Leica UVHD+... all I can say is that the view is simply "DELICIOUS" (1 Viewer)

[Allen]

I appreciate that this thread is about Leica UVHD+ 10 x 42 but out of interest is there much difference optically v the original UVHD? I notice Allbinos review notes very little difference between the optical performance of these but wondered how that translates in the field.

 

[[email protected]]

I appreciate that this thread is about Leica UVHD+ 10 x 42 but out of interest is there much difference optically v the original UVHD? I notice Allbinos review notes very little difference between the optical performance of these but wondered how that translates in the field.

I have had all the Leica's from the older Trinovid BN to latest Noctivid and Allbinos is correct in that there is not a huge difference in the performance. Really the only difference from the UVHD to the UVHD+ is Schott glass in the prism, which gives you about a 2% increase in transmission, which is hardly noticeable. Of course there are differences in the build quality and ergonomics, but optically there are not any huge differences. That is why if you want a Leica and you want to save money, you are almost better off getting an older Trinovid or BR instead of the Noctivid. Some people will argue with you, especially those that have spent $2.5K for the Nocitvid but after having a lot of different Leicas I personally agree with Allbinos. Leica got it right the first time, and they haven't had to make a lot of changes. They are not trying to keep up with the flat field and huge FOV designs of the latest Zeiss and Swarovski. Leica's are known for their high level of color saturation and really beautiful view. If you like a colorful or as some describe it, delicious view, you will like a Leica.

 

[Allen]

Thanks Denco......I've had a pair of 10 x 42 UVHDs for years so was just interested.

 

[tenex]

As soon as I picked up the Noctivids the depth of field was one of the first things that popped out to me. Objects in front and back of an object being observed were in focus more so than the 8x32 and 8x42 UVHD’s. It was noticeable and not expected.

I've been wondering about this comment myself, as objects "in front" tend to be lower in the field and "in back" higher... so are you noticing a flatter field (less field curvature) in the NV, or does it really have so different a focal length as to show greater DOF?

 

[Paultricounty]

I appreciate that this thread is about Leica UVHD+ 10 x 42 but out of interest is there much difference optically v the original UVHD? I notice Allbinos review notes very little difference between the optical performance of these but wondered how that translates in the field.

I don’t really make decisions much on the specs or reviews. They seem to be more analytically driven with numbers and figures and less to do with what the eyes see. I like to get opinions of other users experiences and then go try them out for myself to see what others have expressed.

If I had the UVHD, I wouldn’t buy the UVHD+ even if they were slightly better. Optically and mechanically the differences in my opinion may not be worth it. If I was deciding to buy them new, of course I would go with the plus version.

Although older out of production high quality Binoculars are always a good option I’d prefer getting the latest and greatest if I was already going to spend big dollars.

From my initial impressions of the Noctivids and the UVHD+ , the Noctivids are noticeably superior. Build quality is second to none. If you’re ever in a situation and you run out of bullets, you could use them like a hammer 🤪. The jump in from the regular UVHD would only be greater.

I've been wondering about this comment myself, as objects "in front" tend to be lower in the field and "in back" higher... so are you noticing a flatter field (less field curvature) in the NV, or does it really have so different a focal length as to show greater DOF?

hmmm that’s an interesting question, the Noctivids definitely have a flatter field than the UVHD. Theres definitely less distortion at the edges as well. As far as focal length they are longer than the UVHD, but we/I don’t know where and how the optics are laid out in the tubes. I am sure somebody here would know and may even have a schematic of the internals of both of them. That may answer our question.

 

[henry link]

Depth of field in binoculars is not established in the same way as DOF in cameras. That's because telescopes are afocal devices that have no depth of field. The light that emerges from the eyepiece and falls on the eye is no more focused than the light that originally fell on the objective lens of the binocular. It is the eye's lens and cornea, that bring the afocal light of the binocular's output to a focused image on the retina in exactly the same way that they bring the afocal light that normally falls on the eye from the world around us to focus on the retina.

