Swarovski 7x21 Curio
Review
Swarovski’s Curios are well named for a variety of reasons.
For one thing, their 7x21 format is indeed curious, with few new 7x binoculars
in general released these days. For another, they’re a curiosity in Swarovski’s
range: they undercut the existing 8x25 substantially in size, but not in price;
they seem almost a new market segment, for SW at least. Finally, the OED defines
‘Curio’ as ‘... an object of art ... valued as a curiosity or rarity’; check.
You see, the Curios are a designer (in this case Mark Newson)
item, with a feel of indulgent quality that goes beyond function in a way few
Swarovskis (but more Leicas) do. Unfortunately, the price also reflects that.
So is this tiny, desirable, expensive
designer object actually worth buying as a pair of binoculars? As usual, let’s
find out ...
At A Glance
|
Magnification |
7x |
|
Objective Size |
21mm |
|
Eye Relief |
16mm claimed (15mm measured) |
|
Actual Field of View |
135m/1000m |
|
Apparent field of view |
7.7° |
|
Close focus |
2.5m measured |
|
Transmissivity |
90% |
|
Length |
92mm |
|
Weight |
250g |
Data from SW/Me.
What’s in the Box?
The Curios get Swarovski’s standard box with the soaring hawk
print, but in a slightly smaller size.
Design and Build
The Curios are a conventional double-hinge design like almost
all mini bino’s except several generations of Zeiss’s, but they have a
different look to the 8x25 CL Pockets as befits a ‘designer’ model. No idea if
this is a one-off or the start of a new designer line.
They do look better in person than in photos. If you’re
unsure about the look (as I was, honestly), I’d urge you to go and handle a
pair.
The clue to the elephant in the room compared to other brands
is engraved on the bottom of the bridge – ‘Made in Austria’. As far as I can
tell, these are like every other Swarovski binocular - proudly made from
scratch in their super-modern factory in an alpine village and likely fully
serviceable as the result. Does this matter? Yes!
Pocket binos spend a lot of time
bumping around walkers’ necks, in packs and yes pockets. They get a hard time. And
pocket bino’s are more fragile than larger models. So being able to send them
back for service or repair at modest cost is a big advantage; good for
sustainability too.
You should factor this repairability in when pricing the
Curios against other brands. I sent back a pair of Zeiss 8x20s under warranty because
they’d gone out of collimation. Zeiss just sent me a new pair. Out of warranty
I’d have had to buy them again.
Body
These really are tiny – just about the smallest binoculars
I’ve ever seen. They are noticeably shorter but a little wider and marginally
heavier than Leica’s 8x20 Trinovids, but smaller and lighter than the rest.
Build quality is outstandingly high. That silver bridge can look
a bit plasticky in photos; it isn’t – in fact the bridge is solid anodised
metal and looks like it’s been CNC milled from one piece of aluminium rather
than moulded: the finish is exactly like my high-end Linn music player (see end
photo). The folding mechanism has a Swiss-watch quality to its action.
Only Leica’s Ultravid pocket bino’s have a similar artisanal
build quality (the Trinovids are much more basic). I found some evidence of cost-cutting on the CL 8x30s, but not here.
At first the combination of anodised metal bridge and
armoured barrels seems... well, curious. But in fact, it’s sensible. My old
Nikon HG 8x20s were all anodised metal, but it was the barrels that suffered
from knocks and chips and then corrosion. Meanwhile, keeping the bridge
un-armoured looks good and keeps weight and bulk down.
Finishes are either anodised silver/burnt orange or
all-black. The orange/silver is unusual but again it looks better in reality
than photos and would be my personal choice (and you’ll more easily find them
again if you leave them on a rock).
Design of the folding bridge is typical, but beautifully
executed here.
Focuser and dioptre at either end of the bridge.
Focuser
Typically for this type of bino’, the focuser isn’t as twirly
as a larger models’, but the knob is chunkier than many and has a very precise
and smooth action, with no play or backlash. Close focus to infinity takes 1 ¾
turns, which is slower than some.
Close focus is exactly the claimed 2.5m and what’s more it’s
quite easy to merge the images at this distance. This means that the Curios
work very well for butterflies, insects and culture (I used them to examine
Galileo’s tomb sculptures and other architectural details on a recent trip to Florence).
