Thotmosis
Well-known member
Very good news
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Service of out-of-warranty Leica Trinovid 10x42 BA (1009xxx) (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter geastrum
- Start date
Thotmosis
Well-known member
After comparing my UVHD 7x42 with the “new” 7x42 BN i find the differences not that big. I would not upgrade from BN to UVHD.I've been reading quite a lot of threads on this, and the overall impression seems to be that the top offerings from Leica has optically been remarkably similar over the last 30 years since the launch of the Trinovid BA series in 1990. Allbino's review of the Ultravid HD+ is sums it up quite well:
"Firstly, the results show unanimously that, within the margin of measurement error, the HD-Plus model is practically the same as the HD model. [...] So we have a situation where the Ultravid HD doesn’t differ markedly from the Ultravid BR and the Ultravid BR is an almost identical copy of the Trinovid but closed in a lighter casing. It seems that for almost 25 years, Leica haven’t introduced any innovative optical solutions to its key series of binoculars. Of course, the weight reduction and hydrophobic coatings are appreciated, along with a slight transmission increase or a tad wider field of view. Still, such a reputable company should have done better, especially if you take into account the length of the period of time we are talking about. [...] To sum up, the Leica Ultravid 10x42 HD-Plus is a very good set of binoculars - almost exactly as good as its direct predecessors and the predecessors of its predecessors too. We hope the next model of this series will be truly different, not a merely refreshed version of the same device with just a few cosmetic changes."
It's an interesting read:
Leica Ultravid HD-Plus 10x42 - binoculars review - AllBinos.com
The best binocular tests on the net. The comprehensive database of binoculars with their parameters and users opinions. Interesting articles and comparisons.www.allbinos.com
So my very early model will have worse closing focus distance, a bit lower transmission, a little bit lower contrast, very slightly smaller fov, and less durable coatings than your model. But still produce an image that's remarkably similar in terms of resolution, flatness, color etc.
Allbino's seem to be pretty critical of Leica because of this lack of innovation, but the other interpretation is of course that Leica really nailed the optical design of the Trinovid BA already in 1990, to the extent that they have only really needed to make small tweaks to stay competitive with other makers all the way until very recently.
But you will also find reports on this forum of people that have used Trinovid BA/BNs for many years that have finally bought a more recent top model and feel that the newer model is a marked improvement in terms of brightness and contrast.
Thotmosis
Well-known member
Great news geastrum, keep us updated. I’m very curious how it works out for you as I’m thinking of sending my Trinovid to Portugal for a (cleaning) service and a new armor.
Aaaand they are back!
Focus is smooth from end to end; feels exactly as when I tried new Trinovids in the stores in the late 1990s. Beautiful new armouring. New eyecups snap into place nicely. The missing central cap on the focus wheel has been replaced. As before, I got the best image with the diopter setting at 0 both near and far with glasses on; so no complaints there. Prisms looks nice and clean. Produce a beautiful image.
Close focusing distance is now 3.8m (measured), compared to 4.6m stated in the specs for 10x42 BA and 2.95m for 10x42BN. So definately "a modest degree of adjustment" as predicted by tenex, but still a marked improvement IMHO. Kind of wish I had measured the focusing distance before I sent them in, though.
A few surprises:
But I am definately a happy camper.
Focus is smooth from end to end; feels exactly as when I tried new Trinovids in the stores in the late 1990s. Beautiful new armouring. New eyecups snap into place nicely. The missing central cap on the focus wheel has been replaced. As before, I got the best image with the diopter setting at 0 both near and far with glasses on; so no complaints there. Prisms looks nice and clean. Produce a beautiful image.
Close focusing distance is now 3.8m (measured), compared to 4.6m stated in the specs for 10x42 BA and 2.95m for 10x42BN. So definately "a modest degree of adjustment" as predicted by tenex, but still a marked improvement IMHO. Kind of wish I had measured the focusing distance before I sent them in, though.
A few surprises:
- the box it came back with was ridiculously undersized with bulging sides.
- the tattered strap and Zeiss-branded raing guard had not been replaced. I somewhat regret not asking specifically for a new rain guard.
But I am definately a happy camper.
