Binoculars

[ozburt]

I am weighing up which binoculars to buy and have narrowed it down to a choice between two.

They are:

1) Nikon 10x25 Sportlite

Great general purpose roof prism binoculars that are designed to give strong performance within a lightweight compact design. Great for hiking and sports, the long eye relief aids comfortable viewing while the Eco-glass optics are free of both lead and arsenic.

Additional Specifications

•Field of View: 5° (50° apparent), or 87m @1000m
•Exit Pupil Diameter: 2.5mm
•Eye Relief: 13mm
•Close Focus: 3m
•Interpupillary Distance: 56-72mm
•Dimensions (L x W): 122 x 115mm
•Weight: 270g

2) Bushnell 10x42 H2O Roof Prism Waterproof binoculars

H2O binoculars are completely o-ring sealed for waterproof protection and nitrogen-purged for fogproof viewing in any weather. Features include durable rubber armouring, centre focus and fully-coated optics for durability and clarity.

•Field of View: 102m @1000m
•Exit Pupil Diameter: 4.2mm
•Eye Relief: 17mm
•Close Focus: 3.6m
•Weight: 708.5g

BaK-4 prisms for bright, clear, crisp viewing


Which of the two would you recommend and why?

Thanks.

 

[Mr Adoby]

Either, but for different purposes. It is two very, very different binoculars.

If you are going to use it mainly at home, in a boat or in a car, take the heavy one. If you really need binoculars when walking long distance, take the light one. Or just walk up closer.

Bigger is better, but you may not like to carry the extra weight.

I would prefer a high end 7x50/8x50 with a very wide field of view for stationary use. And no binocular at all when walking long distance. Or perhaps a cheap monocular.

 

[SCOMAN]

I've always used high end binoculars at work and you do tend to get what you pay for. I don't particularly like the Bushnell make I just don't think they're up to the job. After a lot of consideration I bought Hawke Endurance II 8x42 which are waterproof and all singing and dancing. They let a lot of light in which gives a great picture and allows a better than 10 x 42 low light use. If you are using them at night or low light always go for 7 x 50 nice wide apterture and they allow a lot of light in. But as all of these things cost will probably be the biggest factor. I got my Hawke's from ebay for £113 plus postage and love them.

 

[Doc]

Get 40mm+ binos if you're using them at dawn or dusk.

Get 'phase coated' binos if they are roof prisms. It does make a difference.

 

[lovelessfolder]

My first choice would be a zeiss victory 10 x45 RF , zeiss victory 10x 56 FL or some similar ones of high quality.

 

[ged]

I am weighing up which binoculars to buy and have narrowed it down to a choice between two.
1) Nikon 10x25 Sportlite
2) Bushnell 10x42 H2O Roof Prism Waterproof binoculars
Which of the two would you recommend and why?

The Bushnell. They have a bigger objective lens and they're waterproof. Having said that...

Is this your first foray into buying binoculars? If it is, I'd recommend trying out two or three pairs of cheap ones first, to find out how you're going to use them. I got a pair of 7x50s for eight quid from a swap shop in Lowestoft which I use a lot when I'm travelling, and I also have a pair of 8x40s that I bought from Oxfam for a tenner. Neither of them would have been expensive when they were new. The 8x40s live on the kitchen table and I use them for bird and animal watching out of the window. They've been one of my best purchases ever because they're always right there when I need them. If I'd spent 1600 quid on a pair of Swarovski or something they'd always be in their case in the box in the cupboard, wrapped in polythene, and by the time I'd got them out when that redpoll visited us the other day the bird would have flown.

They reckon that 10x magnification (the first of the two numbers) is about as high as you can use if they're hand-held, that is not mounted on something like a tripod. In my experience it's still too high for steady viewing, especially if you've been tabbing along and the heart and lungs are earning their keep. I prefer 7x or 8x for hand-held viewing. The second number is the diameter of the lenses at the business end, the end farther away from you when you're using them. That determines how much light gets into the binoculars (but not how much of _that_ light gets into your eye - that's down to the optical quality). You almost always want as much light as you can possibly get, so you want as big an objective lens as you can. Unfortunately there are a couple of drawbacks. Big lenses are heavy, and big lenses of good quality are heavy and very expensive. Make no mistake, good quality optics give way better images than cheap ones, but unless you have plenty of money you need to know what's going to be comfortable and work for you in the way that you'll use them before you buy something so expensive. It's a lot harder to hold heavy glasses steady for any length of time than it is to hold light ones. I wouldn't buy binoculars with 10x magnification for hand-held use unless they had image stabilization. They're extremely impressive but similarly expensive. Even then I'd reckon that it's worth an extra 50% magnification just to have a steady image, so I wouldn't go for anything more than about ten times. Go much beyond that and I personally think you're into telescope territory.