The dioptre knob at the front of the bridge is very small.
It’s perfectly weighted to avoid unintended movement, but only has +/- and
neutral markings. I’d prefer a neutral détente as well.
Optics - Prisms
These are a conventional roof prism design, but manage a
transmission of 90% - competitive with most full-size bino’s and rather more
than most compacts.
Optics - Objectives
At this size and magnification objectives can be simple and
still perform well, so these are likely just fairly basic triplets without ED
glass.
Coatings are excellent, contributing to the high (for folding
bino’s) 90% transmission. They have a neutral hue with muted tints of purple
and green for a lifelike colour balance.
Internally, there is one large micro-ridged baffle and the
objectives are well-recessed for resistance to veiling flare.
Optics - Eyepieces
The optical realities of narrow tubes and very short focal
length objectives make it hard for designers to squeeze all the best
characteristics out of mini-bino’ eyepieces, but Swarovski have done a great
job with the Curios’. They have relatively large eye lenses at 12mm diameter and
must be a complex design incorporating some kind of flattener.
7x binoculars generally have narrower apparent fields
than higher-powered models, but the real field of view of 135m/1000m is
about the same as most full-sized 7x bino’s and wider than many with 8x. The usable
real field is amongst the very widest, however, because it’s sharp
edge-to-edge.
Swarovski claim 16mm of eye relief. I measured more like
15mm, but it’s enough to see the whole field with my glasses – an excellent
result for such a miniature design.
The screw-out eye cups are solid and turn smoothly, seem a
bit better than most of the competition as SW’s usually do. They have no
click-stops, but you can set intermediate positions to suit your eyes or
spec’s.
Blackouts as you move your eyes around are non-existent, with
glasses or without, a really good feature.
Eye cups are
continuously adjustable, no click-stops.
Accessories are much
like larger Swarovskis’.
Accessories
The case is a mini version of the Standard SW field case –
padded and semi rigid with a magnetic clasp.
The strap is a narrow lanyard, the eyepiece cap very light
and small; there are no objective caps (less to fall out of your pocket,
right?)
In Use – Daytime
Ergonomics and Handling
These are inevitably so small that big hands might find them
awkward. There’s just no way to make folding bino’s really ergonomic, but the large
focuser falls nicely to finger and works intuitively.
Eyepiece comfort is a standout feature of the Curios, with
plenty of eye relief and – most importantly – no blackouts at all as you move
your eyes around.
The strap attachment points are cleverly positioned so that
the binoculars lie against your chest at an angle with the effect that they
swing much less readily when walking, something I’ve previously found troubling
with folding bino’s.
Overall, I found the Curios very comfortable and relaxing to
use, more so than I recall of most mini bino’s, thanks to the comfy eyepieces,
excellent focuser and light weight, but as much as anything due to the
steadiness of the low power. I often appreciate the ease of use of 7x
binoculars and these are no different.
Tiny and elegant,
I reckon you could even use these at the opera, especially given the kudos of
that prominent Swarovski hawk badge.
The View
The Curios don’t quite have the big binocular view of
Zeiss’ 8x25 Victorys’, but compared to most compact
bino’s the view in bright daylight is a revelation and comes very close to premium
big bino’s standards: very bright, sharp, full of high-res’ detail and vibrancy
all the way across. The only way it lags the Zeiss is the apparent field width:
if you’re used to bino’s with 60° or more then the Curio’s 51° feels just a little boxed in.
Focus snap is superb and optical quality the highest. One big
advantage of the 7x power is the usual one of ease and comfort, but part of
that is simply the huge depth of field – for middling distances you just don’t
have to re-focus much. Following gulls wheeling over the bay sands was so easy.
Meanwhile, their close-focus comes in very handy for museums and architecture.
Swarovski’s claimed 90% transmission is high for a folding
binocular and that does translate to excellent brightness in use. In normal
daylight, these never feel dim or aperture limited, something few mini-bino’s
can claim.
Overall, I really like the Curio’s view, despite its slightly
constrained feel: I like 7x bino’s anyway, but in a micro binocular it’s
compelling for most purposes. I use them a lot, a sure sign of a great bino’s
for me: after just a couple of months I’ve already taken them on holiday and
numerous walks and day-trips.
