Leica’s Noctivids
are the last premium EL-like open-bridge birding binoculars to come to market.
In this review I find out if the long wait has been worth it.
Leica Noctivid 10x42 Review
After Swarovski introduced the Swarovision
ELs - combining their open-bridge design with the flat field and eyepiece
comfort of Nikon’s HGs and the HD optics of Zeiss’ Victory FLs – the other
premium makers started to follow along. First came Nikon’s EDGs, then Zeiss’
SFs, now finally Leica’s version, the Noctivids on
test here.
With the SFs, Zeiss succeeded in merging their own values
with the SV EL concept, to create an open-bridge binocular with a Zeiss
character. So let’s investigate whether Leica have
managed to do the same, or whether the Noctivids are
just a cave-in to the competition’s agenda.
At A Glance
|
Magnification |
10x |
|
Objective Size |
42mm |
|
Eye Relief |
19mm claimed, 17mm measured |
|
Actual Field of View |
112m at 100m |
|
Apparent field of view |
64° |
|
Close focus |
1.9m |
|
Transmissivity |
91% |
|
Length |
150mm |
|
Weight |
860 claimed, 896g measured w/caps |
Data from Leica/Me.
What’s in the Box?
Design and Build
Leica’s most recent premium range, the Ultravids,
were a conventional evolution of the original Trinovid.
In comparison, the Noctivids seem to have been
designed from scratch to draw on the best of the competition’s ideas.
However, Leica haven’t tried to
create anything as radical as the Zeiss SFs. Instead, the Noctivids
seem to be pretty much a Leica EL, an admission that Swarovski got it right.
So, the Noctivids are a compact open bridge design,
with big eyepieces that give a moderately wide, flat field and lots of eye
relief for glasses-wearers.
Body
The Noctivids are made of
magnesium, apparently with special coatings to avoid oxidation. They weigh in
at almost exactly the same as the ELs, but are over a
hundred grams heavier than the Zeiss SFs (a difference you can certainly feel).
The Noctivids have slim barrels
with no thumb cutouts, unlike the ELs. They are 10mm
shorter than the ELs and 23mm shorter than the SFs, making them the most
compact premium open-bridge binoculars.
The black armour is thin and lightly textured, typical of
Leica. Finish is faultless, with the exposed magnesium in the bridge and lugs
satin coated to match the armour. It is worth noting here that external fit and
finish was much better than the Zeiss SFs I tested last year. Internal build
quality also appears very good, with particularly well finished castings and
components.
Focuser
The focuser knob is quite small compared to the SFs’. It looks and feels a bit plasticky, but it is light and
creamy smooth of action – lighter and smoother than the ELs I tested, without
the stiffness or dry feel you sometimes get with greaseless focusers.
The full focus range is about one and a half turns, but for
most practical purposes it’s going to be a single
turn. I say that because the Noctivids focus
extremely close – down to about two metres. At closest focus it’s
a little difficult to merge the image, but at three metres, the Noctivids give a near-perfectly merged image for me –
making them wonderful for butterflies and other close-in nature viewing.
Pull the focuser
knob and it clicks out a couple of millimetres to allow dioptre adjustment.
There is a scale on the front, but no click stops. The mechanism is better than
the Zeiss SFs’ stiff and wonky knob, but I still prefer the Swarovski dioptre
adjust which is more solid and precise with quarter dioptre click-stops.
Optics - Prisms
The Noctivids use standard Schmidt-Pechan (a.k.a. Roof) prisms, just like both the SFs and the
ELs, instead of the less lossy Abbe-König prisms long favoured by Zeiss. This
means that the prisms incorporate mirrors. Leica make much of the quality of
the coatings used, so these are doubtless multi-layer dielectric mirrors, but
even so transmission at 91% is down a few percentage points on the ~95%
achieved by Abbe-König systems like the Zeiss HTs’.
Optics - Objectives
The Noctivids use ED glass elements
to counter false colour fringing (chromatic aberration), a technology often
described as ‘HD’ (high definition) because the absence of false colour fringes
makes it possible to see more detail, especially in high-contrast parts of the
view.
