A list of Leica's most iconic/significant binoculars for each decade (1 Viewer)

ronh said:

Later Leicas have lighter materials, sleeker housings, and better coatings and glass, but unchanged functions, length, eye relief, field correction, and field of view.

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That does seem to have been true for a long time, but field correction finally changed in 2012 with the Trinovid 42, which has a distinctly flatter field. This just wasn't publicized, which seems a bit odd. I think it's a real improvement.

Leitz Trinovid 6x24 eye relief

etudiant said:

Only shortcoming was the minuscule eye relief, so the full field was withheld from those wearing glasses.

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Actually, Leitz did make at least a few 6x24 Trinovids with a shorter eyepiece mount and fold-down rubber eye-cups; while this wasn't a true 'B' long-relief eyepiece, it did offer much more of the very wide field of view to eyeglass wearers. It made the 6x24 into a really cool bino, in my opinion. I have seen one example of this, #775878; it's not marked as a 'B' model, but it does have the different eyepiece mount and the rubber eye-cups. It also has the later squared neckstrap lugs.

Etiennef said:

I believe the first rubber eye cups are referred to as 10mm eyecups and the later versions were 14mm.

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The "B" models were all fitted with 14mm eyecups (except the 7x42 Which had 19mm).

The 10mm eyecups were a later introduction so that people with non "B" models with hard eyecups could swap them for rubber eyecups.

garymh said:

The 10mm eyecups were a later introduction so that people with non "B" models with hard eyecups could swap them for rubber eyecups.

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But it must reasonably have been standard with soft non-B eyecups for some time?
If it was only a "retrofit" it's a bit strange that the manual that came with my Trinovid (non-B) shows rubber eyecups in the pictures. See attached example.

That is strange - the picture is a non B model (150m/1000m) but it has rubber eyecups. I think Leitz experimented with different things and the picture in your manual is one of those.

In my collection I have a 10x40 B with 14mm rubber eyecups which was manufactured in 1968 (with a 105m/1000m FOV !!!!). The 10x40 B, however, was not introduced until 1973.

During my time at Leica we supplied 10mm rubber eyecups to people with "non B" models and 14mm ones to people with "B" models.

The timeline for the changes is :

1963 6x24, 8x32 and 10x40 introduced.
1965 7x35 B introduced (May)
8x40 B introduced (Autumn)
1968 7x42 B introduced
1973 8x32 and 10x40 made available as "B" models with a slightly
different optical design - hence the loss of FOV.

Perhaps the most important Leitz binocular was the 1st series Trinovid launched in 1958. There were two models - 7x42 and 8x40.

It was the first binocular to have the dioptre control incorporated into the focus wheel and the first binocular to use moving lenses behind the objectives to achieve focus.

Sadly it was too expensive and only a few hundred were manufactured.