The EL was (and still is) a brilliant design, the marketing was equally good. The success of the EL coincided with Swarovski's big push into the birding world in general, getting involved with all sorts of high profile enviromental projects. It became almost fashionable to have a pair of EL's around your neck... and judging from the recent birdfair, it still is, though the amount of birders with old Zeiss around their necks nearly equalled EL's? BN's were very evident but Ultravids were almost invisible after 12 months on the market, and they are optically better than the EL's. The style of the EL may carry it through another year or two and it does just feel right in many peoples hands.John Traynor said:Andy,
Some of you have owned and used the EL 8.5/42 for many years. I have a simple question for you.
In your opinion, is the FL going to displace the EL as THE premier birding bin?
I know...it's not a simple question. However, if people are selling their EL's and purchasing FL's either they need the cash to buy the "latest and greatest", or they truly think the FL is the bin they'll use day in and day out. Which is it?
How about Peter Dunne? He helped design the EL and now praises the Ultravid...
http://www.njaudubon.org/NatureNotes/PickPackBinos9-03.pdf
Will Swarovski have to enhance their bins or is the EL line good enough to command the prices they do?
John
If optical quality is the prime consideration, the FL will be the premier bino..... but like I say, there are other factors. I suspect we will just have to wait and see. There is some sort of backlash going on in regards to Swarovski at present, maybe as much to do with it's perceived trendiness (a dude's bino you would say in the U.K.) as pricing... which is a little unfair as it was optically at (or near) the top up until just 12 months or so ago.
For my own part (someone selling their EL's), I can afford the FL's so why not?... to me they are visibly better rather than reputably the better. I'm not too bothered with having a 'sexy' bino around my neck (nothing will ever help to make me look trendy!), they are little more than tools to me.
I must admit, I don't see any mass selling of EL's... quite a few people I have seen have sold their 42mm EL's to buy 32mm EL's (downsizing seems popular with the brightness achieved by modern 32mm binos)
Leica and Swarovski are companies that like to get well known figures onboard, the reasons for people to change sides are sometimes genuine love of the product....sometimes not.
Still, it's great to have so many great binos out there to choose from. Birders have never had it so good. Be interesting if someone can produce prices from 1970 or so and compare them in real terms to prices today (inflation et al). Recently everyone in the U.K. was complaining about the price of driving a car, in reality it's no different to 30 years ago... fuel, insurance and suchlike. In some ways car ownership was found to be cheaper today.
regards,
Andy