Leica don’t quote the overall number
of optical elements used, but the Noctivids appear to
have some kind of tele-objective with multiple thick elements like the ELs, not
the simpler, thinner-element approach used by Zeiss in the SFs to get the
weight down. As I noted in the SF review, Zeiss probably used a longer focal
length to achieve this, hence the much longer barrels of the SF – you can’t have it all.
Coatings are Leica’s usual neutral pinkish sepia tone and
appear outstanding, as you would expect.
To help control flare, the objectives are deeply recessed and
a matted ring is placed in front of the glass. Internally, the focuser assembly
incorporates one or two thick baffles and is carefully blacked to avoid
reflections.
The eye cups are a bit vague but seem to have four main
positions as shown.
The focus knob pulls out to adjust dioptre as shown here.
Optics – Eyepieces
In something of a departure for Leica, the Noctivids have big eyepieces, right on-trend for this style
of binocular going back to Nikon’s original HGs. The 27mm diameter eye lenses
are larger than the Swarovski ELs’ or Zeiss SFs’, but
the eye lenses are flat, not steeply curved like the ELs’. The point of this
style of eyepiece is to deliver a wide field and good eye relief, but do they?
The actual field of view of 112m at 100m is identical to the
ELs’, but 8m less than Zeiss’ SFs. That only amounts to 7% by width, but the
greater field area of the Zeiss is noticeable and (IMO) really helps to deliver
a less tunnel-like effect. In the same way, the wider field of these Noctivids (and the ELs) is very noticeable when compared to
my Nikon 10x42 SEs, which have 8m less again and which seem much more ‘closed
in’.
Leica haven’t always been the best
for eye relief, but the Noctivids have really
excellent ER, claiming 19mm. I found the Noctivids a
bit difficult to measure for some reason, but eye relief is at least 17mm from
the rim of the eye cup – a critical millimetre or two more than the ELs I
tested, though slightly less than the Zeiss SFs. But as we will see, those
millimetres are critical because they allow me to see the whole field easily
with my thick-framed spec’s.
Blackouts (spherical aberration of the exit pupil) is just
not a problem as it is with some high-ER designs.
The click-stop (in theory) eye cups are a bit vague and stiff
of action. Keep twisting and the last click-stop (not shown above) seems to go
back in one; I have no idea why. The eye cups are one of the few areas where
the Noctivids really trail the Swarovski ELs.
Accessories
The Noctivids come with a
felt-lined semi-rigid cordura case in olive green.
The case is very small and tapered – so small that getting the Noctivids in and out is harder than it could be. It’s a nicely made and attractive accessory, but the fine
zip likely won’t wear as well as Swarovski’s heavier duty one.
The eyepieces have the usual push-on cap, but the objective
caps are attached to lugs on the case rather than simply pushing on. That makes
them competitive with Swarovski’s ‘FieldPro’ system
and they work well: easy to push on and off, but staying securely in place.
The strap is the usual Leica item that attaches to
conventional strap lugs.
In Use – Daytime
Ergonomics and Handling
The Noctivids are comfortable to
hold with Leica’s usual thin but grippy armour. Balance and hold is natural and easy. Swarovski pioneered the open bridge
design and Leica have adopted it because it works really well
– as long as you have smallish hands like mine. For big dudes with bear paws
and fat fingers it might be a different story.
The focuser is smooth, light and
precise. There is no play or sloppiness in the action and focusing to different
depths in the view is fluid and natural. Focusing to follow birds on the wing
is very easy.
The long eye relief and lack of kidney-bean blackouts make
eyepiece comfort outstandingly good. I can see the whole field with my
thick-framed glasses on.
Handling is easy, but the Noctivids
feel a fairly heavy binocular. I prefer the lighter
weight and rear-wards weight distribution of the Zeiss SFs. Leica’s always seem
to me the most elegant of binoculars to wear, if that matters to you.
Leica’s
Noctivids: compact, easy to hold and elegant to wear.