Flat field?
A flat
field, usable to the very edge, has become something of a Swarovski trade mark
and the Curios conform. If there is a little softening at the edge due to a tiny bit of curvature, it’s barely perceptible in use.
It’s
quite possible to read a ruler all the way across the field at closest focus:
the field just looks perfectly sharp edge to edge, but in fact they’ve dialled
in a little distortion for comfortable panning (note the railings in the snap
below).
The
field is well corrected from edge to very edge.
Chromatic Aberration
Watching
flocks of birds migrating against a bright sky at Cardigan Bay I noted a trace
of false colour fringing, but it’s not noticeable in general use and is never a
problem. You can sweep through silhouetted branches without trouble from
jazzing false colour.
Stray Light and Ghosting
I couldn’t get much in the way of ghosts or veiling flare, but I did note four long spikes from the prisms when viewing a bright streetlight at night.
This is an extreme test, but the very best pass it; the Curios don’t – one of the few areas they aren’t perfect.
In Use – Dusk
These are notably bright for compact bino’s in full daylight
– significantly better than my old reference standard, Nikon’s 8x20 HGLs.
Mostly that’s due to the higher transmission optics, but the extra 1mm aperture
actually gathers 10% more light too. Consequently, they do work better at dusk
or in dim woodland than most 8x20s, but fall short of 8x25s or 8x30s in really
low light.
In Use – Observing the Night Sky
Binoculars of less than 30mm aperture are pretty limited for
use on the night sky, especially for deep sky, but the Curios give a lovely
sharp and detailed view of the Moon and show Jupiter as a disk with its four
Galilean moons about it, with no flare or ghosting.
Swarovski 7x21 Curio vs
Zeiss 8x25 Victory Pocket
These are the two current leaders
in folding binoculars and readers have asked me to compare them, so I will. But
in a way they aren’t the natural competitors you would think. Before I delve
into that, let’s do a point-by-point comparison:
·
The Curios are significantly smaller, especially
when folded, and lighter too
·
The Curios are made in Europe like other Swarovski
binoculars; the Victorys’ construction has been
outsourced to Japan
·
The build quality of the Curios feels to me on a
higher level, more recognisably artisanal and ‘high-end’
·
The Zeiss have a much wider apparent view, which
just gives them an airier more expansive feel, but it falls off a little at the
edge in a way the Curios’ does not
·
Otherwise, the quality of view – daytime brightness,
vividness, resolution – is very similar
·
The Zeiss’ extra aperture gives them an edge in low
light, making them a more practical all-weather, all-day mini birding bino’
·
The Zeiss’ unusual single bridge makes them faster
to unfold and use, but makes them less compact when folded away
·
The Zeiss focus even closer
So which
should you choose? This is where we find they’re not really competitors after
all.
The Curios’ field lacks the
apparent width and so wow factor of the Zeiss’ and the Curios’ smaller aperture
means poorer performance in low light. But the Curios are better made and much
more compact. Which you choose will depend on your use case.
As an ultra-compact birding bino’
you would choose the Zeiss. For travel, trekking and general-purpose nature
viewing the Curios, due to their compactness, designer build and repairability.
Summary
The Curios have many standout
points, including compactness, build quality, eyepiece comfort and brightness,
but even so they’re more than the sum of those good points – just a really
pleasurable and useful pair of binoculars that don’t feel compromised by their
tiny dimensions.
Another outstanding feature of the
Curios (for a folding bino’) is their superb made in Austria build that feels
the same as larger SWs and should mean ready repairability if you drop them or
wear them out. And that’s something that reduces their real cost significantly.
If I had to find a negative it
would be their apparent field width, but that’s unavoidable and standard for 7x
binoculars and the Curios make up for it with a field that’s sharp from edge to
edge. They produce prism spikes on streetlights at night, but that’s unlikely to trouble most users.
Personally, I’ve started taking
them pretty much everywhere, something their tiny size encourages. Unusually
for me, I’m likely to keep them longer term.
Another winning Swarovski then?
Indeed!
The Curios are one of those products that just gets it right – they get my highest recommendation for travel, trekking and general
nature viewing.
Buy Swarovski Curio 7x21 in Burnt Orange from Wex here:
Buy Swarovski Curio 7x21 in Black from Wex here: