When
a new top of the line roof prism glass hits the market, there is really only
one question in my mind. Will it be, can it be, better than my current Reference
Standard, the Nikon Venturer LX 8x42? The Venturer is, in my opinion, the top
all around performer in a very fine group of binoculars, including the flagship
glasses from Leica, Zeiss, Bausch and Lomb, and Swarovski. As you will note,
Swarovski already has two glasses in that elite company, the very fine 7x42
and 10x42 SLCs. However they have never (at least in my memory) had a full sized
8x birding glass. When it came time to design one, they pulled out all stops,
clearly intending to produce a glass that would challenge the best.
The new Swarovski 8.5x42 ELs depart from tradition in several
ways. The physical design is unique, with the two extra long barrels (lens tubes,
see photo) separated by enough space so that you can wrap your fingers all the
way around—no central hinge—just a bridge top and bottom with the
focus knob floating on the upper bridge. Swarovski’s stated goal was to
make the binoculars easy enough to grip so that they could be held up and focused
with one hand (apparently a common birding stance in Europe). In addition, the
new body design is several ounces lighter than comparable top of the line roofs.
Next, until now Swift had pretty much undisputed claim to the
8.5 power designation (the very fine 8.5x44 Audubons, which have just, by the
way, received a compete overhaul and redesign—watch for a full review).
8.5 power has always impressed me as an ideal compromise between 8x and 10x.
The extra half power and the slightly larger image scale make difficult identifications
just that much easier, without introducing the fatigue inducing “optical
leverage” and resulting image shake of a 10 power glass (see link for an
explanation of optical leverage). When the extra power is coupled with an exceptionally
wide field (as it is in both the ELs and the Swift Audubons), it yields a view
of the bird and an ease of use that is hard to beat.
Finally,
Swarovski has broken with their own tradition of “warm” coatings and
put an exceptionally neutral multi-coating on the ELs. In the past most Swarovski
binoculars produced a sharp, bright image, with a slight yellow cast, largely
due to their choice of lens coatings. The warmer end of the spectrum was emphasized,
presumably to cut through the murk of the northern European climate and the
lower light levels of the higher latitudes. The ELs were designed more with
the American market in mind. We tend to favor glasses which produce a “true”
color image, with no noticeable color bias. The ELs are among the most color
neutral glasses I have tested.
Of course, Swarovski has a reputation for optical excellence
to uphold (their 10x SLCs are still my Reference Standard in high power roofs).
The ELs are spectacularly sharp, certainly the equal of any 8x glass on the
market, and that extra half power comes into play too, yielding more detail
at any given distance than any of the current top of the line models, including
the Venturers. Brightness, on the other hand, is somewhat lower than expected.
Both the Nikon Venturers and the B&L Elites are apparently brighter. Even
the 8x32 porro Nikon Superior Es seem to shed more light on the bird.
(I
am talking about “apparent brightness” here, not any kind of measured
“light transmission.” I don’t have the instrumentation to measure
the actual amount of light that gets through the binoculars and have to base
my judgments on how bright binoculars look when compared side by side. The apparent
brightness is affected by all kinds of things, including color balance and image
contrast. Swarovski will tell you that the ELs have among the highest measured
“throughput” of any glasses on the market—that more of the light
entering the objectives comes out the eyepieces than just about any other binoculars—so
I am not sure why they don’t “look” as bright as some others.)
All in all, the Swarovski ELs have exactly the kind of performance
that will put them near the top of any birders short list of binoculars to own.
They are bright and sharp, with a wide field and an extra bit of power—they
are easy to hold, waterproof, and relatively light weight to carry in the flied.
Despite that they still don’t quite manage to unseat the current Reference
Standard.
The constraints of the new barrel design, with the “floating”
focus knob, require a linkage of levers inside to move the focusing element,
and those levers, I am told, limit the speed at which focus can move from close
in to far out. Swarovski’s take on this is that, in order to build the
glasses with the kind of close focus that birders today demand, they needed
an exceptionally long focus, and that most of the focus motion is from 50 feet
in where it rarely effects field birding. In fact, the ELs require seven motions
of my focusing finger to move from closest focus to infinity, while the Nikon
Venturer LXs require four (the ELs do focus six inches closer, but that is hardly
significant). To move focus from a bird at 100 feet to one at 15 (certainly
a common movement in the field) requires two moves of the focus finger on the
Nikons and four on the Swarovskis. To go from 50 feet to 15 requires about 3
and a half motions on the Swarovskis while the Nikons take just over one. Even
at greater distances, where Swarovski would like us to think the focus rate
approaches other glasses in their class, to go from 100 feet out to 200 feet
out requires that I roll the focus on the Swarovskis back from the tip about
half the length of the last joint of my focus finger, while the same adjustment
on the Nikon does not even require that I move the tip of my finger off the
knob.
Perhaps
it will put this in better perspective to remember that not so many years ago
all binoculars focused as slowly as the ELs and we had all developed
the habit of pre-focusing, or beginning to focus as we brought the binoculars
up to our eyes to compensate for that fact. Still, modern, more rapid focus
mechanisms, like those on the Bausch and Lomb Elites (super fast) and the Nikon
Venturers (comfortably fast) have spoiled me. Despite all the EL’s outstanding
features and their spectacular optical performance, I just can not get used
to the focus. I find, when I have to choose which binoculars to carry when I
go out just birding for myself (as opposed to testing binoculars), it
is not the ELs that I pick.
Still, I am not you. You may find that the extra measure of
precision and control that the slower focus gives you is worth the trade off.
You many find that the other outstanding features of the glass, or just their
wonderful optical performance, are enough to make you forgive the slow focus.
Overall, the ELs make a BVD Starred rating, meaning that they
are in the same performance class as the Reference Standard, but have one or
two features that, in my opinion, fall short.
I have had conversations with Swarovski about whether they
can fix the focus problem. They don’t take it as seriously as I do—especially
as they are selling all the ELs they can make in their current incarnation.
That’s saying quite a lot, considering that people are paying a few hundred
dollars extra, above and beyond what other premium roofs cost these days, for
the ELs.
So, for now, the ELs are a worthy addition to the small number of really fine, bird-worthy, waterproof roofs, but, unless or until, they fix the focus, they won’t be my first pick. The Nikon Venturer LXs remain the BVD Reference Standard for high end roofs.