The View
The view is great – wide, bright, quite flat, cool-toned and easy. At
first look it’s a picture-window view like the ELs’.
Subjectively, detail and resolution are outstanding. These have that
crystalline clarity you only get with the best, a view that’s gorgeous and
addictive.
Focus snap is very crisp, indicating excellent optical
quality. Brightness in dull conditions is outstandingly good, seemingly as good
as my Nikon SE 10x42s which should in theory be brighter (fewer elements, no
mirrors).
Resolution centre field is top-notch. Waders far out on the
bay sands are easy to ID as the result. I can see detail in the villages across
the bay that lesser 10x binos wouldn’t
reveal.
Depth of field is good and colour delivery is on the neutral
side of vivid, but very true.
In fact, the view isn’t quite
as perfect as a pair of SV ELs, but it takes some
nit-picking to realise it, for terrestrial use anyhow. The problem, as often
with Leicas, is off-axis aberrations.
Flat field?
In daytime, first glance suggests these are a properly
flat-field optic, like the Swarovski ELs. In fact, the field is very flat and
sharp out to perhaps the last 20-30%, after which it softens progressively,
though the edge is still usable. The softening is due to minor field curvature
but mostly astigmatism. Distortion is very well controlled, with just a trace of
pincushion to ease the rolling ball effect.
Aberrations towards the field stop are just a bit worse than
the wider-field SFs, but significantly worse than the Swarovski ELs which have
the same width of field. Overall, though, the impression during the day is
still of a wide and well corrected field of view.
Noctivid image quality drops off in the outer
part of the field.
Chromatic Aberration
False colour levels are typical of modern HD designs, i.e. you won’t notice it in most circumstances. Viewing a crow,
sitting on my neighbours’ TV aerial, does reveal a trace of violet and green
fringing between black feather and bright sky, but I can still make out lots of
plumage detail - it’s still an HD view, as promised.
As usual, false colour increases towards the very edge of the field, again
perhaps a little more so than the very best.
This result suggests the Noctivids
employ a single ED element, rather than the two used in some designs (like
Kowa’s Genesis models) that effectively eliminate false colour.
In Use – Dusk
I noted that the Noctivids are very
bright binocular by day. That means they also penetrate a night landscape, even
under light from a half Moon, revealing things you couldn’t
see with the naked eye. So, at dusk they also penetrate shadows very well for a
10x42.
The deeply recessed objectives and baffled lens ring should
help prevent washout by veiling flare under a bright dusk sky, and that proves
to be the case.
In Use – The Night Sky
Centre field, stars are perfect pinpoints – as good as I’ve ever seen in binoculars and typical of Leica’s peerless
optical quality. That and the smooth, precise focuser makes finding focus easy,
even on dim star fields and DSOs. The tightness of stellar images mean the Noctivids transmit natural star colours really
well too.
However, there is a problem for astronomy. The off-axis
softening I noted during the day, that didn’t spoil
things too much, is much more troublesome on the stars. Across the last ~20% of
the field (by width), stars are smeared into lines, though minor distortion
occurs from ~30%. Some of this can be focused away, meaning the field is in
fact slightly curved, but mostly it is astigmatism – stars become lines
parallel to the optical axis on one side of focus, perpendicular to it on the
other.
This is not just a theoretical defect. Fainter stars in the
outer field disappear altogether, creating that ‘warp-tunnel’ effect I dislike.
Try fitting Orion’s sword and belt into a single field (easily possible) and
almost nothing of interest is sharp (see below).
Simulated 6.4° Noctivid
field, along with the 70% well-corrected part, overlaid on Orion.
The Moon
A first quarter Moon is as crisp and detailed as you will
ever see in a 10X binocular. There is no significant flare or light bleed-over
and focus snap is absolute. The Apennines and Plato on the terminator, Eudoxus and Aristoteles in the north, Tycho and Clavius in
the south: all delivered with supreme contrast and sharpness, both slightly
better than my Nikon 10x42 SE reference. This is evidence of outstanding
optical fabrication quality and is typical of other Leicas
I have tested.
So far, so excellent. But the Moon knocks a couple more
points off the Noctivids’ scorecard. There is a
little more false colour – proper purple and green
fringing - than you get with the best HD optics, more than through my 15x56
SLCs, despite the Noctivids’ smaller objectives and
lower magnification; more than the ELs too.
The bright Moon also yields a faint ghost dancing around the
field: it’s not really a problem, but it’s there when
it’s not through my Swarovskis.
Planets
Jupiter looks perfect through the Noctivids,
with little flare and no false colour, the Galilean Moons arrayed as perfect
stars around it. Mars, still small early in an opposition year, appears as a
tiny bright coal, clearly not a star, with strong true colour and no chromatic
aberration.
Deep Sky
The clusters in Auriga are as bright and sharply defined as I’ve seen with 10x42s, their individual stars and shapes
easily picked out with averted vision. Very tight star images deliver
outstanding contrast for a 10x42 and I can really enjoy other open clusters,
such as the Double Cluster. Meanwhile, the Pleiades are pleasingly glittery
diamonds.
The Great Nebula in Orion, M42, is very bright for the
aperture and shows plenty of detail. Other bright DSOs, such as the globular
clusters in Hercules, are easy to find and very bright for 42mm objectives.
Centre-field, the Noctivids
are an excellent small astronomy binocular, but the progressive off-axis
astigmatism spoil things a bit.
Testing the Noctivids under a dark
winter sky.
Leica Noctivid 10x42 vs Swarovski SV EL 10x42
Let’s compare these two similar, premium
10x42s:
·
The
Swarovski ELs are a bit longer, though much the same weight
·
The
Swarovski’s have better eye cups
·
The
Noctivids have just a millimetre or two more
real-world eye relief, but that means you can see the whole field with chunky
specs on
·
The
Noctivids have a better focuser – lighter, smoother and significantly faster
·
The
ELs have a better dioptre mechanism
·
Build
quality is very much alike
·
The
ELs have less off-axis distortions and are sharp at the field stop, where the Noctivids go slightly soft from about 70% field width,
quite noticeably so from 80%. This matters most for astronomy
·
The
ELs have a little less false colour
·
The
Noctivids show a bit more ghosting than the ELs
·
Everything
else about the view, from width to clarity and sharpness, is near identical.
The Noctivid’s colour balance is perhaps a bit more
neutral, but also slightly less vivid in blues and greens
Which you choose comes down to
personal preference. Do you view with glasses, in which case the extra ER of
the Noctivids might be important? If you are going to
be doing a lot of astronomy then you might well pick the more perfect outer
field of the ELs. If you are super-picky (like me) about false colour, again
you might choose the Swarovski option.
Summary
The Noctivids are an excellent
binocular, for terrestrial use at least. They have a wide, flat, mostly sharp,
bright field. They have eyepieces with lots of eye relief and no blackouts.
They focus fast but oily smooth too. Build quality is excellent. They are
compact and easy to handle, if a little on the heavy side for my tastes.
Being really picky, I would note that they have more
outer-field softening than Swarovski’s ELs, along with a trace more false colour and slightly worse stray light
performance. But overall these are very minor gripes
that shouldn’t spoil your view of an extended flock of waders in bright water,
for example.
However, the story at night is very different. That off-axis
softening, unobtrusive by day, blurs stars in a broad band around the field
stop, spoiling the view of star fields and extended regions, even though the Noctivids deliver excellent results centre-field. The Moon
shows up more false colour and ghosting than the very
best, too.
So, even though the Noctivids are
better the Swarovski ELs in some areas (eye relief and focuser), if you are
intending to do much astronomy then I would buy the Swarovskis.
Meanwhile, I would choose the Noctivids over the
Zeiss SFs purely on build quality, even though I actually prefer
the Zeiss.
For birding and other terrestrial uses, the Noctivids are an excellent binocular and are highly
recommended, even though the view is ultimately less perfect than the ELs’. For astronomy they work well, but too much astigmatism
off-axis means I can’t really recommend them as a
premium-priced option.