The binocular does modify the DOF of the eye in two ways.

Firstly, the out-of focus circle of confusion in front and back of a focused point source of light is magnified by the binocular's magnification just as if it were a focused circular object, so the circle of confusion is 25% larger in a 10x binocular than it is in an 8x binocular for an unfocused point at the same distance in front or behind a focused point and is therefore perceived as more defocused. However, all binoculars of the same magnification have inherently the same size circle of confusion and therefore the same DOF.

Secondly, a binoculars exit pupil may decrease the effective size of the eye's entrance pupil if the binocular's exit pupil is smaller than the eye's pupil. Under this condition the focal ratio of the eye is increased just like in a stopped down camera lens and the eye's depth of field increases. In that way a small exit pupil binocular may impose a wider DOF on the eye's optics in low light conditions compared to a large exit pupil binocular.

There are literally no ways at all that a binocular can be intentionally designed to increase its true DOF other than by employing low magnification and/or a small exit pupil. So, why are there so many subjective reports of more or less DOF observed in bright sunlight through binoculars of the same magnification? I think it's simply because other things can masquerade as increased or decreased DOF. Field curvature, as mentioned above, is one. Differences in the speed of focusers is another. Differences in aberration levels and type is another and of course it's always possible that a magnification specification is just inaccurate. If you see what looks like a difference in DOF between two 8X binoculars in bright daylight then it's time to investigate what the true cause of that impression is.

 

[henry link]

Paultricounty,

Here's a cutaway image of the Noctivid supplied by Leica. Everything about the optics looks very similar to the Ultravids (and even their Trinovid predecessors) except for that one lens just behind the prisms. That's in the right place to function as a simple field flattener and could explain your impression of better off-axis sharpness. A one element field flattener is unlikely to correct both off-axis astigmatism and field curvature equally. In the past Nikon, Fujinon and others have chosen to only correct astigmatism with their single element field flatteners and the Noctivid may do the same.

Ultravids (and Trinovids) are known for high pincushion distortion. Does your observation of "less distortion at the edges" apply only to pincushion distortion? Do small circular objects placed at the edge remain circles or are they either radially compressed or stretched into ovals?

Henry

 

[Paultricounty]

Depth of field in binoculars is not established in the same way as DOF in cameras. That's because telescopes are afocal devices that have no depth of field. The light that emerges from the eyepiece and falls on the eye is no more focused than the light that originally fell on the objective lens of the binocular. It is the eye's lens and cornea, that bring the afocal light of the binocular's output to a focused image on the retina in exactly the same way that they bring the afocal light that normally falls on the eye from the world around us to focus on the retina.

The binocular does modify the DOF of the eye in two ways.

Firstly, the out-of focus circle of confusion in front and back of a focused point source of light is magnified by the binocular's magnification just as if it were a focused circular object, so the circle of confusion is 25% larger in a 10x binocular than it is in an 8x binocular for an unfocused point at the same distance in front or behind a focused point and is therefore perceived as more defocused. However, all binoculars of the same magnification have inherently the same size circle of confusion and therefore the same DOF.

Secondly, a binoculars exit pupil may decrease the effective size of the eye's entrance pupil if the binocular's exit pupil is smaller than the eye's pupil. Under this condition the focal ratio of the eye is increased just like in a stopped down camera lens and the eye's depth of field increases. In that way a small exit pupil binocular may impose a wider DOF on the eye's optics in low light conditions compared to a large exit pupil binocular.

There are literally no ways at all that a binocular can be intentionally designed to increase its true DOF other than by employing low magnification and/or a small exit pupil. So, why are there so many subjective reports of more or less DOF observed in bright sunlight through binoculars of the same magnification? I think it's simply because other things can masquerade as increased or decreased DOF. Field curvature, as mentioned above, is one. Differences in the speed of focusers is another. Differences in aberration levels and type is another and of course it's always possible that a magnification specification is just inaccurate. If you see what looks like a difference in DOF between two 8X binoculars in bright daylight then it's time to investigate what the true cause of that impression is.