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Thank you! I wholeheartedly agree.
Just cleaning. There's a very small scratch on one eyepiece. Besides that, the glass is in remarkably good shape - especially considering how rough the exterior looked when I got them.
Well, I’m gravitating towards sending mine in as well, they did a really good job cleaning those lenses geastrum.
Enjoy them in good health the coming 30 years
Thanks Thotmosis! They did do a fine job. I especally like to know that the prisms have been looked over.
Although I love quality optics, I am not one that changes binoculars often. Before buying the Leicas, I exclusively used a pair of Swarovski SLC 8x30 WB (Mark II, upgraded to Mark III some years ago) for 22 years. I believe I bought them in 2001, and remember paying 3500SEK (330USD) for them, used, with the salary from my first summer job as a store clerk. But over time have started to feel I would prefer a 10x with a bit better resolution. Having used the Leica's now for a couple of weeks, I definately feel that they offer exactly the upgrade I had been hoping for. I have thus decided to sell my 8x30s and continue to use the Leicas as my one and only bins. I did consider to keep the 8x30s as a smaller pair for travel, but they are actually not that much smaller than the 10x42s. The Leica's are really remarkably compact (and dense!).
Thotmosis
Well-known member
They look gorgeous and I like really your thinking geastrum. Just one binocular is perfect for most situations. I used my Swift Audubon 10x50 (bought for 900 Dutch guilders in 1999) for more than 20 years in combination with a small Eschenbach Club 8x20 that i inherited from my father. I travelled the world with them. I replaced the Eschenbach with a Leica 10x25 some years ago and that would have been ok. But then i moved to Crete and in preparation i bought a used Ultravid 8x32 and a Zeiss fieldscope for trekking. Well then came corona and was forced to sit inside the house and i indulged myself in binoculars and I’m afraid I became addicted. A man doesn’t need more than one binocular honestly but it really makes me happy now that i can afford them. But i would also be very happy to just own one or two but to choose…..the 7x42 Trinovid could be one for sure. Still thinking to give them a service and green armor or not.
I’ve often wondered, both before and after buying the 7x42 Ultravid, if I couldn’t have been just as happy with the Trinovid instead. Hard to say at this point really, but I like the 8x32 Trinovid well enough that I’m planning on selling off my HD+, even though there is a big difference in certain settings. On the other hand I may end up doing nothing and just keeping both by default.
What is sure though, any BN or Ultravid is definitely worthy of filling whatever spot they fit into.
Thotmosis
Well-known member
Having both the Triinovid and the UV HD now: i wouldn’t update to UV HD if i had the Trinnie but it’s nice to have both and in some situations the UV is the better one (focus, spikes). I never sold a binocular, i would rather give them away to a good friend or relatieve.
brocknroller
porromaniac
Good to hear they are back in shape! The fact that they only charged you $268 impresses me.
I've wanted to buy a Leica for a looong time but I could only afford to buy them used, and since they do not cover out of warranty bins like Swarovski, and because I've heard some used Leica owners complain about the high cost of repairs, I balked at some good deals since I figured what I saved upfront, I'd pay through the nose for later on when something broke down.
But your experience makes me more open to purchasing a Leica on the used market in the future (by which time the UVHD+ will be 30 years old).
I think it also shows the benefit of Leica making more or less the same bins for 30 years, since they always have spare parts on hand.
Brock
John M Robinson
Well-known member
I own a pair of 8x42 Ultravid BRs I bought new in 2010 or so, right when the HDs were coming out. These BRs were a cherry pair the store owner thought were sharper than anything he had in the store at that time. I’ve honestly never been able to see in improvement in HDs or HD+s that came along later. Anyway, my bins came with a “Lifetime Passport “ warranty card that I still have. It was my understanding at the time that this was a no-fault warranty, if I ran the binos over with my truck, send the pieces in and they would repair or replace for no charge. Since then Leica went through stages of terrible customer service, strict shorter term warranty policies and only recently shifting back to a more generous company policy.
brocknroller
porromaniac
That's good to hear. I don't know what the length of the current warranty is on Leica bins either, but long warranties are a two-edged sword. On one hand, it inspires confidence and creates value beyond the product itself. OTOH, if you get a 30-warranty on a good product, are you going to sell it to buy a new one at a higher price with a shorter warranty because it now has ++ coatings and different body style? Some would, but many would not. What to do? For one thing, you can resurrect a classic like Leica did with the Retrovid, so instead of buying used classics, the consumer buys new ones with updated coatings. Clever. Well, almost, they aren't WP. So, I might as well buy a classic porro (and I did).
