The Cult of 8x32 Trinnie Owners
Welcome Nature Elvis!
First off, I gotta ask, does Nature Elvis wear only his birthday suit?
The number of posts about user preference for older model bins keep mounting with each new thread on this forum and other bin forums such that calling them "cherry picked" (a phrase that shall live in infamy) is clearly a misnomer (unless, of course, these are the same miscreants, using different user names and conspiring together.
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Speaking generally, my experience with roofs has been that each new generation (but not always upgrades to the same bin) seems to have "improved color accuracy," as Kevin put it. This includes the 8x30 SLCNeu, though the latter day "Alts" allegedly have the same coatings as the "Neu," but that's hard to say "apples with apples" since Swaro is "continually updating their coatings".
(Btw, are you aware that you have to use your ring finger or pinky to focus with the 8x30 SLC? Not everybody's cup o' tea including me. What makes this odd placement even more challenging is the fact that the focuser moves somewhat coarsely in one direction).
I'd add "color saturation" too since it's not just how true the colors are to what you see with your unaided eyes, but also the intensity of the colors and the ability for the user to detect subtle variations within an expanded color palette that I find the most impressive in the current generation of roofs (or even in the Nikon HG from a decade ago - a bin that was ahead its time, and if Nikon had done a better job controlling CA, it would still be current).
With birding, and particularly for those who are keen on distinguishing different varieties within species, and males from females, juveniles from adults, color rendition is important.
For birding in general, color rendition is important and color saturation is an added bonus, because colors are the real attraction of birds. If all birds were black from head to toe like crows, would the hobby be growing like a weed? I doubt it. But we would have had ED glass in roofs a lot sooner.
Even though coatings and glass technology seems to have peaked even before this point in terms of further changes yielding only incremental improvements (another "infamous phrase") -- looking back, there seems to be certain bins that stand out from the crowd.
One of those is the Leica 8x32 Trinnie, which has an almost cult-like following similar to the 8x32 SE in porros.
To the point where even a confessed porromaniac like myself was tempted to buy one - a trade-in 8x32 BA for $550 from a dealer - but I went with an 8x32 HG instead for the same price, based largely upon on Stephen Ingraham's reference list in which the HG had superseded the Leica 8x32 Trinnie.
However, like Sophie, I have always wondered if I had made the wrong choice.
Brock (former HG owner/Nikon SE Cult Member since 1998)