Leica Trinovid 10x50 BA (1 Viewer)

Omid · Oct 25, 2014

I purchased a pair of Leica 10x50 BA binoculars a few days ago and they arrived today. Took them out for a first view near sunset and the view through them is amazing! Love em!

The binoculars also came with a very classy hard leather case. :t:

Have you guys had any experience with the 50mm BA models? I used to have 12x50 BN back when I lived in Canada and then another 8x50 BA (Hunting Set) when I lived in Florida. Now, this is my third 50mm Leica Trinovid and seems to be a perfectly balanced design. Has the same field of view as the 8X model and the eye relief is better than the 12X model.

Does any one have the Leica brochure for the 50mm BA models? I found this for the 12X model.

ronh · Oct 25, 2014

Congratulations Omid. I've been on a binge with my 12x50 BN lately. I'd like to try a 10x50, and an 8x50 too. The 50 mm Trinovids feel terrific in the hand, and are made and adjusted to very high standards. I bet the in-between 10x is the best of the lot.

I did have a BA, my first roofer, "the brick" 8x42. It seemed like there was no place to put your thumbs, but the view was very sharp and comfortable, and the mechanics serious feeling. The reflections were different from the BN, off the objectives yellow green, and off the prisms pure yellow. My most memorable binocular view ever was through it, at the end of a long bird walk on a crisp fall day with lots of browns, yellows and reds around, rounding out the afternoon with a wee nip of Macallan from the Jack Daniels half pint bottle I carry on such occasions. I say, things looked just splendid! Hmm, tomorrow is supposed to be just such a day...

A 10x50 BA, wow, have fun.

Ron

Troubador · Oct 25, 2014

ronh said:
rounding out the afternoon with a wee nip of Macallan from the Jack Daniels half pint bottle I carry on such occasions. I say, things looked just splendid!

Ron

Ron

Macallan is a fine and noble spirit and was offered as an after-dinner tipple by both Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, as an alternative to brandy.

However, I urge you to some day soon try Bunnahabhain (pronounced bunna-harven) from Islay, which is the 'soft' end of the very distinctive Islay malts.

A sufficient quantity taken slowly also clears up chromatic aberration in all known binoculars

Lee

Omid · Oct 25, 2014

Here they are:

Omid · Oct 26, 2014

ronh said:
Congratulations Omid. I've been on a binge with my 12x50 BN lately. I'd like to try a 10x50, and an 8x50 too. The 50 mm Trinovids feel terrific in the hand, and are made and adjusted to very high standards. I bet the in-between 10x is the best of the lot.

Thanks Ron. By the way, aren't you planning to replace your "old" 12X50 BN with a "new" 12X50 Ultravid HD Plus?!

Also, take a look at this article from a famous German hunting magazine. It compares the 1975 Trinovid and the 2005 Ultravid. The results and the transmission comparison plots are very fascinating!

Omid · Oct 28, 2014

Update: I took the binoculars out to Marina del Ray Sunday morning and again this morning. Looked at boats, pelicans, beautiful girls rowing, and everything else in the beautiful morning sun. Everything is great, no chromatic aberration, no flair, etc. All is great

kabsetz · Oct 28, 2014

Omid,

Thanks for the interesting link. The transmission levels for the old Trinovid were actually better than expected, but the resolution was not great. The modern counterpart they chose, the Ultravid BL with leather covering, is not the Ultravid HD, so its transmission is not quite as good either.

Kimmo

Hermann · Oct 29, 2014

Omid said:
Also, take a look at this article from a famous German hunting magazine. It compares the 1975 Trinovid and the 2005 Ultravid. The results and the transmission comparison plots are very fascinating!

Thanks for that very interesting article, even though some of the statements made are to be taken with a (rather large) grain of salt. The statement "Das Ultravid stößt damit hinsichtlich der Dämmerungsleistung schon fast in den Bereich der Gläser mit 50er- beziehungsweise 56er-Objektivdurchmesser vor" for instance is, of course, utter nonsense.

