Swarovski NL 8x32 vs Leica Duovid 8+12x42 Brightness Mystery (1 Viewer)

[John M Robinson]

Lol, my bad. I fell for it. It’s only because I’ve seen so many posts on the Binocular forum that made my head spin, I thought this could’ve been legit as well. 🙄

At first I did too, but it was so over the top ridiculous, that coupled with the Abraham Lincoln comment, I highly suspected a joke. Pretty good one too.

 

[takitam]

It might be that I'm turning evil or something, but writing that post and seeing some of the first responses to it, brought me more laughter and joy than any other post I had ever written here or on any other forum. Trolling is actually fun, who knew? I'm a bit scared to think what kind of games the ruling class must be playing in similar spirit, but I sure envy the laughter they must be having.

For some of you old geezers you might want to look for some info on the ayckchually guy, Abraham Lincoln quotes meme, the insect quote, /s, and internet culture of true intellectuals of leddit, who always tell you that 'correlation does not equal causation' and 'Ockham's razor' are the only tools a perfect gentleman needs. Just for some laughs, and (probably already expired) internet education.

Special thanks to Lukan the Witless from Arcanum, but I'm not a good writer and couldn't use him as a proper inspiration. Sorry Lukan...

I would also like to dedicate that post to the reality we live in and plenty of rational good folk, who amaze and inspire every day.

And that mathematical formula I used and 'created', it made the high schooler in me laugh more than anything when I looked at it again, idk why

Last but not least, I appreciate the compliments good sirs, glad you enjoyed it

 

[tenex]

Robert Heinlein is total geezer material. Memetics itself was proposed by geezer Richard Dawkins as a reductionist theory of mind, to explain cultural phenomena like fads and religion. Which of course encompass practically everything these days thanks to social media, so sarcasm is the only possible relief.

 

[crinklystarfish]

... to explain cultural phenomena like fads and religion...

And Alpha binoculars.

Good to know that the pre-usurped and original discreet meaning of the word hasn't been completely lost. If only there were some way of passing the original meaning to future generations...

 

[MiddleRiver]

As much as I adore the Retrovid's I don't find their light transmission that high so I'm not surprised by this finding. The curios are a super bright and sparkling little marvel during daylight.
Apologies for going slightly off topic here.

I'm intrigued by this. When I compared several bins (overlaying Gijs' transmission plots), the Retros are near top-of-the-food-chain. They run neck-and-neck with 8x42NL's which is not too shabby!
Caveat: Some photochop scaling and overlaying going on here, so not guarantees it's correct, accurate, or relevant

 

[Trinovid]

…writing that post and seeing some of the first responses to it, brought me more laughter and joy than any other post I had ever written here or on any other forum.

Oy vey. Of course #26 was a joke…

The funniest thing about both of these responses is that they both seem to miss that all except one respondent understood our legs were getting pulled. 😂

 

[John M Robinson]

I'm intrigued by this. When I compared several bins (overlaying Gijs' transmission plots), the Retros are near top-of-the-food-chain. They run neck-and-neck with 8x42NL's which is not too shabby!
Caveat: Some photochop scaling and overlaying going on here, so not guarantees it's correct, accurate, or relevant


View attachment 1548318

When I say my 7x21 Curios are brighter than my 7x35 Retrovids, they are, but the Retrovids are plenty bright. If I didn’t own both to spend time side by side, I would never have suspected that. Regardless, the 7x35 are my current favorites and get used the most.

 

[henry link]

Hi John,

I'm not surprised that you find the Curios to be very bright under daylight conditions. When your pupils are open to 3mm or less they should be among the very brightest binoculars, as you can see from Gijs' transmission plot.

 

[mulligatawny owl]

I'm intrigued by this. When I compared several bins (overlaying Gijs' transmission plots), the Retros are near top-of-the-food-chain. They run neck-and-neck with 8x42NL's which is not too shabby!
Caveat: Some photochop scaling and overlaying going on here, so not guarantees it's correct, accurate, or relevant


View attachment 1548318

Interesting.
The only way I can think to describe my perception is that the Retros, although plenty bright don't seem to light up the bushes on a grey day with that hyperreal added illumination that the EL, NL, SF, or my new Opticron Aurora for example do.

I perceive the Retro as being more natural/ neutral /subdued in that respect but with that added contrast ,warmth and richness of colour that makes the Retro special.

I guess it's nothing to do with light transmission really, more to do with how I'm perceiving the leica signature differently, having been much more familiar with Zeiss and Swarovski till now.

Who knows? I'm probably just waffling now.

 

[John M Robinson]

Interesting.
The only way I can think to describe my perception is that the Retros, although plenty bright don't seem to light up the bushes on a grey day with that hyperreal added illumination that the EL, NL, SF, or my new Opticron Aurora for example do.

I perceive the Retro as being more natural/ neutral /subdued in that respect but with that added contrast ,warmth and richness of colour that makes the Retro special.

I guess it's nothing to do with light transmission really, more to do with how I'm perceiving the leica signature differently, having been much more familiar with Zeiss and Swarovski till now.

Who knows? I'm probably just waffling now.

Bottom line, regardless of whether the Retros are at the top, or slightly below in brightness, they are so good overall that it really doesn’t matter.

 

[mulligatawny owl]

Bottom line, regardless of whether the Retros are at the top, or slightly below in brightness, they are so good overall that it really doesn’t matter.

Agreed 👍

 

[markdunton]

This thread pefectly sums up why I swapped my duovids for NL. On top of light transmission I was sure that I was getting setup creep between zoom positions and that was driving me crazy. The NLs have better definition, are brilliant in twilight and the diopter setup remains rock solid. Good luck

 

[ticl2184]

This thread pefectly sums up why I swapped my duovids for NL. On top of light transmission I was sure that I was getting setup creep between zoom positions and that was driving me crazy. The NLs have better definition, are brilliant in twilight and the diopter setup remains rock solid. Good luck

I'm goin keep the my Duovid's apart from there discrepancies. But also have my NL's plus Ultravids to fall back on..


Cheers
Tim

 

[Maljunulo]

This thread is living proof that spec wars, with numbers hurled like thunderbolts from Mt. Olympus, are a long way from the whole story.

Just my uninformed opinion.

“The only way to tell is to look through it”
Me, December 2023

 

[tehri]

“The only way... ”

😉🙂

 

[Maljunulo]

😁

I’m famous!!

 

[John Frink]

I might have missed it, but nowhere in this thread did I see a statement that "all other things being equal (i.e., same magnification, same optical configuration), a 42 is NOT brighter than a 32; the 42 it will produce a larger-diameter exit pupil, but as long as the exit pupils of both units are sufficient to cover the observer's entrance pupil, the brightness will be the same." In this case, brightness is NOT a function of objective diameter.

 

[John M Robinson]

I might have missed it, but nowhere in this thread did I see a statement that "all other things being equal (i.e., same magnification, same optical configuration), a 42 is NOT brighter than a 32; the 42 it will produce a larger-diameter exit pupil, but as long as the exit pupils of both units are sufficient to cover the observer's entrance pupil, the brightness will be the same." In this case, brightness is NOT a function of objective diameter.

I think you missed it, though not said in those exact words, pretty much from the beginning, we’ve been trying to convince the OP that brightness has nothing to do with the size of the exit pupil. As an example I pointed out how my 7x21 Curios were way brighter than my 7x50 Fujinons.

 

[tenex]

It isn't rocket science, but some of this material is just complicated enough that it would be better dealt with by citing reference articles or books (with illustrations). The casual back-and-forth of forum posts often works anyway, but not always, gets repetitive, and can cause frustration.