jan van daalen
Well-known member
Hi Peter,
This prooves the golden rule: Try before you buy
If you see it, it's there. If you don't it isn't.
But if one sees it, why not at the SF/SV?
Still it's odd that leica refuses any comment.
Jan
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Leica Noctivid 10x42 review (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Tobias Mennle
- Start date
Hi Peter,
This prooves the golden rule: Try before you buy
If you see it, it's there. If you don't it isn't.
But if one sees it, why not at the SF/SV?
Still it's odd that leica refuses any comment.
Jan
Tobias Mennle
Well-known member
John, the guy is Steven Kisilevech from Hamburg, his product is here: https://celerelenses.com
I just send him an email and asked about this statement. Let´s see what he says.
Tobias Mennle
Well-known member
Thanks everyone!
The veiling glare issue, let me try to put it this way. I am enthusiastic about the reference level of absence from flashing crescent, peripheral flares in the Noctivid. This is what causes some users to say it´s a dangerous glass because you will not notice the sun getting close to your view when panning. Also, there are no issues in high contrast situation without direct sun, like white sky and dark forest. But there was still a lot of milky veiling glare when watching against a low but still white and bright sun. As I don´t have another 10x to compare, and (for a change) don´t want to speculate, I cannot rank. Probably the Noctivid is one of the best in this respect, BUT the veiling glare problem is not solved. I would have loved to have the Nikon 8x42 EDG for comparison, that might have been a tad better in my viewing situation.
I had cleaned front lenses of both glasses before observation. The internal blackening of the Noctivid seemed perfect.
The veiling glare issue, let me try to put it this way. I am enthusiastic about the reference level of absence from flashing crescent, peripheral flares in the Noctivid. This is what causes some users to say it´s a dangerous glass because you will not notice the sun getting close to your view when panning. Also, there are no issues in high contrast situation without direct sun, like white sky and dark forest. But there was still a lot of milky veiling glare when watching against a low but still white and bright sun. As I don´t have another 10x to compare, and (for a change) don´t want to speculate, I cannot rank. Probably the Noctivid is one of the best in this respect, BUT the veiling glare problem is not solved. I would have loved to have the Nikon 8x42 EDG for comparison, that might have been a tad better in my viewing situation.
I had cleaned front lenses of both glasses before observation. The internal blackening of the Noctivid seemed perfect.
Tobias Mennle
Well-known member
Torview, about too much contrast, you have a point here which I avoided in my review, because we always have a complex product of our personal vision and the binocular performance. Too much contrast IMO means that for me edges of big objects - branches, or as you say birds in flight - appear almost digitally oversharpened. There is is a process in the brain called lateral inhibition at least partly responsible for that. I would agree the Noctivid has a bit more punch here which is not good for guys with a very good vision, but maybe for the average viewer. It did not bother me too much though.
Tobias Mennle
Well-known member
It need not be a tilted plane as a manufacturing defect. If you tilt the glass slightly downwards, with a field curved away from you, and focused on an object in the middle of the image, part of the foreground will become sharper than it was with a non tilted glass. One pleasure of curved field.
Pseudo3D due to distortion/curved field (and high micro contrast) is definitely not a Fata Morgana. And beyond binoculars it is quite prominent in lenses for imaging purposes once you look for it. I tested two cine lenses yesterday, high end zooms in a similar range from two manufacturers. One quite flat field with great edge performance - but mediocre dimensionality in the image. The other vice versa, not flat field, bad edge performance, great 3D. I know for sure that most of the audience will not notice bad edge performance in a film, but they will subconsciously notice if people (or animals, or whatever the object in the middle is) look real and 3D in a 2D image, or look like cardboard figures. In the film industry, this pseudo3D quality is definitely cherished by many cinematographers, most of which will prefer Angenieux zoom lenses to the technically sometimes better but flatter rendering Canon zooms. With photographers, some still use their old Canon 17-40/4 instead of the brand new 16-35/4 which is technically almost perfect - but boring flat.
Similar applies to binoculars, with the extra element of real stereopsis. I want my bird in the middle of the image to pop out as 3D as possible, and with fore- and background stretching away as much as possible. This is also why I love the 7x42s, the perspective is the most immersive.
The Noctivid is totally great in this 3D respect, because the Leica engineers did not sacrifice this special quality - which easily happens when young bright engineers take over that don´t have a real emotional connection to the magic of an image. It definitely happened in the Swarovision, and partly in the EDG. In the Zeiss SF funnily not, but that was probably not intentional.
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tenex
reality-based
I missed Peter's observation too. Wow... adding variable distortion just to produce a "3D-like" effect, when there are so many errors and corrections going on in an optical system already, sounds like a really terrible idea. (Is that an extra lens, and one reason the NVs are heavy?) Maybe it works for movies where resolution etc aren't critical, but for binos? And then someone wants it all to work with their eyeglasses too?
Now I'm getting really confused. How does having fore/background more in focus relate to having the target "pop out" from the fore/background? In photography it seems to work the other way around. (This may also help me understand why some people like 7x binos so much.)
To me this sounds like the effect you get when you use a super wide-angle lens and get quite close to your main subject which then seems to pop out of a background that stretches away for a huge distance.
Or you could just try smoking some Dutch 'weed'.
We all have our different expectations of what binos can do for us. This seems a little more unusual. I prefer to see the bird or animal in its natural context as opposed to 'popping out' of it. No wonder bino companies have such a hard time pleasing us all.
Lee
Eye placement can affect this greatly so could explain some of the differences of opinion.