Thank you Henry,

Very interesting.

I may be missing something here. Take two examples, an 8x32 roof prism and an 8x32 Porro, the specific binoculars I'm looking through as I right this, is the UVHD and Nikon SE. What I believe I'm visually seeing is more objects in front and behind of the specific focussed object that are still in focus in the porro. In the roof the objects in front and behind are less in focus, at least in the distance in front and behind, Am i saying that right?.

If optical design is not causing this, what is? I'm also noticing this difference in the 8x42 Noctivid and the 8x32 UVHD. I'm going to try this later on today with four different 8x42 roofs.

Paul

 

[Paultricounty]

Im

Paultricounty,

Here's a cutaway image of the Noctivid supplied by Leica. Everything about the optics looks very similar to the Ultravids (and even the Trinovids) except for that one lens just behind the prisms. That's in the right place to function as a simple field flattener and could explain your impression of better off-axis sharpness. A one element field flattener is unlikely to correct both off-axis astigmatism and field curvature equally. Nikon chooses to only correct astigmatism with its single element field flatteners and the Noctivid may do the same.

Ultravids (and Trinovids) are known for high pincushion distortion. Does your observation of "less distortion at the edges" apply only to pincushion distortion? Do small circular objects placed at the edge remain circles or are they either radially compressed or stretched into ovals?

Henry

Henry, Im only noticing substantially less pincushion in the Nocs. It's very evident in the UVHD, but not bothersome. Its much worse in the Trinovid 7x35 Classics.

Paul

 

[Mike F]

Im

Henry, Im only noticing substantially less pincushion in the Nocs. It's very evident in the UVHD, but not bothersome. Its much worse in the Trinovid 7x35 Classics.

Paul

FWIW I also see less pincushion in my NV compared to my two UV’s. Noticeably less.

 

[Paultricounty]

Paultricounty,

Here's a cutaway image of the Noctivid supplied by Leica. Everything about the optics looks very similar to the Ultravids (and even the Trinovids) except for that one lens just behind the prisms. That's in the right place to function as a simple field flattener and could explain your impression of better off-axis sharpness. A one element field flattener is unlikely to correct both off-axis astigmatism and field curvature equally. In the past Nikon, Fujinon and others have chosen to only correct astigmatism with their single element field flatteners and the Noctivid may do the same.

Ultravids (and Trinovids) are known for high pincushion distortion. Does your observation of "less distortion at the edges" apply only to pincushion distortion? Do small circular objects placed at the edge remain circles or are they either radially compressed or stretched into ovals?

Henry

Hi Henry, I am miss using terminologies. I’m referring more to depth of focus rather than depth of field.

 

[henry link]

It's impossible to correct both the rectilinear distortions and angular magnification distortion at the same time. So, if your Noctivids have low pincushion they must have AMD in an amount that increases as the pincushion decreases.

AMD is what causes the Globe Effect when panning. I find it easiest to see and judge how much is present by using a small circular target subtending no more than about 2-3º of apparent field. Looking with one eye only, move the target from the field center (where it should be a perfect circle) to 3:00 on the field edge and observe how its shape changes. If it remains a circle then there is enough pincushion to counteract it. If it compresses horizontally into a vertical oval there isn't enough pincushion to completely correct it and the more compressed it appears the higher the AMD is. The compression will continue to increase all the way through zero pincushion and into barrel distortion. If, on the other hand, there is more pincushion than is required to correct AMD the circle will stretch horizontally at the field edge into a horizontal oval. You may see a bit of that in the Ultravids.

 

[henry link]

Hi Henry, I am miss using terminologies. I’m referring more to depth of focus rather than depth of field.

Depth of focus would properly refer only to the longitudinal width of an acceptably focused intermediate image inside the binocular at the focal plane of the objective lens. It's measured in small fractions of a millimeter and has no effect on the DOF we see looking through the binocular.

