I think I have to admit that Swarovski NL's are the best binoculars out there IMO, especially optically. I have tried over 100 binoculars and nothing wows me the way an NL does when I look through them. No other binocular has the huge FOV that is tack sharp right to the edge and comes as close to optical perfection as the NL. You might like the ergonomics or light weight of a Zeiss SFL better or the saturated colors of a Leica Noctivid, but no binocular is as close to being perfect as an NL. The NL's are also very bright and very transparent and no matter what binocular you try when you come back to them, they will wow you. Zeiss SF's are very good and are a little better with glare and CA on the edges, but they have some glare also, and they don't have the sharp edges and perfectly corrected FOV that the NL does.
FOV is very important because it makes it easier to find birds, and you can scan larger areas faster and if a bird suddenly flies to another tree you can follow them easier. The sharp edges of the NL make that huge FOV even more effective because you can see birds at the very edge of the FOV clearly. The Noctivid has great saturated colors, but it doesn't impress with it's relatively small FOV compared to the NL or SF. I think the NL has a combination of great fluorite glass and some of the best coatings in the industry that sets it apart from even other alpha level binoculars. When you look at the objectives on an NL, you see almost no reflections. It almost looks like there is no glass there. That is a testament to how good their coatings are. Not everybody agrees with Allbinos but every time they test an NL it ends up in first place even besting the Nikon WX a binocular that costs $6000 in the 10x50 class. NL's are about the most expensive binoculars out there, and they are the best. I guess it means you get what you pay for.
FOV is very important because it makes it easier to find birds, and you can scan larger areas faster and if a bird suddenly flies to another tree you can follow them easier. The sharp edges of the NL make that huge FOV even more effective because you can see birds at the very edge of the FOV clearly. The Noctivid has great saturated colors, but it doesn't impress with it's relatively small FOV compared to the NL or SF. I think the NL has a combination of great fluorite glass and some of the best coatings in the industry that sets it apart from even other alpha level binoculars. When you look at the objectives on an NL, you see almost no reflections. It almost looks like there is no glass there. That is a testament to how good their coatings are. Not everybody agrees with Allbinos but every time they test an NL it ends up in first place even besting the Nikon WX a binocular that costs $6000 in the 10x50 class. NL's are about the most expensive binoculars out there, and they are the best. I guess it means you get what you pay for.
Binoculars rankings - AllBinos.com
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