Thank you, GG.
That latter point is a very good observation, and I fully agree with you and expect Leica will exactly do that (they are in fact the ones who have made in the past that kind of continuous improvements over time)
Regarding the first point, maybe I did not make myself clear enough, and I appreciate you bringing it up:
I think the Noctivid "beats"the competition on
- mechanics, esp. the focus /diopter mechanism
- well "rounded" field of view, very comfortable in panning (yes, the SF has a much wider field of view, but that, together with the distortion characteristics, comes at the the price of a massive globe effect, esp. in the 8x SF)
- warm, attractive, "cozy" image with high level of sharpness and contrast. As I said, I so far preferred the "cold" images provided by the SFs and EL SVs over the saturated image of the Ultravid, but the Noctivid seems to combine color saturation with a high level of "sharpness".
Of course, everybody's eyes are different, and I would never dare to go and buy an expensive bino just based on someone else's impressions. As you say, you will have to go and see for yourself.
And, of course as well, a number of very subjective factors also influence your decision when selecting a nice binocular - just think of the criteria based on which most people, myself included, buys cars ;-)
If I had to make a rating of the reviewed six binos in the sense of "which alpha binocular would you buy and, if it were not available, what would be your next pick?", I would probably say the following, based on many - more or less subjective - factors (this is current thinking and subject to getting wiser - I probably shouldn't even write this down):
1. EL SV
2. SF
3. Noctivid
4. HT
5. Ultravid
6. EDG
So the Noctivid made it right away and easily to rank 3 - as mentioned, it didn't blow me away, but it placed itself solidly among the top tier binos right away - not so bad after all !
Canip
