Conquest bins still weren’t as portable as I wanted, not as bright as the cheap porro’s, but they where waterproof, quite good and a good deal. I enjoyed them for about 5 or 6 years now and will continue to use them.
Last year I heard about the new Leica Monovid, so I decided to try them when I had a chance. Three weeks ago I was at a big camera store that had them, so I tried them, liked what I saw and felt and bought them.
I didn’t buy the Monovid as a replacement, but as an addition to my growing collection. The Conquest is to big for daily use, it doesn’t fit well in my briefcase and if I carry a backpack I need to protect it against bums and shocks, so it becomes to cumbersome to unpack it.
That is where the Monovid comes in. It is small (around 100mm in length, around 35mm at the biggest diameter) so it can even fit in my wife’s clutch. I can’t think of any situation where she would want to be caught with a monocular in her clutch, but that is something else.
It is also not too heavy with 115gram but it feels very well build and surprisingly sturdy.
I’m going to compare the Conquest with the Monovid as I know the Conquest very well. On one hand they are quite close, being 8x20 and 8x30, on the other hand they couldn’t be more apart, being a binocular and a monocular, being 132x115mm and weighting 550g (Conquest) or 100x35mm and being 115g (Monovid).
I’ve used the Conquest on day trips where I was pretty sure I would get a lot of chances to see birds at 50-500m distances. I wear the bins around my neck, often walking 10 kilometers at least, but usually more than 20 km with a little backpack, a thin Gore-tex jack, my sandwiches and some water for the day and that’s it. But I found the bins to be annoying, swinging around when walking and being to slow to grab for an opportunistic view when it’s in the backpack.
For me the view through the Conquest is reasonable. It doesn’t do very well at dusk, but during the day it is quite good.
Side to side comparison the Conquest and the Monovid, the Conquest is just a little bit better in definition/sharpness. E.g. I just couldn’t read the name on a moored ship at around 500 meters away with the Monovid and with some trouble I could read them through the Conquest. The letters where red, on a white surface, approx. 80cm high and the weather was overcast and quite hazy, no fog but you could clearly see the haze. White letters on a black hull at the same distance where much better readable with both.
The edges on the Monovid have a bit more blur and are perhaps a tiny bit more distorted. It’s not enough for me to make a clear distinction when using it in the field. There is, under less than ideal circumstances, a little bit more color fringing on the Monovid, but again it is only a tiny difference and it doesn’t bother me.
On paper both have the same eye-relief, 15mm, but in the field and with glasses, the Monovid does much better. It does block out when your eye isn’t properly aligned, but overall it works better. Even though I have used the Conquest for years and one could suggest I would get used to the Conquest and adopted my viewing technique accordingly, the Monovid is pleasant to use.
All in all the Monovid holds up well against the (on paper) better Conquest.
When using Monovids in the field, I adopted a technique that seems a bit odd to me, but it worked pretty well. I hold the mono fully gripped in my right hand, to my left eye, supporting it with my thumb on my left cheek and index finger on my forehead. It makes quite a stable way to hold them, even over my glasses and its even more stable than the way I hold my conquest. YMMV, but I read so many people complain about the stability that I was pleasant surprised. You don’t want to hold the Monovid with your fingertips, that would give indeed a pretty shaky image and a nauseating feeling after a few minutes of looking through them.
Another pleasant surprise was the DOF that was quite good. Or at least a whole lot better than my Conquests. I almost constantly need to adjust the Conquest, where the Monovid is able to be sharp from infinity to an estimated 25 meters without turning. 25 meters to 2 meters takes less then half a turn.
There is a little disappointment in the fact that it isn’t possible to turn this monocular with one hand, because the ring is on the bottom part so you can’t turn it. It’s a bit nitpicking, but it would have been nice if it would have been possible. On the other hand I almost never have to adjust when I’m walking in the fields because of the enormous DOV. Very positive is the firm but fluent way the focus works. It doesn’t just slide or turn, it moves with a fluent motion, precise and without any play I could notice.
When playing with the Monovid at my desk, trying out the close-up lens, I found that when you invert the Monovid, place it at aprox. 15-25mm from the object and keeping your eye at about 25cm from the Monovid, it enlarges the object with about 20-25x (estimated with my eye MkI and compared to a loupe that I have and is 15x). For me this functions like a loupe, which is much more handy than the close up lens. The close-up lens is screwed in the lid of the case, a bit fiddly, but well protected against bumps, scratches and reasonable protected against dust. I planned to place a clear M25x0,75 lens on the Monovid to protect the lens
The case is made from nice leather, really nice thin leather, but a bit of a dressed up version and a little to flimsy for my daily use and/or field use. I plan to have a custom made case from thick, strong vegetable oak tanned leather, hand made by Gfeller Casemakers.
All in all the Monovid is a pleasant instrument to use and easy to carry. It is pretty expensive, but for me it feels a lot better than the Zeiss monoculars and it feels like it is made to last at least a 150 years; solid in construction, solid materials, very well put together and there wasn’t any skimping on materials, construction, production or quality control.
After I bought the Monovid for €350, I found out the Zeiss 8x20 sells for €319 and 12x25 for €349. Not very cheap either and they are made from plastic, plastic and more plastic. I’m not saying it’s bad, these Zeiss Mono Design’s might be much better than the miniquick I used for all I know, but I value the aluminum housing that is nitrogen filled, waterproof and feels like it’s made to last at least a 150 years makes me pick the Monovid.
Some other points I noted, but with a nitpicking alert. If you pull out the eye-cup, the sides underneath the rubber ring have two small burrs from casting the aluminum and they aren’t removed perfectly, leaving a small burr that is just a little bit sharp. You’re fingers won’t go there very often, it’s not sharp enough to cut and as I said it is nitpicking. I would like to carry them around my neck or in a pocket. The top side has a plastic protecting cup on it, but the bottom side is open and unprotected. This always annoyed me on the Conquests as well. Last point is the eyelet for the neck/wrist cord is just beneath the rubber eye cup when it is in. It’s quite small, and partially covered by the cup. If you pic a string that is just a bit to thick, but small enough for the eyelet, the eye-cup won’t go in all the way. I know, it is nitpicking, I warned you.
And if you are a LEICA MAN, this one isn't made in Germany but in Portugal.
So, bottom line, for people wanting possibly the best monocular for daily carrying, don’t hesitate! If you want the Leica, it’s really nice and works quite well for me.
