When the brand new NL 10x and 14×52 mm binoculars have been introduced through Swarovski, even supposing I to find this sequence a little outsized for my tastes, I used to be nonetheless curious in regards to the 10s. I imply, which birder makes use of 14s? Have you learnt any person the use of any such top magnification? Precisely, neither do I.
But, my regional gross sales rep didn’t have any 10×52 at the present time and satisfied me to check out the 14s, announcing they have been made with birders in thoughts. Yeah, correct, I used to be considering, it’s only a gross sales pitch. I lived to switch my thoughts.
Round 6 am the following morning, I used to be nearing my native patch of Beljarica Floodplain to check the 14s at my same old stomping grounds the place I’m used to native species and panorama, at their same old distances from the observer, so I may straight away spot a distinct revel in. After a fortnight heatwave, the temperature was once mercifully within the low 20s. But, as I used to be quickly to find, after the new heavy showers, the mosquitoes have been rife. And hungry, too.
My first fowl was once a Black Stork, fairly shut through. And that was once the instant of reality: for the primary time, I reached for the NL 14x52s. It’s been about twenty years since I used 50 mm lenses—I really like smallish binoculars and typically use NL 10x32s. Even though heavier than my usual containers, about 1 kg (1020 g/36.0 ounces)—they didn’t strike me as hefty. They felt excellent. They felt correct. Expectedly, the perspectives have been vivid and crisp, centered edge to edge. The stork flew into the willow grove in entrance of me. I may listen the loud, rasping name of a Commonplace Pheasant.
Their ergonomic wasp-waist actually does lead them to comfy to maintain. While you grasp them through the waist, you’ll be able to elevate all 4 hands and depart them simplest for your thumbs – smartly balanced, they continue to be horizontal, now not falling ahead or backward. 14x52s are all of a sudden comfy to make use of for same old quick observations, 10 to twenty seconds, but I had a Wryneck preening itself correct in entrance of me, and I sought after to look at its flying silhouette, so I waited for mins for the fowl to take flight. And that’s the place the variation in weight become pronounced. Used to about 0.6 kg (640 g/22.8 ounces), after a number of mins with 1 kg in my fingers frozen of their place, I began to really feel drained, sufficient to position them down for a couple of moments, and once I put them up once more, my woodpecker was once long past.
Mountain climbing the levee, I will see the flooded expanse on my left, and the grassland on my right-hand facet, the place younger Brown Hares are chasing each and every different. Little Egrets and Black-headed Gulls are flying above the flooded poplars. Used to 10s, I used to be afraid that 14s would really feel peculiar, even stunning to look the birds so confusingly massive. To my utter wonder, the containers felt so herbal as though I have been the use of them for a very long time and now not only for the final quarter-hour! The sphere of view felt simplest quite narrower, and the birds have been noticed so smartly and wealthy in main points! Black-crowned Night time Herons, Nice White Egrets, all of them have been flying from side to side, whilst Pygmy Cormorants have been going upriver, from their night time roost to unfold over the a lot wider feeding grounds. I may listen a metal, insect-like music of a Savi’s Warbler.
A hunter-friend of mine commented that 14s can be utilized simplest with a tripod. Although, birding from a automobile, I recurrently leisure my elbow on an open window, but, fairly regularly I don’t. From my revel in, NL 14x52s do not have further give a boost to. But if that’s what you would like for, there’s a fast unencumber, company and simple tripod adapter for NLs.
Looking at far-off birds with 14s is unquestionably rewarding, however are you able to observe flying birds? Particularly close-by flying birds? The solution is each sure and no. When coping with birds with extra directional flight, like woodpeckers, you’ll be able to simply observe them, however having a close-by flock of swallows chasing bugs in madly erratic flight, the solution is most commonly (however now not definitively) no.
A birding good friend requested me whether or not 14x has manner an excessive amount of magnification for birding functions? I’d have idea so too if I hadn’t attempted them. 14s aren’t an excessive amount of in any respect, you notice a lot more element, such a lot in order that you generally don’t want a telescope! Most often, I lift a scope with me, however with 14s I intentionally left the scope in the back of, in need of to look if this magnification can change the scope at shorter to average distances. And the solution is most commonly (however now not definitively) sure.
Every other query was once: isn’t it inconceivable to your symbol to not shake, to not have tremors with 14x, regardless of how secure your hand is??! Average weight and excellent steadiness make it imaginable. “You might be utterly defeating the aim of a scope!” Must I drag over 2 kg of optics, or only one kg? I vote for 1 kg.
I will have to upload, I did use it with a brow leisure, a comfy 3rd level of give a boost to, specifically helpful with better magnifications corresponding to 12s and 14s, however a pal of mine luckily makes use of the brow leisure on his 8s and has simplest superlatives for it.
With NLs, make a selection your style after the dominant habitat kind you generally fowl. With 14s, avoid forests or woodland-savannas, for which the FOV isn’t large, nor deep sufficient, and it turns into exhausting to find the fowl sooner than it flies off, or to center of attention it in time. NL Natural 14×52s come as a powerful, specialized beast, nice for better however far-off waterbirds and raptors, but additionally small, but nearer larks and pipits, and for open habitats corresponding to grasslands, open savannas, deserts, lakes and marshes, cliffs, scree and mountain-tops above the tree-line, and shore-to-sea staring at.
In any case, one insider data: many Swarovski customers have been complaining in regards to the high quality in their rubber-armouring. It sounds as if, the problem is solved and someday it will have to now not occur.