3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Bright and clear
Date of Review: Oct 26, 2003
The Bottom Line: If your criteria are excellent image, lightweight, small and high quality, these are as good as they get.
I have been searching for some excellent quality small binoculars for some time and finally decided to bite the bullet and get a set. After researching the options for quite some time, I got down to the decision point. It was the Leica 10x25s versus the Swarovski equivalent. My benchmarks were first, a photo advertisement in a window of an office supply store approximately 130 yards (120 m) away, in evening sunlight through a window that had a little bit of glare. The second was a water tower, approximately 1 mile away (1.6 km) - the tower had a latter and some text on the side. Last was a bird's nest in a tree (late fall).
I found the Leica's ability to cut through a bit of the glare on the window advertisement, as well as overall sharpness for this distance to be marginally better than the Swarovski's, however the color rendition and brightness of the Swarovski set were superior.
On the water tower, both were very capable of resolving the ladder up the side of the water tower to very fine detail, however again, the Swarovski's ability to gather light put the plus there. Also the Leica set had a tendency to cast everything in a bit of reddish tint compared to the Swarovski set.
On the bird's nest, again, the primary factor became the ability at dusk to gather the light, so again, the Swarovski won out, although the Leica seemed to have a better depth of focus at shorter distances than the Swarovski, as items behind the nest were in better focus than with the Swarovski in my opinion.
All in all, I would say the tiny Swarovski binoculars are a great set if small dimensions, light gathering and clarity are your primary concerns. If you're looking at $500 binoculars, we already know price isn't the primary concern.
Adorama
