£3,140
Reviewed by David Chandler
“Leica Sport Optics presents two new lines of spotting scopes with unprecedented top performance” – so said the press release. They’ve been a long time coming, then two come at once – the costlier APO-Televid, and Televid HD. Both have 65mm or 82mm objectives and come from an “ultra-modern” Portuguese factory. All of them are angled scopes. Two eyepieces are available – a wide-angle 25-50x and a 20-60x. I reviewed the APO-Televid 82 and 25-50x WW eyepiece.
Tough and functional
This scope feels quite weighty. With the eyepiece, it’s 15g short of 2kg. I carried it tripod-mounted with a mulepack and the weight wasn’t a problem. This Televid is well put together, shockproof and waterproof with rubber armour on a magnesium chassis for “extreme ruggedness”, and AquaDura lens coating to shrug off water and dirt. I didn’t test its ruggedness… I don’t think Leica would thank me for that.
Two focus wheels sit in front of the eyepiece, one for quick focusing (25mm wide), the other for fine focusing (15mm wide). Both move very smoothly, the fine with light resistance, the coarse much stiffer. For more distant birds, turn them clockwise. The coarse focuser moves through about four revolutions, the fine focuser about 11½. For most birdwatching, no more than about two turns of the fine focuser does the job. I used both – it’s a very good system – and focusing precision was generally very good, though some care was needed at high magnification at distance.
The zoom ring on the bayonet-mounting eyepiece moves stiffly and smoothly through about 130°. It was a bit stiff for my liking but may loosen up. The rubber-covered eyecup has a very good, solid action, twisting up through two intermediate positions. The lens hood has a sighting device and adds about 26mm of protection to the precious front end. I’d like a bit more lens hood, but it’s not a big deal.
The tripod mounting plate is “tailored to leading tripods from ARCA-SWISS and Manfrotto”. It works with other tripods of course, has a hole for an ‘anti-rotation pin’ and is attached to a rotating collar. This moves well and easily with eight click-stops. On my tripod this Televid was slightly rear-heavy, but that wasn’t a problem.
Sharp and clean
This scope delivers a clean, sharp image, which, to my eye, is towards the cold end of the spectrum. At 25x it’s edge to edge sharp; at 50x there may be a little bit of peripheral softness but nothing to get worked up about. Sharpness is excellent throughout the zoom range, from near to far. I had a great view of a Starling at 50x, about 30m away, showing green and blue iridescence and, already, in August, some fresh white feather tips of winter plumage. Much closer at 50x, I could see the spur on the thorax of a Willow Emerald damselfly. As you would expect from a wide-angle eyepiece, the view isn’t claustrophobic.
The official close-focus is 3.9m. It wasn’t quite that good for me – more like 4.25m, but that’s hardly a deal breaker. This scope has “sophisticated fluoride glass types for maximum colour-fringe reduction”, and chromatic aberration did indeed, seem very well controlled. It also boasts a “sophisticated aperture system for stray light suppression” – in my limited review time I didn’t notice any stray light issues.
Brightness was very good in normal daytime use. I checked its low light performance a little after sunset with extensive high cloud cover after a bright day. At 25x it performed excellently viewing close shaded and distant open areas. At 50x the shaded view was quite dark and careful focussing was needed at range. Distant viewing at c.32x however, was excellent. Ten minutes after sunset, it performed well at 25x in shade and the open, struggled at c.32x in the shade but, with careful focusing, did well at distance. By 20 minutes after sunset at 25x it had lost it in the shade and was losing it in the open distance. I wasn’t doing a side-by-side comparison with any other scope but my impression is that this isn’t the best scope in low light. If you don’t do much low light birding, this may not matter. Leica say this scope has “minimal colour fringing with highest level of detail” and that the Televid HD delivers “maximum brightness and outstanding image quality” – if brightness is what you’re after, maybe you should try the less expensive Televid HD. Having said all that, I enjoyed a very nice Badger view, at 25x, in the open, about 300m away, 16 minutes beyond sunset.
Specs
Size: Body 325 x 106 x 101mm
Weight: Body 1,550g, eyepiece 435g
Field of view (m@1000m): 57-74/42-28
Close focus: 3.9m
Eye relief: 19mm
Supplied with: Objective cover, eyepiece cover, bayonet covers.
Accessories include: ER case (£210), bespoke accessories for digiscoping, 1.8x extender, “perfectly coordinated tripod from Leofoto”
Website: leica-camera.com
Verdict
This scope is very well put together, with moving parts that are hard to fault. It delivers a wide-angle view with impressive sharpness and does very well at controlling colour-fringing. If low light performance is especially important to you check that out. It’s a very good scope.