Hermann

Omid · Oct 29, 2014

Hermann said:
Thanks for that very interesting article, even though some of the statements made are to be taken with a (rather large) grain of salt. The statement "Das Ultravid stößt damit hinsichtlich der Dämmerungsleistung schon fast in den Bereich der Gläser mit 50er- beziehungsweise 56er-Objektivdurchmesser vor" for instance is, of course, utter nonsense.

Hermann

Hi Hermann!

Could you explain your comment a little bit more please? The sentence in question reads "The Ultravid thereby entering the twilight performance in terms almost in the range of glasses with 50s or 56 mm lens diameter". [Google translation]

What I understand from this sentence is that wililight performance of the Ultravid - due to their better transmission - is getting close to binoculars with larger objective.

Who had made this claim about the Ultravids? The magazine after testing or Leica? And why is it utter nonsense? That's a strong word in English, let's call it "not very accurate" for now till we underestand the context better.

ps. I don't speak German. Used automated translation to read the article.

Hermann · Oct 29, 2014

Omid said:
Could you explain your comment a little bit more please? The sentence in question reads "The Ultravid thereby entering the twilight performance in terms almost in the range of glasses with 50s or 56 mm lens diameter". [Google translation]

What I understand from this sentence is that wililight performance of the Ultravid - due to their better transmission - is getting close to binoculars with larger objective.

That's the claim of the writer of the article, and it's utter nonsense (a strong word, I know) because the Ultravid is a 42mm binocular, with a 4.2mm exit pupil. In twilight the human exit pupil opens up to, say, 5mm or more, depending on the level of the light and the age of the user, so it's larger than the exit pupil of the 10x42. That's a fairly conservative estimate BTW, because "Dämmerung" in German commonly refers to the half hour to hour after sunset. My own eye pupils open up to quite a bit more than 5mm in that kind of light.

Now, ANY binocular with 50mm or 56mm objectives, say a 10x50 or a 10x56, with half-way decent coatings and transmission over 80% or something like that, a level achieved by virtually ALL modern binoculars, except perhaps for the junk end of the spectrum, will be brighter than the Ultravid. In fact, many of the porros of yesteryear achieved transmission levels over 80% since the introduction of multicoatings in the 1980s. A binocular of comparable quality (Ultravid 10x50 ...) will simply kill the 10x42 in that kind of light, simply because the larger objective lenses collect that much more light.

So, no matter what the author thinks, a 10x42 will *NOT* be able to compete with a binocular with larger objective lenses. And Leica has always been careful to stress that binoculars like their various 10x42s are not really ideal for use in twilight or at night. Mind you, they want to sell you a nice 8x50 in addition to the 10x42 ... :king:

My guess is that the writer just wanted to make his claim sound more dramatic - also showing he doesn't understand some of the basics at the same time ...

Hermann

henry link · Oct 29, 2014

I agree with Hermann about this. A 50mm aperture delivers about 42% more light to the eye than a 42mm aperture. The differences in transmission among modern binoculars are a small fraction of that.

CloseFocus · Oct 29, 2014

henry link said:
I agree with Hermann about this. A 50mm aperture delivers about 42% more light to the eye than a 42mm aperture. The differences in transmission among modern binoculars are a small fraction of that.

Saying a 50mm binocular delivers 42% more light creates the impression that a 50mm binocular is almost twice as bright as a 42mm binocular, and that's just not so. I've owned an 8x42 and 8x50 Trinovid, and still have an 8x42 non-HD Ultravid. I compared them many times in low light conditions. The 8x42 UV was noticeably brighter than the 42mm Trinovid, and only slightly less bright than the 50mm Trinovid, mostly in near dark conditions. Maybe my eyes can't take advantage of the larger exit pupil of the 50mm, but I'm sure the newer coating on the UV also played a role. I liked the 50mm because it had a more relaxed view when watching birds at a distance. It seemed to have a better depth of field for that kind of use. But for low light viewing, it didn't offer much of an advantage over my 42mm UV.

Holger Merlitz · Oct 30, 2014

CloseFocus said:
Saying a 50mm binocular delivers 42% more light creates the impression that a 50mm binocular is almost twice as bright as a 42mm binocular ...