But apart from a steady image, here's the biggest problem with magnification. The more magnification, the less bright is the image that you see. You won't really notice this until you try to use them around dusk. A magnification of 10x will give you only about half as bright an image as a magnification of 7x, because the brightness goes as the inverse square of the magnification and the square of the objective lens diameter. For magnification, 1/(7x7)=1/49 and 1/(10x10)=1/100. For objective lens 25x25=625, 42x42=1764. Big differences there.

I have several pairs of binoculars in the 25-30mm objective lens range and I don't use them much at all. For poor light, a 25mm lens is almost useless. Even a 42 or 50mm is struggling. I have a pair of 11x80s, and the difference when I look at the foxes at dusk with the 8x40s and with the 11x80s seems like the difference between night and day, although the image is actually only about twice as bright. But I can't really take them far on foot because they're so big and clumsy.

Remember that the difference between 8x and 10x is only about 25% but the difference between the naked eye (that is, 1x) and 8x is about 800%. So it's a HUGE step from naked eye to seven or eight times magnification, and an almost unnoticeable step from 8x to 10x. Don't get carried away by the magnification numbers. In the end, you want to be able to see what you're looking at.

Waterproof binoculars can give you a bit more confidence when you're out, but if they're just well sealed, nitrogen filled, and not really waterproof, then just keep them reasonably well protected if it's raining and they'll probably be fine. If you're out and about, then unless you go boating with them they're probably at more risk of damage from being banged or dropped than they are from getting wet.

 

[maddave]

Clas Ohlson do some good bino's

http://www.clasohlson.co.uk/Siteseeker/Search_o.aspx?q=binoculars

 

[swyn]

I am a fan of www.monkoptics.co.uk

I have a pair similar to their 'Artemis' type (Monk Argonaut). These are superb and have been abused, dropped and spent many hours in salt water.....Ten years on they are still superb. What more can you ask for!

Swyn.

 

[underground]

I've always used high end binoculars at work and you do tend to get what you pay for. I don't particularly like the Bushnell make I just don't think they're up to the job. After a lot of consideration I bought Hawke Endurance II 8x42 which are waterproof and all singing and dancing. They let a lot of light in which gives a great picture and allows a better than 10 x 42 low light use. If you are using them at night or low light always go for 7 x 50 nice wide apterture and they allow a lot of light in. But as all of these things cost will probably be the biggest factor. I got my Hawke's from ebay for £113 plus postage and love them.

I'm a Hawke man too - I got the Platinum 8x42 which is similar to SCOMAN's model but a bit older - I think I searched high and low on Google and got them for 80 quid or so. They too are brilliant and I take them out all the time, even in the woods.

You may not be interested, but these bino's will close focus - mine down to 1.2m, so as well as distance magnifiers, they are great for looking at nearby insect life - sitting by a pool scanning the vegetation for Dragonflies, for example - great detail but far enough away not to flush them out...

 

[Raw01]

Leica all the way

 

[Adrian]

Swarovski (if we're going to be horribly expensive) The Nikons are a good quality light bino if you're going to be walking etc a lot, and you won't go wrong with them. The Bushnells (a decent make, but I don't think as good as they were 20-odd years ago - I'm old ) if you're going to be looking at dawn/dusk when the larger objective comes into its' own.

The equivalent Leicas, Swarovskis, and that end of the market in that size (7-10x 42-50) tend to come in at about a £1000+ last time I looked, so it does depend on if you really KNOW what you want them for. If you are going to be doing a lot of twilight observations of wildlife etc, then it may be worth saving up for the really good glasses - the difference in optical performance at the edge of the operating spectrum is noticeable. If its a more general purpose usage, then I wouldn't go potty on spending out large amounts of money.

The suggestion of a monocular is a good one - you can get good 10x monos for a reasonable sum (again - last time I looked) and if weight is a real factor, then a mono really comes into it's own.