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7x42 Ultravid (1 Viewer)

I taped my new old UV HD, over the serials, red dot and under thumbrests, with gaffer. Holdability improved substantially - for me, and there are no distracting logos for people to focus on.

I might send the pair in for a cleaning before the end of warranty, as I don't find them really brilliant - maybe standing in a case for a decade did that to them. But they're nice binos, I can read lettering which I can't even see with the naked eye.

Edmund

After using the 7x32 UV HD binos for a few days, I kept having this impression of dullness - so in the end I took them to the local mall which has a shop in shop Leica stand, and the salesman took one look through them and said looking through them was like looking through a veil My own comparison there with an 8x current Trinovid showed a marked difference in brightness, and a 7x should beat an 8x any day, plus or not.

I took the binos to the "official" Leica store in Paris to send back to Leica for testing, I said all I want you to do is send them back to the factory for them to check against the spec, and every time I opened my mouth they told me I was wrong. They couldn't accept them, I'd have to take them back to the place I bought them. They couldn't see a problem, yes they were not bright but "previous generation binos were less bright". The guy at the mall wasn't Leica trained so he didn't know what he was talking about. etc etc. In the end I forced them to send them in for a check, but they wouldn't even accept that a product bought three days earlier from a licensed dealer with a freshly filled in warranty card and customer receipt was under warranty, and said the factory would see "that they were less than ten years old". On the other hand they obviously phoned the dealer because they said "I had tested the binos when I bought them".

I don't know why these binos are a bit veiled - the problem is I can't ebay them without a letter from Leica saying they've been checked because the brightness issue is such that as a private individual I would be open to a charge of defrauding the buyer.

The only thing I and the Leica salesperson agreed on was that the binos were their manufacture, not in the same brightness class as current stock, and that I had not dropped or damaged them in any way.

I thought Leica had their act together a bit more. All they needed to say yes Sir, we will send the product back for a check, thank you, bye.

Edmund
 
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After using the 7x32 UV HD binos for a few days, I kept having this impression of dullness - so in the end I took them to the local mall which has a shop in shop Leica stand, and the salesman took one look through them and said looking through them was like looking through a veil My own comparison there with an 8x current Trinovid showed a marked difference in brightness, and a 7x should beat an 8x any day, plus or not.

Edmund

Do you mean 8x32 or 7x42?

In comparison to what bins do they look "dull"?
 
Do you mean 8x32 or 7x42?

In comparison to what bins do they look "dull"?


My 7x42 look markedly dull compared with current stock Trinovid 8x42, by my comparison.

By my calculation, a 7x42 would be expected to be *brighter* than an 8x42 eg by (1/8) or (1/7) . I don't think new "plus" coatings augmented transmission by 12% or else Leica would be considered to have made an industry breakthrough. And of course a current 7x42 UV HD Plus would be expected to be even brighter than a current 8x42 Trinovid,

so
- by calculation, conservatively speaking I think there is a 25% transmission problem on my glasses, at least.
- by experiment that is just about my feeling of what is missing. It should be better by a 1/3 of stop at least.

Leica salesperson doesn't disagree with the fact that the subjective impression is markedly dull, she didn't compare, she just claims this is normal for a 7x42 Ultravid HD non-plus.

Frankly, I don't care about the details, if I as a customer request they just put the binos through a quality check, my feeling is they should do so as a matter of course, they're a tier one firm. It should take a tech about 5 minutes to mount the binos on a rig, shine the collimator through them, measure the attenuation, and compare it with the standard values for this product.

Edmund
 
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Mmm. Bought a new old stock 7x42 HD (non +) last weekend, and don’t recognize any of your problems. I do had some ‘problems’ in adjusting the diopter. Individually the view was really sharp but with both eyes open my eyes had to adjust a few seconds. But after setting everyrhing back, the problem went away.
 
Compared with current stock Trinovid 8x42, by my comparison.

Leica salesperson doesn't disagree with the fact that the subjective impression is markedly dull, she didn't compare, she just claims this is normal for a 7x42 Ultravid non-plus HD.


Edmund

The special "sparkle" of the HD-Plus models seems to be apparent to some viewers. I got that impression as well when trying them. They just looked a bit more transparent.

But I also recall that Gijs measured the Plus-models and think he said the difference in transmission would be "negligible" or very small/hardly visible compared to the previous version?

One theory is that it might be differences in coatings between older and newer Ultravid HD (non-plus) models as well. Sometimes there are silent updates on coatings. And who knows when HT-glass was actually first introduced in the Ultravids...?
:smoke:
 
The special "sparkle" of the HD-Plus models seems to be apparent to some viewers. I got that impression as well when trying them. They just looked a bit more transparent.

But I also recall that Gijs measured the Plus-models and think he said the difference in transmission would be "negligible" or very small/hardly visible compared to the previous version?

