Excuse me but it is not "foolish banter". It is what I honestly experienced. I found the ergonomics of the Zeiss 8x42 SF excellent and I liked the light feel and balance of it and I thought the focuser was superior to the Swarovski being very smooth and better placed. I thought I had found my favorite binocular but the optics did not work for me. I doubt there was something wrong with the binocular. It was probably just my eyes and facial structure and shallow eye sockets that resulted in the orange rings around the FOV. We are all different and our eyes are different. Everybody gets defensive defending their binocular but they don't work the same for everybody. We all have different eyes and facial structure. I personally had more distortion at the field edge with the SF than the SV and I definitely did not like the orange rings. I am not trying to bash Zeiss. Just relating my personal experience with this model. I am sure for many it is a fine binocular. It wasn't for me.
Is it the last EL that you have ? the first and only EL i ve used is the last one and i found that maybe there is even less friction on the focuser than on Zeiss sf one ! Maybe there is a very little difference between both direction.
For sure ergo of the zeiss is overall better and the focuser is better placed. Weight balance is also better and the field of view is bigger !
till now i have only ordered the zeiss and the swaro to see which one is better for me; so i am not addicted to one brand as the only bino that i ve owned is a way cheaper kowa one !
But after 1 week of extensive comparison i have no doubt that if i spend 2000 euros i want the optic quality of the Swaro and not the Zeiss.
So totally agree with you.
To be honest i was thinking that i will not discern any difference in the quality of the image between this 2 bino before ordering them.....i was wrong !