Swarovski NL Pure 8x42

[Paz]

I've been secretly indulging in birdwatching for a while, as it can be enjoyed in cloudy weather and in daylight, and for some time have been using things from my existing astronomy gear. Recently I went to a reputable birding outlet and tried a few high end bins that I had narrowed my options down to, thinking about upgrading from my existing 8x42s, which are Opticron DBA VHD+. I came away with some 8x42 Swarovski NL Pure bins which after quite a bit of testing came out as the ones I preferred. I didn't want to post a technical post about how they compared to other options but did want to say that having had them a couple of weeks and given them a good run out at night on the sky and in the day bird watching, I have been impressed on both fronts. I have never seen these binoculars mentioned on SGL, I guess as they are not thought of as astronomy kit but would be very interested to hear if any SGL members have these or have tried them and what they think of them, whether for birding or astronomy.

I've found views of the night sky to be quite amazing although I didn't get them for astronomy. They are able to frame greater areas of sky, and the colours of the stars are very evident. The largest field I'm used to is 7 degrees in my bins and in my smaller finder scopes so this is a notable increase. The moon is small in these but the handling of bright/dark at the limb is very good. In daytime the views are equally amazing to me, colours are reproduced very faithfully, the transmission is notably very high, detail is very sharp, and these qualities hold up well far out to the edge. The focuser is very light and buttery. Something like following a bird in flight is beautiful to see in these.

It's not all perfect though, I don't really like the objective covers, or the eyepieces cover, or the proprietary strap connections, it's quite heavy for its size (I guess it is packed with a lot of glass) and this is noticeable if using them for an extended period, it has no decent means of being mounted on a tripod as it comes out of the box, and when it gets cold I guess due to its mass it feels like having a bag of frozen peas resting against my chest. However once looking through it those things are forgotten.

[GordonD]

They do have a fabulous reputation. so quite envious. Roger Vine rated them as the pretty much the bet you can get http://www.scopeviews.co.uk/Swaro8x42NLPure.htm

[Captain Scarlet]

I have recently got a pair of NL Pure 10x32, mainly for birdwatching. If you look at my sig, you'll see I'm no stranger to top-end binoculars, but these Swarovskis are in a different league again, quite extraordinary.

The criticisms I have are the same as yours though. The rain-guard/eyepiece-covers are over-designed. They're designed to "wedge down" on to the eyepiece cups, but do so far too tightly and when you do eventually, after several tugs, manage to rip them off, you've moved the twist-up eye-cups and the bird is long gone. Worse than the sculpted Zeiss versions which suck down. Grrr. And the strap swivels. Ostensibly a good design, in practice they seem to gain an extra twist while you're not looking just out of sheer malevolence!

But to look through, nothing compares. The contrast and sharpness! And such a wide view, 75 degrees AFoV, and eye relief, that you start to see things well before the eyepieces get to your eye. Sublime.

Magnus

Edited Saturday at 00:14 by Captain Scarlet

[Mr Spock]

Nice, but, unless you hold them rigidly, lesser optics with image stabilisation will perform better.

[John]

They sound fabulous 🙂

I really enjoy my ancient Swarovski 8x30 Habicht Tirol binoculars for birding. Tatty but optically really nice 🙂

 

[Paz]

18 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Nice, but, unless you hold them rigidly, lesser optics with image stabilisation will perform better.

I would agree, I certainly find mounted bins much better than  handheld even at 8x but I weighing everything up 8x42 old school bins suits me the most.

I've ordered an aftermarket adapter to be able to mount these, as I'll use them on a mount fairly often.

[Paz]

19 hours ago, Captain Scarlet said:

I have recently got a pair of NL Pure 10x32, mainly for birdwatching. If you look at my sig, you'll see I'm no stranger to top-end binoculars, but these Swarovskis are in a different league again, quite extraordinary.

The criticisms I have are the same as yours though. The rain-guard/eyepiece-covers are over-designed. They're designed to "wedge down" on to the eyepiece cups, but do so far too tightly and when you do eventually, after several tugs, manage to rip them off, you've moved the twist-up eye-cups and the bird is long gone. Worse than the sculpted Zeiss versions which suck down. Grrr. And the strap swivels. Ostensibly a good design, in practice they seem to gain an extra twist while you're not looking just out of sheer malevolence!

But to look through, nothing compares. The contrast and sharpness! And such a wide view, 75 degrees AFoV, and eye relief, that you start to see things well before the eyepieces get to your eye. Sublime.

Magnus

I've taken the swarovski eiepiece and objectives covers off and I'm using the covers from my Opticron bins. They fit better, stay on better, come off faster and easier, and don't break, so I've ordered a duplicate set of those to use instead of the original equipment.

One of the swarovski objective covers has broken off already but I was expecting that!

[Captain Scarlet]

17 minutes ago, Paz said:

I've taken the swarovski eiepiece and objectives covers off and I'm using the covers from my Opticron bins. They fit better, stay on better, come off faster and easier, and don't break, so I've ordered a duplicate set of those to use instead of the original equipment.

One of the swarovski objective covers has broken off already but I was expecting that!

Do you have a link to the Opticron covers? Whenever I've looked such things seem to be oddly difficult to find. I never use objective covers on any of my bins, I store them vertically. With these I've swapped out the built-in covers for the "notch-fillers" that are provided.

Did you get the orange ones or the green?

[Paz]

58 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Do you have a link to the Opticron covers? Whenever I've looked such things seem to be oddly difficult to find. I never use objective covers on any of my bins, I store them vertically. With these I've swapped out the built-in covers for the "notch-fillers" that are provided.

