You have all heard the phrase "kids say the damndest things...", right? So do the marketing people and they are, allegedly, adults so they do not get a pass. If you ever wonder why an increasing number of potics companies out there dislikes me, you are about to find out.
This time around, this post from Leica's marketing people (not from the US office best I can tell) popped up in my Facebook feed:
https://www.facebook.com/LeicaHunting/photos/a.140495086006226/5463429737046041/?comment_id=570581228150599&reply_comment_id=769116034143223&force_theater=true¬if_id=1663309099214090¬if_t=photo_reply&ref=notif
It accompanied the picture you see above with the rather excellent Leica Magnus 1-6.3x24 and Calonox Sight clip-on. I like both products and generally have a lot of appreciation for Leica optics, but fair is fair, so I could not let something this silly slide. Ignorance should be discouraged whether it comes from companies I have a good relationship with or the ones I do not have a good relationship with. Fair is fair.
Still, I decided to stay civil and pointed out that the statement is... interesting. You can call it a sign of my newly found maturity that I did not use the exact terminology that came to mind. I figured that I'll point out that setting the dayscope to FOV wider than the clip-on provides does not do anything useful. Anyone with a brain, at that point, even if he has not clue how any of this works, would just slap the clip-on onto the LPVO, realize that he goofed and find a graceful way out of this situation.
No such luck. Apparently, it is the new marketing mantra that when you say something stupid and get called on it, you are supposed to double down by pretending it all makes sense and you ahve tried it in the field. Referring to some imaginary hunt that never happened seems to be par for the course. Arguing instead of double checking what you originally said, just on an off chance you were wrong, seems par for the course too. It reminds me of GPO's British rep who tried to convince me that their fixed power scopes do not have erector systems in them, but I digress.
Once again, I'd like to point out that I havn't the foggiest idea of who is posting on Leica's behalf and that I did not call him an idiot despite typing that exact word and erasing it multiple times. Newly found maturity and all.
Here is why I find this irritating: he is clearly lying. If he has ever put the Calonox Sight onto the Magnus 1-6.3x24 and played with the Magnus magnification for eight seconds, he'd know that going below 2.5x or so is pointless. The thermal's image just starts looking smaller, like you are looking at it through a straw.
Even if you do not have the two products in question on hand, it takes about 30 seconds of arithmetic to figure out how they match together. It is very basic geometry. Not only is he lying, he also does not understand how the products he is talking about work. I do not care how close he wants to stalk to the god damn boar and what exactly he fancies in the process. Laws of physics do not take a break when he is out hunting.
Another reason this pisses me off is that he is making some really nice product slook bad. Magnus is one of the best LPVOs ever made and Calonox Sight is possibly the best packeaged commercial thermal I have seen to date. I spent a lot of time with it last year and shot a hog in the process. Even aside from the fact this is all very easy to calculate, I am also very well familiar with the product:
I did not have a Magnus on hand, but I had SAI6, which is what I used with the Calonox. The thermal core in the Calonox is clearly from iRay, but the industrial design is Leica's and it is excellent. Battery life is long. User interface is simple. Zero retention was absolutely superb. I suppose it is good that the quality of the product exceeds the quality of the marketing people. It would be worse if it was the other way around.