I don't expect to live to be a centenarian like George Burns, Olivia de Havilland and Normal Lear (creator of All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, and Good Times, which I mention since I'm not sure his name or shows are known on the side of the pond), so I won't be around in 30 years to use that long warranty unless billionaire Dmitry Itskov is successful at attainting 'immortality' by uploading his brain to a computer, and the price of immortality comes down to the price of an alpha.
None-the-less, I feel reassured when optics companies stand behind their binoculars with a long warranty period, but as I mentioned earlier, that can work with the Trinnie/Ultravids, because Leica has been making the same bin with minor variations for 30 years. What if my the balsam separates on my 8x32 SEs under lifetime warranty? Nikon is going to send me an 8x30 HG. It's not the same bin, not even a porro.
Swaro has been making the ELs for decades, too, and I would guess that many of the parts in the pre-SVs can be swapped for the SV Els, so there should be a warehouse full of spare parts for some time despite the 8x32 EL being discontinued.
Lasting value in optics seems to ring the bell with some birders, while others seem to clamor for the latest and greatest though what they seem to actually get is incremental improvements on an old design or the same optics in a new package. I read one reviewer of the HT describe that model as an FL with a face lift. The FL was very good, but some people had issues with the ergonomics and the plasticy body, so they designed a new metal body around the FL optics. The HT didn't seem to "catch fire" with birders as much as hunters, hence, the SFs and SF Lights.
If the original design was well made to begin with, repackaging it can be a good thing, but what's not good is that those incremental improvements come with a heavy price tag. So, I understand why some birders prefer to buy old Trinnie BAs and BNs, or old SLCs or Els, and if necessary, get them repaired. They are interested in value.
The scopesview.com reviewer rated almost all aspects of the SFL highly, but rated it 5/10 for value since he didn't think it was as robustly built as the SF, and wondered how the warranty would work since it was made in Japan, not Germany. Some BF members disagreed with him, but I give him credit for at least considering value as something to be counted in binoculars reviews. You won't see that category listed on Allbinos, although Arek does sometimes address that issue in his commentary at the end. For example, he thought the 8x30 HG was not significantly better than the 8x30 M7 to justify the HG's much higher price.
I hate to get on my high horse (with arthritic hips, it would be easier to get on a pony), but consumer capitalism relies on the disposability of goods, hence the term 'disposable income." That creates a lot of junk.
To quote the Mop Top Bard:
Buy, buy says the sign in the shop window,
Why? Why? says the junk in the yard.
OTOH, one could make the argument that consumer demand is what drives innovation. If Zeiss engineers had not developed p-coatings to meet the demand for sharper, smaller, WP roof prism binoculars, and If Schott hadn't invented dielectric coatings, roofs wouldn't be as sharp and not "shine" as bright as porros, and we'd all be still using porros and wearing silly hat umbrellas to keep them dry, or struggling to turn the tight WP porro focusers. We'd also be saving a lot of money since porros are less expensive to produce.
If all companies made binoculars, cameras, vehicles, appliances, electronics, etc. that lasted for decades instead of years, we would all buy what we needed/wanted, and then instead of buying more, we'd save our money like the Japanese, and economic growth would slow down, we'd have to be happy with what we already have, and where's the fun in that, Jack?
Let's forget about China and start making our own stuff again, folks!
That, dear friends, concludes my annual State of the Optics address.
Average Joe 😎
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John M Robinson
Well-known member
I loved the 8x32 BN, it fit so well in the hand just a very nice package but the 42mm size Trinny, nicknamed “the brick” was awkward and heavy compared to its Ultravid cousin. The Ultravids and Trinovid BNs definitely share that Leica view, but again, I think the Ultravids are a little brighter due to more advanced coatings internally.
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