Did you get the orange ones or the green?

I went on amazon, opticron sell through there. Search for Opticron 31046  Rubber Objective Lense Covers to fit outer diameter 51-52mm and it will bring up options for objective covers for all sizes . I am not certain yet what outer diameter size is correct though. I got 52-53mm outer diameter ones but they are slightly too big, I'm awaiting 51-52mm which more googling says is the size of my DBA VHD covers which I am using at the moment,  and I can feed back if that is the correct size when they arrive, if not them then it must be 50-51. There are many other sizes across a wide range.

For eyepieces it's the Opticron 31075 BGA binocular rain guard 44mm I'm using. I think the 43mm might be a closer fit over the eyepieces but I dont know for sure. The 44mm is a light/loose fit over the eyepieces but stays on mostly due to the tension between the eyepieces. If your IPD is identical or very close to the natural IPD of that rain guard (I measure it about 77mm) it will probably be loose. It's a case of trial and error.

I always have caps on  unless I'm observing and I always carry an air blower and use it regularly, an overly obsessive habit transferred from astronomy. I think it will take me a while to mentally come to terms with carrying any optics around uncapped, which seems to be more the the norm in birding if I want to catch those fleeting opportunities.

I've also put thise notch fillers in where the original caps were mounted.

I got green ones, heres how the Opticron caps look, not as posh, but they work.

[Hans Joakim]

Lovely!

I went back and forth between the NL Pure and the Zeiss Victory SF last year, and landed on the SF due to a good deal from a local dealer. I’m absolutely thrilled about the build quality and the purity of the optics, in both day and night time use. I recently got the Berlebach binocular support which work really well. 

Your NL Pure may be connected directly using the hole through the focuser housing? Enjoy the Swaro!

[josefk]

I have the same bins @Paz

I only got them this year but I think they’re great. Very immersive. 

I like the Swarovski “house style” for optics with the flat field etc and I’m quite brand loyal. 

It sounds like your dialling in the ocular covers to your taste but if you want options take a look at the textile rain guard Swarovski do. I have one on both my NL Pure and my SLC. The plastic ocular cover stays in the car when I set off birding and I rely on the rain cover to protect the eye lenses thereafter. Works well. 
 

I do find I have to scrunch my eye socket into the EP a bit more than the eye relief suggests and they are my most cleaned eye lenses as a result - I get a lot of eyelash oil on them as a result of the scrunching. Totally worth it though. 
 

The wide view at night is fantastic. I don’t use them enough for that and ought to take them out more in the dark. 
 

Enjoy!

Edited Sunday at 16:04 by josefk

[josefk]

BTW - the winged eyecups definitely add to immersion. I have these too on both Swaro bins. They’re a slightly clunky combo on the smaller NL Pures with rain guard but is still a combo with benefits (IMHE). 
 

cheers

[Captain Scarlet]

19 minutes ago, josefk said:

... I do find I have to scrunch my eye socket into the EP a bit more than the eye relief suggests and they are my most cleaned eye lenses as a result - I get a lot of eyelash oil on them as a result of the scrunching. Totally worth it though. ...

Perhaps the eye relief is different on the 10x or the 32s, my 10x32 are the only bins for which I've ever had to actually bring the eyecups UP one notch to get to the right place. I have deep-set eyes and wear glasses so am normally comfortable with 15-20mm eye relief.

M

[Paz]

2 hours ago, Hans Joakim said:

Lovely!

I went back and forth between the NL Pure and the Zeiss Victory SF last year, and landed on the SF due to a good deal from a local dealer. I’m absolutely thrilled about the build quality and the purity of the optics, in both day and night time use. I recently got the Berlebach binocular support which work really well. 

Your NL Pure may be connected directly using the hole through the focuser housing? Enjoy the Swaro!

I am not surprised, the Zeiss SF is also a great binocular. Yes the hole in the front of the focuser is where a mount connector will go. I'm waiting for it to arrive from the US (from mutntgear.com) , it screws in and presents a stud that is then clipped into and out of a mount. If I wanted the Swarovski version, which I understand Swarovski would upgrade these to free of charge, I would have to post the bins over to Austria - there's no way  I am posting these anywhere!

[Paz]

53 minutes ago, josefk said:

I have the same bins @Paz

I only got them this year but I think they’re great. Very immersive. 

I like the Swarovski “house style” for optics with the flat field etc and I’m quite brand loyal. 

It sounds like your dialling in the ocular covers to your taste but if you want options take a look at the textile rain guard Swarovski do. I have one on both my NL Pure and my SLC. The plastic ocular cover stays in the car when I set off birding and I rely on the rain cover to protect the eye lenses thereafter. Works well. 
 

I do find I have to scrunch my eye socket into the EP a bit more than the eye relief suggests and they are my most cleaned eye lenses as a result - I get a lot of eyelash oil on them as a result of the scrunching. Totally worth it though. 
 

The wide view at night is fantastic. I don’t use them enough for that and ought to take them out more in the dark. 
 

Enjoy!

I'll have a look at the textile rain guard, the shop offered me a "free" thing thrown in (but they aren't really free, are they!?) and that was one of the things on offer - but I picked the harness as I didn't have anything of that nature and thought why not try something different.

On the eye relief, Televue Delos are my favourite eyepieces in terms of eye relief and being easy to use, leaving me some room to hang off them or look around the field of view. The NL Pures are not as good as Delos for eye relief but they are not far off and are enough for me. One of my criteria was enough having eye relief such that I am not thinking about eye relief when I am observing.