Sooooo. The 12x42's arrived this morning.
My initial impressions of the non-viewing aspects:
- Lighter
- Ergonomics are better
- Surprisingly easy to hand hold even though the forehead rest is not yet with me
- Why did they change the strap from the nylon cords of the EL (which was excellent) to flat nylon tape (less excellent based on past experience)
And viewing (based on 2 hours or so in overcast conditions):
- The FOV is magnificent
- IPD and eyecup has been difficult to get right
- IQ is superb (see below)
Even with 12x the image is vast, edge to edge and immersive. However...oddly my 8.5x42 EL seems sharper and/or more contrasty and more saturated. I do not know if this is due to 8.5 v 12, greater field flattening or just what I am used to.
It's spring here and the land around us is a vast swathe of green grass with cows and sheep (and newborn lambs) all over. The greens seem more green in the EL - which may equally mean that the NL is more colour accurate and exaggerates the colour less. I need a better day really to assess that.
The extra reach is definitely the better answer for me; a Swamp Harrier cruised through looking for lunch and the view of him as he passed by was so much more detailed because I was seeing him that much 'closer'. I had no trouble tracking his flight. Incidentally, a couple of days ago I was looking at the same birds through my Leica Ultravid (non-HD) 10x32. The bird had an awful yellow glow against the sky!
I cannot for the life of me see why they went with flat nylon straps on the neck strap rather than the paracord on the EL. The cord does not twist up in the way the flat tape does so it seemed like a backwards step but perhaps they had their reasons.
I have also found that getting the IPD and eyecup distance correct a bit tricky. There is occasionally a sort of perceived shimmer or fuzziness sometimes in the centre of the fov when panning - it looks a bit like very faint vertical lines or reflection and shows most against a white overcast sky. I fitted the winged eyecups from my EL and that helped. However deciding how far to twist out the eyecups to avoid blackouts is not proving straightforward. Maximum out seems best though.
Overall, as a package, they are certainly a step up on the EL. The lessened flattening of the image is more pleasant and the ergonomics are better for sure.
I checked and I do get the same vertical ghosting in the EL.
I should perhaps mention too that I have had LASIK surgery and one eye is set to close focus, the other to far. Not sure if that would explain anything or not.
I'd be interested in any comment that anyone has who has tried NL and Zeiss SF. The Zeiss 10x42 would be the alternative that I would exchange these for.
I was slightly underwhelmed by these on first outing. Not that they are bad or anything - merely that they did not wow me as I was expecting would be the case.It was not a very good sunny sort of day and won't be until Friday, but the image seemed (and we all know how hard it is to describe these things!) just a little flat.