Lee
Vespobuteo
Well-known member
The eye pupil might work as a glare stop, so its size vs the exit pupil of the binocular might affect things?
Your on the right track. We all have different eyes, different facial structures and most importantly different brains so everything we see through a binocular we all perceive differently. One person see's 3D and the other person doesn't. One person see's glare and the other person doesn't. One person likes a flat field and sharp edges and the other person doesn't. It is not the binocular or a bad sample of binocular producing these different results it is us. Even though these subjective reviews are fun to read the only truly meaningful tests are objective. One person's favorite binocular can be another person's nightmare. The Habicht 8x30 W comes to mind. Some people love it and some hate it. You might try a binocular based on a subjective review but don't BUY one by it. Try the binocular yourself.
james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
IPD can have a big impact on glare as well, especially crescent glare occurring near the edge of the FOV. If too narrow, these crescents become visible, at least thats the case with some of my binos.
I've actually found that IPD can have an impact on apparent sharpness as well - poorly set IPD can make the sharpest part of the FOV occur outside of dead-centre. This may account for some of the supposed sample variation we hear so much about. I find it takes me several hours, at least, to dial-in a new bin where everything works just so...sometimes several days!
I've actually found that IPD can have an impact on apparent sharpness as well - poorly set IPD can make the sharpest part of the FOV occur outside of dead-centre. This may account for some of the supposed sample variation we hear so much about. I find it takes me several hours, at least, to dial-in a new bin where everything works just so...sometimes several days!
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Robert Moore
Well-known member
I have been comparing my 10x42 Noctivid to my Zeiss conquest hd and the view is so life like in the Noctivid. The Zeiss is extremely flat and although it is very sharp it just isn’t the same. Any thing round like a small flag pole and on tree limbs it is obvious.
Top end cinematography lenses have more resoution not less due to the higher magnification required. A set of Leica superspeeds will set you back $250,000.
More traditional designs like English made Cookes are used by some Oscar winning cameraman because they have more field curvature than flat field designs like Zeiss Planars which have flat planes of focus. The Cooke gives more depth to the image off-axis. If you are filming 2 actors talking they don't need to be parallel to the image plane to both be in focus.
Leica optics have traditionally had plasticity and good colour colour reproduction which gives gentler roll off and a more 3 D look than Zeiss which traditionally have more edge sharpness.
I find some of the posts about the Noctivid having different planes of focus top to bottom baffling. A lens is ground with the radii changing concentrically, although you could glass mould an optic with a wider range of shapes.
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This is my experience too especially when you include optimising the diopter setting.
Lee
I've only tried the Noctivid a couple of times and not recently, so my memory may not be reliable, but to me the characteristics of the view were rather different to the ELSV, SLC, HT, SF, EDG and Kowa Genesis which were on adjacent stands at Birdfair. Yes there were differences in colour and field curvature, but I saw no obvious difference in depth of field or stereopsis. What I did note was a much clearer view of the positional relationship of small detail. It was most clearly illustrated by how the stems intelaced in the reed bed in front of the optics marquee. I remember with the Swaro in particular, it wasn't always easy to discern which crossing stem was in front of the other without some effort. With the Noctivid it was effortless. In the time I had, my perception was that with the Swaro, and to some extent the other, those stems seemed relatively two dimensional compared to the Noctivid. It was easier to see which were tubular and which had been flattened by buffeting. I took it that because they looked like three dimensional strustures, they appeared to have a stronger spatial position. Micro 3D. One thing I should point out is that others, using the same binoculars, on the same scene, on the same day, claimed they saw no difference whatsoever. Whatwever Leica has done with the Noctivid, it seems it isn't appreciated by everyone.
David
David
Mike F
Well-known member
Thanks for these replies. This all makes much more sense than the possibility of easily observable sample variation to me.
14Goudvink
Well-known member
This is what Leica has to say about '3D' in their brochure 'Experience Observation':
"- images of incredible depth and plasticity thanks to perfectly harmonized combination of light transmission, stray light suppression and levels of contrast"
Perfectly clear, no? |:S|
"- images of incredible depth and plasticity thanks to perfectly harmonized combination of light transmission, stray light suppression and levels of contrast"
Perfectly clear, no? |:S|
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henry link
Well-known member
This thread seems like a good place to insert some experiences I've had with veiling glare and less than perfectly clean objective lenses. The photos below show the objective lens of a binocular after about a month of moderate use. When examined from the front under most lighting conditions it actually looks pretty clean, like the left photo, with just a few dust motes. The center photo shows how much worse the buildup of dust and crud appears under direct sunlight coming from just the right angle. The right photo shows the effect on the exit pupil of all that light scattering stuff on the lens surface when direct sunlight falls on the lens from about a 40º angle as the binocular is pointed toward a darkly shadowed area.
Believe it or not, image contrast is only subtly affected by that dirty lens when sunlight is coming from behind the viewer. But, for purposes of testing for veiling glare with strong back lighting a lens that dirty (or even less dirty) will make a binocular with excellent baffling look like it has poor resistance to glare. I've learned that before any test for glare is carried out it should be carefully determined that the front surface of the objective is pristine.
Believe it or not, image contrast is only subtly affected by that dirty lens when sunlight is coming from behind the viewer. But, for purposes of testing for veiling glare with strong back lighting a lens that dirty (or even less dirty) will make a binocular with excellent baffling look like it has poor resistance to glare. I've learned that before any test for glare is carried out it should be carefully determined that the front surface of the objective is pristine.
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