Follow up to 'Mick's bins'.

Posted by: Tony Lockhart on 17 May 2004

Well, we had a great time in Zambia. But didn't manage to buy any decent binoculars for the trip as 3 weeks before departure my trusty old OM1n packed up. The shutter only worked at speeds of 1/30th and slower, so off the camera went to be revived with a forecast of 4-6 weeks to repair.
Bugger.
So I bought a Canon EOS30 with a Tamron 28-300mm zoom (I really couldn't afford to replace all my Olympus fit lenses) for £500. 1 week before we left....OM1n is fixed and ready for collection!
So, with all that expense, I only got around to handling other people's Leica bins in Zambia.
All I can say is that I'm not going to even consider buying anythingelse. I almost fell over when I tried them. Are their camera lenses really as good as this too?
One of the guides lent me his Canon 100-400 image stabilised lens for a week. Which was nice.

Tony

Posted on: 17 May 2004 by Top Cat

I recently bought my 8x32BNs. Ex-demonstration but perfect nick. I tried the smaller 10x25 and 8x20 and whilst I felt they were good, the 8x32 is better. They're bigger, yes, but still compact enough for me.

Optically fantastic, I couldn't really want for more. Not quite the Swarovski EL8x32 but then not quite that price, but you'd only notice the difference in a direct comparison.

The one problem I have with them is that sometimes I find some colour fringing. I've established that this happens when the two eyepieces aren't completely aligned to my own eyes (whilst wearing glasses) and a little adjustment usually fixes this.

The best thing I can say about the Leica binos is that they are good enough that I have already forgotten the price of admission...

Leica camera lenses are very fine indeed, but I don't think the distinction is so great there - as other brands, such as (for example) the Canon L series, Zeiss designs and so on, are equally as good though often bigger or slower than the equivalent Leica option.

John