The perceived brightness does not increase linearly with the intensity, but logarithmically. That is why 42% more light does not nearly appear twice as bright, it would require an increase by about 150% to perceive an image twice as bright. Yet, 42% is the additional amount of light available with 50mm lenses, and it is dramatically more than the few % of transmission gain offered by the Ultravid. That's the simple fact: A 10x42 with high transmission could not possibly compete with any halfway decent 10x50, as long as the eye pupil is wide enough to make use of the 5mm exit pupil.

Cheers,
Holger

CloseFocus · Oct 30, 2014

Holger Merlitz said:
... as long as the eye pupil is wide enough to make use of the 5mm exit pupil.

Cheers,
Holger[/QU

Whay you say is true, but eyes become fully dilated only in the darkest of conditions, at which point the diffence between a 42 and 50mm binocular are hardly noticeable. I agree with Hermann that most of the claims by manufacturers about the low light performance of their 50mm binoculars are probably meant to sell more binoculars. 50mm binoculars can have other qualities that make them more desireablethan 42mm's, such as better depth of field and resolution, but in low light situations the difference is not so great.

Omid · Oct 30, 2014

The calculations and theoretical arguments made by Hermann, Holger and Henry are all technically correct. 50mm binoculars do feed the eye with 40% more light compared to 42mm ones but it is not as easy to substantiate the effect of this extra brightness on the "perceptual brightness" of a scene in twilight. So, I myself am in the middle of the camp: I agree that 50 or 56 mm binoculars get much more light and its not comparable to 40 mm binoculars (even with the best coatings in the world).

But how much brighter my own eyes (and not anybody else's eyes) will perceive the image I am not sure. I have not done a real test to check this. I will sometime soon. To me, 50 and 56 mm binoculars advantage is: larger exit pupil, more comfortable viewing and somehow more depth of field. I have noticed 10X42 binoculars need constant re-focusing but 10X50 don't need as much.

Now, here is another point: Forget about twilight factor for a minute.. what about the beautiful "snowy mountains factor" or SMF?! How often do we use binoculars in winter when every where is covered with bright white snow? Which binoculars perform better in such conditions? The ones with HT glass or those without?

ronh · Oct 31, 2014

The art of variable star observing can tell us something about how much brighter a 42% increase in intensity appears. Only a few of the very finest visual observers can tell a 0.1 magnitude difference between stars that are close together in the same field of view. With practice, most observers can learn to distinguish a difference as small as 0.2 magnitude.

A 42% difference in intensity works out to 0.38 magnitude, twice just visible for most practiced variable enthusiasts. Noticeable but small, and probably smaller amid the noise of differences in contrast and scattered light handling. Small indeed compared to the size and weight difference.

Still, I love my big binoculars. I just can't justify it.

Ron

Omid · Nov 3, 2014

I found this Leica Brochure which introduces the Trinovid BA line. In what year did Leica introduce the Trinovid BA? When did they introduce the BN?

ceasar · Nov 3, 2014

Omid said:
I found this Leica Brochure which introduces the Trinovid BA line. In what year did Leica introduce the Trinovid BA? When did they introduce the BN?

Leica introduced the Trinovid BN in September 2000 at Photokina, see below for more info about their differences from the BA. I don't know when they introduced the BA but I purchased a discontinued Leitz 7x42 BA (armored) about 1995 after the new Leica BA came out.

http://company7.com/leica/news.html#1September2000

Bob

ronh · Nov 3, 2014

All hail, in retrospect, the Leica BA. Zeiss had come out with phase coatings a few months previous to its introduction, but the BA's waterproofness, mechanical eyecups, and diopter adjust integrated with the focus control were all Leica innovations that have become standard across the industry. The BA also introduced a unique diopter adjustment mode in which both barrels are completely independent, allowing a relaxed no squint adjustment. The Leica design is essentially unchanged today.

I am fan, you can tell. But there's something I'd like to know. Did Leica introduce the Schmidt-Pechan prism to binoculars?

Ron

Gijs van Ginkel · Nov 3, 2014

Ron, post19,
I am not 100% sure, but I thought it was done by LEINHOS from Zeiss with the construction of the very compact mini's 6x20, 8x20 etc (now sold as Conquests).
Gijs van Ginkel

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