I hope I'm wrong, but is Leica's updated Televid already playing second fiddle?
Jaeger,
I don't think so. They certainly have prioritized certain features differently from some of their competitors, but I believe they have made many good choices from birdwatcher's point of view. Sorry about the lengthy post. :hi:
1. Marketing
They have replaced the lower end achromat models with "HD" (which incidentally is how Swarovski calls their high-end models). They also one-upped Swaro's 80mm...
2. Scope body
The main complaint of the earlier APO77 were the length and weight. Now they made the scope lighter in weight and increased light gathering power: fine! Personally I wouldn't mind carrying a 85 or 88mm scope, but I don't think 82mm will be a disadvantage. In Jan Meijerink's tests with Kowa scopes
http://www.tvwg.nl/testrapporten/telescoop/kowa tsn-773+883.htm you can see that an excellent 82mm scope has just as good resolution as a good/average 88mm scope. Smaller lenses are also easier to make cost-efficiently consistent. The APO77 had a very fast focal ratio, but (in good samples) its colour correction was already excellent - now the 82mm (and 65mm) apparently have slower focal ratio, which should further improve correction of aberrations.
3. Eyepiece
At first thought the 25-50xASPH may sound like a step down from a 20-60x, but if you think about the way most birdwatchers use the zoom, it may start to make sense. IMO the traditional 20-60x zooms are almost unacceptable compromises, which are difficult to use comfortably:
- You get nice, wide views (AFOV) but only at high powers which are more often than not useless due to atmospherics.
- You get good eye-relief, but only at powers that are often too low and the AFOV is narrow like looking down to a toilet paper roll.
- You get everything in between the 20x and 60x, but only at lousy eye-reliefs.
- Only 20x works well in digiscoping.
These are why many birdwatchers prefer 30x wides.
Now, with the 25-50x Leica has been able to bring a good, stable general-purpose a) power, b) eye-relief and c) (true and apparent) FOV all in the SAME zoom setting (25x)... and a possibility to increase the power 2x when necessary. Obviously you can't have everything, and so Leica bravely gave up some zoom range for a better "zoom experience". It may not be quite as easy to sell on the paper than, say, a 4x zoom (= more than 3x), but I believe there is demand among digiscopers, users of fixed wide-angles and those users who are not completely happy with any of the current zooms.
Best regards,
Ilkka :t: