Trinovid is a
hallowed name in binocular-world. Leica have risked that name by updating the Trinovids to compete with their mid-market peers. In this
review I find out if that risk was worth it.
Leica Trinovid 10x42 HD Review
Leica’s Trinovid
mid-market sub-brand has a long history and earlier versions were loved by
many. These new Trinovids are more compact and boast
HD optics too. To compete with Zeiss’ Conquests, Leica make much of their
ruggedness and utility.
The big news about these Trinovids is that they are made in Portugal, not Germany,
presumably to allow them to compete on cost with other premium mid-market (if
that isn’t an oxymoron) models, like Nikon’s Monarch HGs. And indeed, this pair
were very reasonably priced – less than the Conquests at the time of writing.
So have the Trinovids lost their Leica character in moving firmly into
the mid-market? Has moving production to Portugal compromised build quality?
And where have Leica cut corners to get to such a modest price? Read on to find
out.
At A Glance
|
Magnification |
10x |
|
Objective Size |
42mm |
|
Eye Relief |
15mm |
|
Actual Field of View |
113m/1000m |
|
Apparent field of view |
61° |
|
Close focus |
~2m (me) |
|
Transmissivity |
90% (Leica) |
|
Length |
14cm |
|
Weight |
745g bare (me) |
Data from Leica/Me.
What’s in the Box?
Leica have long had some of the
most elegant packaging in the business and they’ve taken the decision to use
the same premium materials on the Trinovids that you
get with Ultravids or Noctivids.
Design and Build
Almost all binocular manufacturers seek to distinguish their
premium models with a different look and feel, a different build quality. Not
here. The Trinovids look remarkably similar to a pair
of Noctivids – similar-looking armour, focuser knob, detailing.
Give most people both and they’d struggle to spot which one cost three times as
much. It’s almost as if that Portuguese factory is trying to show the German
one it can do just as well.
Body
The body is compact but easy to hold. Despite being quite
light (for a 42mm roof-prism binocular) at 730g (745g measured), It’s supposed
to be really rugged and is waterproof to 4m.
The armour is comfortable to hold, well fitted and
attractive, with no roughly finished seams or loose areas. It doesn’t feel tacky
to the touch like some, but it’s an absolute magnet for fluff and dust in a way
the best armour is not (so much so I struggled to keep them clean for the
photos).
Interior build quality looks high, with no rough edges or
castings.
Focuser
The Trinovid’s focuser is another
stand-out feature for a mid-range binocular. It is smooth, progressive and
accurate with almost perfect weight and feel across its full range,
significantly better than Zeiss’ 10x42 Conquests when I compared them side-by-side.
If they’ve been unused for a while, the focuser does feel ‘dry’, but soon goes
back to feeling smooth again after a few twirls.
Close focus is remarkably good. Leica claim 1.6m and these
easily merge the image of a painting across my study and still just about merge
down to two metres.
Close focus to infinity is just under two complete turns –
not the fastest, but plenty fast enough to follow birds in flight. The only
minor caveat is that these don’t focus much past infinity: I hit the
stop focusing stars at the field edge.
The dioptre adjustment is one area where the Trinovids depart from premium Leicas.
Instead of adjusting dioptre on the focusing knob, the Trinovids
have a conventional ring underneath the right eyepiece. There is no lock, but
the mechanism is very smooth and well-weighted, better than most. Getting
perfect dioptre adjustment proved easy, a sure sign of a good binocular.
Optics - Prisms
These are a ‘standard’ Schmidt-Pechan
(a.k.a. Roof) prism design. That means they need and have (probably
multi-layer) mirrors and phase coatings too. Claimed transmission is 90% -
typical for modern roofs, but slightly less than Porro
or Abbe-König prism models that avoid the lossy mirrors.
Optics - Objectives
From a laser test, it looks as if the objectives are a
cemented triplet. The ‘HD’ tag suggests they contain an ED glass element to
control false colour fringing on high contrast parts of the view.
The lenses are well recessed and are fronted by micro-ridged
lens rings to combat veiling flare. The barrel interiors behind the objectives
are micro-baffled too.
The coatings are excellent – the kind of muted purple-green
typical of Swarovskis and not the tobacco-colour more
usual for Leica.
Coatings are first rate and the objectives are well baffled,
front and rear.
Optics - Eyepieces
From what I can see with a laser, the eyepieces are a
sophisticated design with several thick lenses and at least one large air
space.
The Trinovids have big (22mm
diameter) eye lenses, but unlike some the eye lens is flat rather than dished.
That tends to make for more realistic eye relief measurements in my experience (because
they always seem to be quoted from the glass) and that’s the case here.
Eye relief has always been a bugbear of mine because many binoculars,
even expensive ones, don’t have enough for people who view with specs on. Leica
used to be among the worst in this respect. But not these new Trinovids. I measured eye relief at around 15mm from the
rim of the eye cup, just as claimed. It’s enough to just see the whole field
with my glasses on.
The soft rubber eye cups have five clicked-out positions to
cater for any variations in faces and glasses, given the long ER. True, the
click-stops aren’t as progressive and smooth as Swarovski’s and can re-seat
poorly (just as Zeiss Conquests’ can), but they are good enough and generally work
well.
High eye-point binoculars often come with a problem – kidney
bean blackouts (spherical aberration of the exit pupil) when you change eye
position. This can be a real nuisance, especially at night. The Trinovids just don’t suffer from this defect, which really
adds to comfort.
Eye-cups have
multiple click stop positions.
Accessories
The strap is Leica’s standard issue – just the same as a pair
of Ultravids get, so it’s good quality, ‘nuff said. You can get a special ‘Adventure’ harness which
included a protective pouch and looks good for extended field use.
The case – a place where mid-price cost-cutting often appears
- is a bit strange. It’s a soft Cordura pouch with a
fine zip that will probably wear quite badly and doesn’t offer a huge amount of
support or protection: stylish perhaps, but not as functional as a traditional
case.
Case looks funky but doesn’t offer much protection, likely
won’t wear well.
In Use – Daytime
Ergonomics and Handling
Handling is good, but these are such a small binocular that
really big hands may find them less comfortable to hold. Still, the focuser
knob is chunky for use with gloves and falls nicely under my index finger. That
focuser is smooth and precise, ditto the dioptre ring. Weight is very
reasonable for a 42mm binocular, so carrying for long periods won’t be an
issue.
As I’ve said, lots of eye relief and no blackouts mean
eyepiece comfort is up there with the best.
Leicas are generally among the most elegant
binoculars in my opinion; and whilst I don’t like the styling as much as a pair
of Ultravids, these Trinovids
still look classy and understated to wear, if that matters to you.
Plenty of eye
relief for my glasses.
The View
The daytime view is very good indeed: sharp, bright, wide and
detailed, with a cool, natural colour rendition. Focus snap is perfect (no
softness in either barrel), as is collimation. Resolution seems very high and
depth of field seems good (i.e. typical for a quality 10x42).
Excellent though the view seems to be on its own, compared
side-by-side with Nikon’s 10x42 SEs, the Trinovids
lack the last little bit of crystal-clear fine resolution. This is not any
optical fault – focus snap is perfect in both barrels – but perhaps shows just
a little lower level of optical fabrication quality than the best and that
makes sense at this price.
Another small negative point is that depth of field seems a
bit shallower than the best. Watching a flock of blue tits foraging and
flitting around my garden, I find myself re-focusing more than with the Nikons.
Overall, though, the Trinovids
deliver a view that’s very similar to a high-end model like an Ultravid. Mostly I just enjoyed using them – watching
waders on the bay sands; tits and wrens and finches foraging in the garden;
crows strutting about the neighbouring fields. At this stage I quickly become
annoyed by obvious flaws and the Trinovids just
didn’t have any.
Flat field?
In casual
use you’d think these have a flat field, but in fact it does curve off towards
the edge, so that the last 35% or so blurs progressively to the field stop.
However, most of that blurring can be focused away and isn’t the problem it can
be with some binoculars, at least during the day, when the field remains usable
to the edge. The photo below makes it look worse than it feels in use.
I
suspect Leica might argue they’ve gone for the best compromise for panning
comfort. But, as we will see, there is more of a downside to the curved field
when it comes to astronomy and this is quite typical of Leicas,
including premium Ultravids and Noctivids.
Off-axis
field curvature and softening is worse than the best,
but quite typical of Leica.
Chromatic Aberration
The Trinovids carry an ‘HD’ label and they curb false colour reasonably
well. The highest contrast and brightness subjects do show a little more than
the very best, though.
That
means some flashing purple and green when panning through branches in
silhouette against a bright cloudy sky. Watching a fledgling Jackdaw leave his
home in my neighbour’s chimney pot, his fluffy grey feathers are edged in
bright green and violet against a cloudy sky. The best don’t
do that and this is one area where Zeiss’ Conquests beat the Trinovids.
In Use – Dusk
The Trinovids are a bright
binocular and they work well into deep dusk, still providing views when it’s
almost dark and giving a moderate ‘light intensifier’ effect. Modern 10x42s can
be a good choice for low light use, much better than say an 8x32.
The well-recessed and baffled objectives meant I didn’t
notice any dusk veiling-flare washout from skyglow at dusk.
In Use – The Night Sky
My first view of a dark night sky with the Trinovids was good, really good. Here were most of the
things I like in an astronomy binocular – a wide field, plenty of eye relief
for use with glasses and nicely pinpoint stars that focused up crisply with a
smooth and accurate focuser.
Closer examination proved that the Trinovids
aren’t perfect. Stars start to distort progressively from about 50% field
width, but this doesn’t become a problem until perhaps 70-80% where they become
more and more linear to the field stop.
The wide field means you can put both Orion’s belt and sword
into the field, but doing so means that both Mintaka and Nair al Saif are both quite distorted (though less so than through
some). Most of that distortion can be focused away – it’s field curvature, with
not much astigmatism. But you do get that tunnel effect I dislike, where
fainter stars in the last 20% or so of field width smear and vanish. In fact,
field curvature is the biggest downside of these Trinovids
for astronomy.
Looking at a bright security light in field produces long
ghost spikes – probably from the prisms - which the best do
not. But this is an extreme test and neither Venus nor the Moon showed similar
spikes.
The Moon
The Trinovids gave an excellent view of a waning Moon with
Alphonsus near the terminator and clearly visible at 10x – crisp to focus in
both barrels and perfectly sharp and contrasty. There
was no significant ghosting or spiking with the Moon in field, and minimal
flare when working around it, an impressive result for a mid-range binocular.
Compared
to the very best, though, there is just a little more flare of unfocussed light
around the Moon and a bit more false colour – a trace
of purple and gold around the rim.
Overall
the Trinovids give a view of the Moon comparable to my
Nikon 10x42 SE reference standard, but with resolution and sharpness noticeably
just a touch inferior.
A tiny low Mars nonetheless showed itself clearly as a planet (i.e. as
a minute disk) and not a star, with no nasty flare or smearing. Similarly, a
brilliant Venus in the pre-Christmas dusk revealed no nasty prism spikes or
flare and just a trace of false colour.
Deep Sky
Despite
their field curvature, the Trinovids turn out to be really
enjoyable for deep sky viewing. The good eye relief, wide field and lack of
blackouts just make things easier when viewing under really dark conditions.
I
enjoyed finding open clusters – including M39 - in the Milky Way above a
setting Cygnus. The Double Cluster was bright and populous and other open
clusters, like the Pinwheel and Starfish in Auriga, showed masses of resolved
stars with a touch of averted vision.
Star
colours were good and Albireo easily revealed its sapphire and gold components.
The
Great Nebula in Orion looked as bright and detailed as through most 10x42s, but
the nebulosity was perhaps not as distinct and structured as through the very
best at this aperture. I struggled more to see the extended arms and central
spike than with Nikon’s very high transmission 10x42 SEs, for example.
However,
M31 was easy to find, extending far across the field of view, its core and
companion bright. A tougher pair of galaxies are Bode’s
Nebula – M81 and M82 – but the Trinovids found them
easily and distinguished their different shapes.
Night testing around the trees in my garden.
Leica Trinovid 10x42 HD vs Nikon 10x42 SE
Nikon’s 10x42 SEs were widely held to be among the best
binoculars you could buy … 15 years ago. Nowadays, they hold their own in some
areas, not in others. I’ve owned a pair as my knock-about pair for years.
Interestingly, they would have been a very similar price to the Trinovids when available new.
Sharpness, brightness, depth of field and resolution seem
quite similar. The Nikons should be a bit brighter with a few more percent
transmissivity, but I struggled to notice any difference. In fact, the Nikons’
warmer tone gave a slightly murkier view in low light to my eyes. The wider
field of the Trinovids is very noticeable, though,
and they have the more pleasing daytime view as a result.
Both have excellent eye relief, but the Trinovids
are less prone to blackouts and so are more comfortable. Careful inspection
reveals that in fact the Nikons have a flatter field, especially noticeable on
starry skies. The Nikons have slightly better resistance to ghosting with a
bright light in-field and don’t produce prism spikes like the Leicas, but neither are up with the best in this respect.
The Nikon’s focuser is smoother but slower. The Nikons are
slightly lighter. The Leica’s are waterproof; the Nikons are not.
For dedicated astronomy use I perhaps still just prefer the
Nikons. Otherwise, I like the Leicas better – their
wide, bright and sharp field and comfortable eyepieces are just more enjoyable
during the day. The world has moved on since the Nikons’ day and that’s a good
thing.
Summary
The Trinovids offer something you
couldn’t buy (in roof-prism binoculars at least) just a few years ago: a near-premium
view at a mid-market price. That view is sharp, wide and bright, full of detail
and contrast, with minimal false colour.
There just aren’t any obvious faults like mid-price bino’s used to have, at least for daytime use. The only
real fault is a bit too much in the way of ghosting and prism spikes with a
very bright light in-field at night.
So what does paying two or three times
as much for an Alpha binocular get you, then?
1)
Freedom
from the last trace of false colour, which is more noticeable in the Trinovids than the best
2)
The
very highest resolution, which is noticeably just a bit lower in the Trinovids
3)
Freedom
from spiky ghosts when viewing bright lights at night
4)
Slightly
faster focusing
5)
In
some (but not all), a slightly wider, flatter field that gives a better view of
dark starry skies
But in practice many (most?) users just won’t notice, because
those differences really are quite subtle. Most will just love the view through
their Trinovids.
In terms of comfort, the Trinovids are
up there with the best, too. They have plenty of eye relief for specs wearers
but without any nasty kidney-bean blackouts. The focuser is smooth, progressive
and snappy. Dioptre adjustment is positive and easy to use. The eye cups offer
plenty of click-stops and operate positively.
Build quality is high, almost a little too much like a pair of
Noctivids for marketing comfort. The icing on the
cake for me is that the Trinovids are still
European-made and should be repairable like premium German bino’s.
So during the day at least, the Trinovids are perhaps my favourite mid-market binocular to
date. They do work well for astronomy too, with the wide field and good eyepiece
comfort helping. But that tunnel effect from field curvature does spoil things just
a little for star fields and DSOs.
Leica’s Trinovids get my highest
recommendation for daytime and casual astronomy. They are a ‘real’ Leica in
appearance and use, but for a very reasonable price. For a dedicated astronomy binocular,
I might consider a flatter-field model.