One theory is that it might be differences in coatings between older and newer Ultravid HD (non-plus) models as well. Sometimes there are silent updates on coatings. And who knows when HT-glass was actually first introduced in the Ultravids...?
:smoke:

If I get a letter from Leica saying they are ok, then I can simply ebay them and get something brighter. A used sale of an Ultravid HD will just about get me a perfectly decent pair of Zeiss Conquest and lunch, I think. I would prefer of course to have a pair of bright Leica binos and buy my own lunch. I have hopes that Leica Germany will solve the issue somehow.

Edmund
 
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I have to say that I find this very puzzling. I have the 7x42 UVHD+ and I certainly see ‘sparkle’. However I also have a 2012-15 8x42 Trinovid, which according to some has the same optics as the original UV. However, the optics certainly cannot be better than the original UV, and yet, and even considering the fact that it’s 8x and not 7x, I would still not dream of describing it as dull in comparison to the 7x42+. Lacking that special sparkle that the 7x42+ has? - yes. Not as bright as the 7x42+? - yes. Dull - definitely not! There has to be something wrong with your 7x42’s.
 
If I get a letter from Leica saying they are ok, then I can simply ebay them and get something brighter. A used sale of an Ultravid HD will just about get me a perfectly decent pair of Zeiss Conquest and lunch, I think. I would prefer of course to have a pair of bright Leica binos and buy my own lunch. I have hopes that Leica Germany will solve the issue somehow.

Edmund

Edmund, just a thought which I expect you have already considered and acted on yourself... are the objective lenses dusty from years of lying in a shop? I ask because a pair of UVHDs I used to have (eights which I sold in p/ex for my amazingly good new sevens) gave a surprisingly degraded image as a result of just a thin layer of dust, itself a result of my not fitting the objective caps. The difference after a careful clean was very pleasing.

I now take the advice Leica always gives in regard to its camera lenses: if possible don't clean the lenses, but keep them clean in the first place!

Tom
 
Edmund, just a thought which I expect you have already considered and acted on yourself... are the objective lenses dusty from years of lying in a shop? I ask because a pair of UVHDs I used to have (eights which I sold in p/ex for my amazingly good new sevens) gave a surprisingly degraded image as a result of just a thin layer of dust, itself a result of my not fitting the objective caps. The difference after a careful clean was very pleasing.

I now take the advice Leica always gives in regard to its camera lenses: if possible don't clean the lenses, but keep them clean in the first place!

Tom



They were dusty, oculars too, I cleaned them.
There might be some chemical deposit which I'm not seeing.
We'll see how it goes.

Edmund
 
The special "sparkle" of the HD-Plus models seems to be apparent to some viewers. I got that impression as well when trying them. They just looked a bit more transparent.

But I also recall that Gijs measured the Plus-models and think he said the difference in transmission would be "negligible" or very small/hardly visible compared to the previous version?

One theory is that it might be differences in coatings between older and newer Ultravid HD (non-plus) models as well. Sometimes there are silent updates on coatings. And who knows when HT-glass was actually first introduced in the Ultravids...?
:smoke:
I certainly didn't see any sparkle, I did think maybe the + was just a bit more color neutral, but even then only noticed it in side/side comparison against a truly white testing surface. I tried them (8x models) side by side for several hours with some colleagues in the field. Fun stuff, but again shows the different views different eyes will produce through the same model.

Justin
 
I certainly didn't see any sparkle, I did think maybe the + was just a bit more color neutral, but even then only noticed it in side/side comparison against a truly white testing surface. I tried them (8x models) side by side for several hours with some colleagues in the field. Fun stuff, but again shows the different views different eyes will produce through the same model.

Justin

Just for the record, and I know this is totally subjective anyway, but it’s the 7x42 HD+ which some described as having a special brightness or sparkle, not the 8x.
 
BTW, I called Leica customer service Germany, explained that Leica St Honoré had refused to acknowledge my brand new UV HD were under direct warranty,and had refused to check the warranty box on the service receipt. I emailed Leica customer care Germany the receipt that documents this fact, as well as the binos filled in warranty card. I asked them to track the issues. The lady in Germany had told me that anyway her colleagues in Portugal would deal with whatever it is.

So in due course I hope to get back my bino in factory spec, and enjoy the viewing, and have the matter closed. As an artist my observations through are only a few seconds at a time, enough to fix detail and draw it, but I still need a pair of binos that is "perceptually transparent".

Edmund
 
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You do?
Care to elaborate?
If true, and whether they be Noctivids or 32mm Uvids, people here are interested in what you know.

At the moment all I want is my 7x42 UV HD back from repair, and nice bright and contrasty, as I kind of like the model :)

When I've scratched my itch, we can deal with yours :)

Edmund
 
Yeah, I don’t know what any of that means.
I’ll go by the assumption that you don’t have any special knowledge about this and that it was a throwaway comment
 
On a totally unrelated note, do people here feel that at age 60+ one gets more out of an 8x42 than an 8x32 daytime? In other words is the UV 42 superior in practice to the 32?

Edmund
 
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