 

[Mike F]

@henry link thanks for the really useful and interesting information in these posts. Much appreciated.
I haven’t tried that test yet with my NV and UV’s and it’s dark now (as it is most of the time here in Finland at this time of year!), but I suspect that Leica have reduced pincushion in the NV as far as it’s possible to do so without inducing AMD. I’m extremely sensitive to rolling ball (globe) effect and I don’t detect any at all in the NV. It could be that they still have a little more pincushion than strictly necessary to avoid it, but nonetheless they have absolutely no rolling ball to my eyes.

 

[henry link]

Thank you Henry,

Very interesting.

I may be missing something here. Take two examples, an 8x32 roof prism and an 8x32 Porro, the specific binoculars I'm looking through as I right this, is the UVHD and Nikon SE. What I believe I'm visually seeing is more objects in front and behind of the specific focussed object that are still in focus in the porro. In the roof the objects in front and behind are less in focus, at least in the distance in front and behind, Am i saying that right?.

If optical design is not causing this, what is? I'm also noticing this difference in the 8x42 Noctivid and the 8x32 UVHD. I'm going to try this later on today with four different 8x42 roofs.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I think you're trying to do this the hard way. It's difficult to tease out the one thing you want to evaluate while all the other similar possibilities continue to be mixed into the image and it's always difficult to accurately discern the smallest change you can see, like between barely focused and barely unfocused objects. I'm going to suggest that you use a test method that eliminates most of the variables, leaving only the easy chore of judging the relative sizes of two easily seen circles of confusion.

For that you'll need an artificial star, like a glitter point of the sun returning from a small shiny ball. Place that about 10-12 feet from the test binoculars that have been carefully prefocused on a distant target at or close to infinity. Using only one eye place the target exactly at the field center of all the binoculars. I should mention that this test should be done in bright daylight so you can be sure that the exit pupils in all the binoculars are larger than the entrance pupil of your eye and the unused eye should be covered so that lateral light doesn't enter it as that could affect the dilation of the other eye.

Now, without changing anything, examine the artificial star when perfectly centered with each binocular. What you will see is a defocused diffraction disc of the star, so unfocused that it has become in image of your eye's pupil. Its size corresponds to the size of the circle of confusion at this distance from the focused target and at your pupil dilation at this light level. It will be quite obvious that any 10x binocular has a much larger circle of confusion than any 8x binocular. Any two 8x binoculars should make identically sized circles, unless something has gone wrong in the setting up of the test or the binoculars are actually different magnifications. For instance, if I do this with a Swaro 8x42 NL and a Swaro 8x30 Habicht the circles are not quite the same size because the true magnification of the NL is a little more than 8.2x and the Habicht is a little less than 7.8x.

 

[ZDHart]

Fortunately I'm very new to this, which allows me to still appreciate a lesser product, and while I much prefer my Ultravids over the two older B and BN Trinovids, they still seem like very good binoculars to me. Especially when the cost of the three pairs are put into direct comparison.

I got the Ultravids for what I think was a pretty good price, but they still cost about double what my BN purchase ran, and right at about 5 times what I've got invested in the old Leitz B.

No doubt your 8x20 UVs are excellent binoculars - far better than my early 1980's Leitz Trinovid 8x20s! In their day, those Leitz 8x20s were not bad, but they have been dramatically surpassed in the intervening decades - by your 8x20 Ultravids, for example.

 

[ZDHart]

One of the things I enjoy about binocular views is the shallow depth of field and also, for me at least, one of the more enjoyable aspects of photography. We see with our eyes, all the way from close up to to far, far away, but the camera or binocular typically gives a reduced depth of field and so I wondered if your reference had to do with a more natural view and great depth.
And of course, no one can compare yet to the 8x32 Noctivid until they eventually release one, which hopefully they will.

