james holdsworth
Consulting Biologist
A friend came over for a glassing session from my back deck, armed with his brand new Habicht 8x30 and his SV 8.5X42 for reference. I also did some direct comparisons with my HT and a few Zeiss Classic models.
The Habicht was simply superb - very bright, superbly colour neutral and transparent with great apparent sharpness and contrast. Comparing the three [Habicht, HT, SV] there was little in it - both the Habicht and SV showed more glare and a bit more CA at the edge and the SV [to my eyes] always looks a bit bluish and colder than the other two. The Habicht and SV had larger sweetspots.
About glare, as much has been written on this for the Habicht - yes, it was there - low bright sun scattered through spruce branches, ideal for veiling glare, but it was never so bad as to obliterate the view and certainly wasn't as horrid as I expected.
Now, to address the idea of using the Habicht as a daily birding glass - forget it, never, no way, no how. The focus is ridiculously stiff and slow and even stiffened more in the 3 C temps. You would peel the skin from your fingertips trying to keep up with actual living / flying birds. So, a wonderful reference standard and boutique bin but not a birding optic IMO.
The SV continues to impress - marvelously easy, walk-in picture window view with no blackouts, fantastically sharp and contrasty - only lags behind the HT a bit in poor light in terms of brightness / glare / contrast. Maybe a hair ahead in good light though, which I thought I would never say....that said, still love the HT and have no need / compulsion to ever trade ''up'', down or sideways.
The Habicht was simply superb - very bright, superbly colour neutral and transparent with great apparent sharpness and contrast. Comparing the three [Habicht, HT, SV] there was little in it - both the Habicht and SV showed more glare and a bit more CA at the edge and the SV [to my eyes] always looks a bit bluish and colder than the other two. The Habicht and SV had larger sweetspots.
About glare, as much has been written on this for the Habicht - yes, it was there - low bright sun scattered through spruce branches, ideal for veiling glare, but it was never so bad as to obliterate the view and certainly wasn't as horrid as I expected.
Now, to address the idea of using the Habicht as a daily birding glass - forget it, never, no way, no how. The focus is ridiculously stiff and slow and even stiffened more in the 3 C temps. You would peel the skin from your fingertips trying to keep up with actual living / flying birds. So, a wonderful reference standard and boutique bin but not a birding optic IMO.
The SV continues to impress - marvelously easy, walk-in picture window view with no blackouts, fantastically sharp and contrasty - only lags behind the HT a bit in poor light in terms of brightness / glare / contrast. Maybe a hair ahead in good light though, which I thought I would never say....that said, still love the HT and have no need / compulsion to ever trade ''up'', down or sideways.
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