Recent purchase & review (1 Viewer)

Recently I purchased the Leupold Acaida in 8x42. I bought the stanard black armored finish. I had compared the Acadia's to the Cascade in 8x42. What I have found is that the Acadia is a very well engineerd and crafted bino. I like the wide field of view, the great depth of field. Focusing is a snap and the focus knob is very precise. The diopter adjustment control is located behind the focus knob, and I like the feel of it there.

The Acadia has super clear resolution, and the whole FOV is crisp and clear. The prims are phase coated and the view that I get is very bright, distinct. In all I am very pleased with this bionocular.

I had called Leupold tech. support and asked for the main difference in spec's if I decided to move up to the Cascade at 8x42. I was told that the only difference would be a very little color gain. So, I am going to stick with the Acadia's. They are a very well built and crafted binocular. They preety much have what I want in a binocular for Hunting and also general perpose use. And like the yosimity line, you get much more quality at a reasonible price. I paid 187.00

Hi ! yes I got the Arcadias a few weeks ago. I choose them over the more expensive Cascades 8x42 also for the some of the reasons given above - 1/ the wider FOV - the Arcadias are 7.5 degrees which gives a 60 degree Afov, the Cascades have a 6.5 degree FOV with a more 'restrictive' 52 degree Afov.
2/ I prefer the twist eyecups on the Arcadias - they were firmer and more robust and 3/ I prefer the diopter control at the rear of the main focus wheel on the Arcadias.
Yes the image is slightly softer at the edges of the Arcadias with mild curvature of field - as to be expected in a wider FOV bino - but the image is still very usable. It is primarily just as sharp on axis when compared to the Cascades - any difference is really very incremental.
During brief testing outdoors the color fidelity between the two is really the same.
There are no other serious or noticable aberrations or distortions of note with the Arcadias
I am surprised more is not heard of them really - bit of a 'sleeper' bino really.

Chris

I agree with the "sleeper" comment. I don't think Leupold has put enough into advertising them. Most folks don't even know about them plus it was not that long ago that you would have a hard time finding a solid performing, phase-coated roof prism bin under $200.

The problem is the low-mid range bin market is pretty diluted with the usual sort of Zipf Law distribution (some models are very popular but the popularity rapidly falls off).

That often means that you can get some decent bins that few have tried. Of course there are probably more clunkers that few have tried (or few have tried and then returned!) than hidden gems.

course there are probably more clunkers that few have tried (or few have tried and then returned!) than hidden gems.

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Isn't that the truth? I have purchased quite a few bins that I have chosen to not comment on here on the open forum. Still, the Acadia may deserve further inspection. My biggest complaint with the Cascade roofs was always their narrow field of view. The Acadia remedies that.

FrankD said:

My biggest complaint with the Cascade roofs was always their narrow field of view. The Acadia remedies that.

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This seems to be a comparison between the "old design style" and the "new design style" for roofs.

I take the Monarch as the classic "old design style" (though it's better than roofs that both preceded it and followed it!). Narrow FOV seems to be characteristic. 6.5 degrees or less. Bushnell Legend roof is similar. Even the Leupold Cascades roofs and porro. I'm sure there are plenty of others that people could add. I'd even include the Bushnell Elite as the last of these though it was trying to have a big 7.1 FOV (to be an improvement on the other lesser bins).

The "new design style" favors larger FOVs. Say 7.5 degrees minimum for 8x bins and often larger. It seems that most "contenders" today use this style. The Leupold Acadia (and many other bins) fall into this category.

That is true Kevin. I think what engineers were trying to do is provide an image as comparable (for the average consumer) to higher priced offerings as possible. They were also trying to put it in a lightweight and reasonably compact package (for a full sized bin). The compromise for weight and physical length probably resulted in a narrower field of view. More glass probably meant heavier weight and a longer binocular obviously compromises compactness to an extent.

There must have been some optical hurdle that was overcome for these folks to make the field of view wider without compromising other optical characteristics.

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

I'm going to demo these this coming Saturday. Spec-wise they seem to fit the bill but regulars on this forum have rightly pointed out that the spec is only half of it, they need to handle well too. Here's hoping.

Gordon.