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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Troubador" data-source="post: 3607478" data-attributes="member: 109211">Kowa Genesis 8x33 and Leica Trinovid HD 8x32Hi SteveThe weather was kind today so I am able to respond more quickly than I anticipated.As always, bear in mind these comments are based my perception using my eyes and brain. Others may see things differently.First off these are both great binos and could serve anyone as their sole instrument. There are some differences however.The Kowa is a super smooth design with a knurled metal focus wheel which gives it an entirely different aesthetic from the angular Leica and its large diameter ribbed plastic focuser. Don’t turn your nose up at the word ‘plastic’ there: the vast majority of focus wheels are made out of this versatile engineering material.The Kowa weights 40grams or 1.4ozs less than the Leica but is a tiny 3mm longer. A fundamental difference is that the Leica’s dioptre adjuster is not via a locking collar as on the Kowa. The Leica’s adjuster is only moderately stiff and makes one suspect it might move in the field but actually over a 3 day visit to nature reserves in our county of Suffolk it never moved at all. It has a bright red marker on the dioptre ring and during putting the binos on it is very easy to check if it has moved. The Leica's arrangement makes it less fussy to achieve a dioptre setting while the Kowa's won't need checking now and then to see if it has moved. After a good length of field use you might well find that the Leica's setting doesn't need checking either.Kowa has the Leica beaten on field of view with 140m vs 124m (420ft vs 372ft). While you certainly don’t feel you are looking at an impoverished field of view through the Leica it is an inescapable fact (the 124m calculates to 7.07 deg real angular fov which confirms the apparent fov in Leica’s specifications) that when scanning the sky, or lake or sea or prairie you will be looking at a view 27% larger in area through the Kowa than through the Leica. Swapping between the binos you can easily see the difference.On the other hand the Leica focuses as close as 1.0 metre (a bit less on mine and Troubadoris’s) while the Kowa manages an entirely respectable 1.5 metres. If you enjoy using binos on very close subjects then the Leica pretty much guarantees that when you find yourself close to a perched insect or a lizard frozen into immobility in the hopes that you won’t spot it (or a thousand similar examples), you will never have to take that step backwards to be able to focus on it and by doing that, scare it away. The focus speed of these two are almost identical when checking the number of turns from looking at a farm 2.5miles/4km away to the corner of my office which is 2m/2.19yds away: 0.75 turns for the Kowa and 0.70 turns for the Leica.Optically it is a close match with the Leica being slightly brighter (as was the Conquest) and the Kowa having a bit more contrast. The Kowa's contrast makes it easier and quicker to achieve that final fine focus adjustment with some subjects but comparing the detail revealed I would say they are the same with regard to perceived sharpness. The Kowa has a definite edge when it comes to chromatic aberration: for all practical purposes it has none whereas the Leica does have a tiny amount if you search for it in the most highly contrasting subjects.So there you have it Steve, two fine instruments with the usual balance of characteristics that will make them suit different folks and tastes.  If I had to choose only one of these then it would be the Kowa, but the ultra-close focus of the Leica and it's brightness are very tempting.Lee</blockquote>

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