I'm not such a big fan of deep depth of field with binoculars - I find it much easier to snap binoculars into sharp focus when the DOF isn't as deep (ex. 10x42 vs. 7x42). And, of course, in photography, shallow DOF has such a great "look", especially when one wishes to isolate the subject razor sharp and render the background in a soft, wonderful, colorful blur. For portrait photographers, especially, very shallow DOF is typically a hallmark of goodness - made possible by the selection of long and fast lenses, and large sensors. And, of course, distance between camera and subject being less than distance between subject and background.

 

[E_S]

From what I learned in photography, optics with identical specifications (magnification and exit pupil) should have the exact same depth of field (DoF), and that largely no other factor affects this, meaning that it is physically impossible for one manufacturer to produce optics with "better" depth of field than those of another (assuming the main general specs are the same).

There are a few caveats though:
1. It's possible that lenses with very high light transmission cause the pupil to shrink slightly, which in turn causes the perceived DoF to increase compared to less bright binoculars (pupil serves as aperture in a photographic lens, and the smaller the pupil, the sharper the image depthwise).
2. The character of the out of-of-focus background ("bokeh") may be different -- some optics may produce out-of-focus backgrounds that look "creamy" (high-quality photographic lenses do this), which causes the viewer to perceive DoF rendering as shallow, while other optics may produce out-of-focus backgrounds that look "busy" (cheaper photographic lenses do this), which causes the viewer to perceive DoF rendering as deep (while in fact in both cases, the DoF is exact same).
3. Optics with a large sweet spot may have different perceived (emphasis on perceived) DoF compared to optics with small sweet spot. For example, I consistently notice that my 10x42 NLs have better apparent DoF than my 8x33 Kowas (roughly similar exit pupil), which is counter-intuitive because normally it is the higher magnification optics that have shallower DoF. I attribute this to larger sweet spot in the NLs which tricks my brain a bit into thinking they have great DoF.

 

[Paultricounty]

From what I learned in photography, optics with identical specifications (magnification and exit pupil) should have the exact same depth of field (DoF), and that largely no other factor affects this, meaning that it is physically impossible for one manufacturer to produce optics with "better" depth of field than those of another (assuming the main general specs are the same).

There are a few caveats though:
1. It's possible that lenses with very high light transmission cause the pupil to shrink slightly, which in turn causes the perceived DoF to increase compared to less bright binoculars (pupil serves as aperture in a photographic lens, and the smaller the pupil, the sharper the image depthwise).
2. The character of the out of-of-focus background ("bokeh") may be different -- some optics may produce out-of-focus backgrounds that look "creamy" (high-quality photographic lenses do this), which causes the viewer to perceive DoF rendering as shallow, while other optics may produce out-of-focus backgrounds that look "busy" (cheaper photographic lenses do this), which causes the viewer to perceive DoF rendering as deep (while in fact in both cases, the DoF is exact same).
3. Optics with a large sweet spot may have different perceived (emphasis on perceived) DoF compared to optics with small sweet spot. For example, I consistently notice that my 10x42 NLs have better apparent DoF than my 8x33 Kowas (roughly similar exit pupil), which is counter-intuitive because normally it is the higher magnification optics that have shallower DoF. I attribute this to larger sweet spot in the NLs which tricks my brain a bit into thinking they have great DoF.

Fascinating and very interesting. So technically it has nothing to with design and more to do with the optics, eye and brain connection. It’s a perceived difference not an actual difference caused by the optics design. But on the other hand, isn’t that perceived difference influenced by the design🤔

 

[Troubador]

Depth of field in binoculars is not established in the same way as DOF in cameras. That's because telescopes are afocal devices that have no depth of field. The light that emerges from the eyepiece and falls on the eye is no more focused than the light that originally fell on the objective lens of the binocular. It is the eye's lens and cornea, that bring the afocal light of the binocular's output to a focused image on the retina in exactly the same way that they bring the afocal light that normally falls on the eye from the world around us to focus on the retina.

Hi Henry
The obvious question arising from this is: what does the binocular's focus wheel do if it does not bring the image to a focus?
Does it simply focus the image sufficiently that the eye can then finish the job of bringing the image into focus?

Lee