Bought a pair of the new Wind River Cascades Today.... (1 Viewer)

bodromarsh said:

To my eyes, nothing beats a Leica Trinovid 8x42. To me they are FAR superior to anything Zeiss or Swarovski makes, and slightly better than Leica Ultravid. I honestly don't think there is any other binocular in the world that is as good as a Trinovid.

What makes it good for me is the ease of viewing. I have a lot of trouble with most binoculars with not having one solid image. Most give me two overlapping images that strain my eyes. The Leupold Cascades 8x42 has a slight bit of this overlap issue, but I have seen far worse. Most Steiner binoculars have an easy view for me, but their sharpness is not that great.

When I lift my Leica to my eyes, I can just forget about the binocular and enjoy the view. The binocular becomes a tool to enhance my eyes, and is not a device I am struggling with like so many other binos. There is a certain lamp post outside my house, and with every other bino I have tried, I can pick out this certain screw on it. With Leica Trinovid I can see the cross in the screw where you stick the driver in.

I know I am mentioning Leica a lot, and others have as well, and I wish Old Pirate had looked through them just so we could hear his opinion on them. He certainly seems to be a well-rounded individual with his priorities straight. The thing is, if he is happy with Leupold, I am glad and am not trying to convince him that he made some kind of mistake, or can't tell the difference in binos, I just wish he had tried Leica to see if they struck him as obviously better than the Leupold, something the other big two failed to do.

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Old Pirate said:

I PROMISE I'll find someone selling Leica's in the next few weeks and try them.

I PROMISE to be both objective and honest! But...unless they are appreciably better I'm not going to buy a pair, but I PROMISE I'll acknowledge how I rate them in relation to what I bought.

Is that fair enough?

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Although they were heavy and I ruled them out very early there was another pair I tried called Meopta Meostar (a couple hundred more than Leupold's) that seemed to be the brightest of the bunch,

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Old Pirate said:

I actually stood with three pair of binoculars in front of me and tried them all at the same time.

Zeiss

Swarovski

Leupold

$1,300, $1,070, and $299 respectively.

Ok...the first two were really bright and clear...but so was the third one.

I focused on the same object over and over.

I looked hard for justification for me to pay the top dollar which I was prepared to do. I couldn't see it so I asked the shop owner and long time friend which was the best value.

He said..."if you want to see in the last light of day and the first light of morning then dig deep, but if you are going to use them in the other 95% of daylight then except for name flaunting I can't see the difference either."

I'm happy....except I bought the 10's instead of the 8's. The word is I'm too old to be using 10's.

Supposedly, Swarovski spent a lot of money studying what people should use, and in the end the answer has to do with the date on your birth certificate. Swarovski found after spending nearly a quarter million dollars that we all get tremors as we get older and after age 40 most people can't hold anything more than an eight for a long period of time steady. That of course is a "rule of thumb".

I see a lot of people on all these threads recommending 8's.

If the 10's start to shake too bad I can go back and get 8's and still not have spent half of what I could if I wanted form and not function.

If you want the top end and can afford it..then by all means, but is it truly necessary for what we as hobbyist do? Personally I didn't think so when I had them all in hand.

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