Is it worth getting a pair of expensive Binos?

[Dave]

Thanks again Nomad. Your reasons for buying the Sierras are the same as mine for buying the Saharas. Im going for a DSC1, in August, so the intended use would be for stalking. But I think Im going to wait and have a look through some of the other guys bins, before I decide whether mine are going to be suitable.

If you look at the REVIEWS of my 10x42 Saharas theyre brilliant.

I dont think Id go for a really expensive pair. I think something like THESE would be as high as I would go, price wise and need wise.

 

[Nomad]

I dont think Id go for a really expensive pair. I think something like THESE would be as high as I would go, price wise and need wise.

They're the range before my EDIIs. One thing to watch out for is the speed of focus - 3/4 of a turn from min to max is very quick, which means it's a bit harder to get them as sharp as can be until you get a feel for the focus mech. Bins with slower focus have more scope to tweak the focus once you're in the zone. Fast focus is popular with bird watchers in situations where you're looking at something close one minute and then want to quickly focus on something further away. Also good for tracking birds in flight if they're moving away from or towards the viewer. I find the Sierras to be a bit easier to get the focus just-so for static subjects, but they're too slow for the tracking thing and switching quickly between near and far subjects (too much frantic wheel winding when trying to shift in a hurry). For typical viewing distances (say 10-20m out to 100m or so), I find I barely move away from the zone I'm in - I just make little adjustments.

Note that the end-to-end turns figure given in the blurbs and reviews tends to be to the mechanical limits, but that most bins have some mechanical overshoot past infinity (or 'far enough away as makes no difference'). The Sierras are 2 turns mechanically, but about 1.5 optically. The Endeavour EDIIs are 3/4 of a turn mechanically, but optically about 0.6 of a turn.

I have no idea whether this speed of focus thing matters for stalking, but I did find it noticeably different between the two bins I have. I learned to make micro adjustments on the EDIIs when tweaking to get the sharpness spot on.

A comment on the open frame style: They're generally touted as being easier to hold because you can wrap your fingers around the barrels, rather than have them trying to find somewhere to go over the big lump in the middle with the single hinge type. In reality, the finger wrapping thing depends on how far apart the barrels are, and that is set by your interpupilliary distance. Mine is 60mm, and I can't quite get my fingers down between the barrels, although I can get the tips into the gap reasonably well. In practical use, I don't really find either bin better, they're just different and I adapt to whichever I'm using. The rubber armour on the EDIIs has a bit more tack than the Sierras, and that probably contributes more to a feeling of good grip than anything else (with bare hands - not tried with gloves).

It's a good idea to try the other people's bins - and to find out what they like and don't like about them for their particular usage. There could be requirements for stalking that are only obvious to those that do it (like sensible magnification, good light, decent field of view, and quick focus for birds). The differences in binocular specs often don't look like much when considered as abstract numbers, but they can affect their suitability for a particular purpose more than one might think.

 

[Dave]

Those bins with the built in range finders look excellent, but it might be a while before they come down to a reasonable price?

 

[baggins]

i have to say, i've been following this pot with a great deal of interest. A lot of really useful tips and hints on here. I currently use an older pair of Hawk frontiers, before the ED glass, around about £300 at the time. SWMBO'd recently got some Deltas for a similar price. Wow, the difference is quite staggering, i had no idea that the technology was advancing so fast on the lower end of mid range glass. They are so much brighter and sharper. so much so, after trying them my Mum bought an even newer pair of Deltas, and again, the difference is noticeable, and this is only after 6 months.
i have tried the top end ones, the swarovskis, Ziess and Leicas. yup, they really are good, but for the money, the mid range ones seem to be catching up fast.

 

[Silverback 1]

When i first started stalking deer many moons ago, i was advised by an old ghillie to spend 3 times as much on my optics than on my rifle, advice which i ignored.
Turns out he was right, if you can't see it, you can't harvest it.
High end and pricey optics are sometimes sneered at and regarded as unnecessary by the non savvi, but they come into their own at the most important time, dawn and dusk.
Buy once, cry once.

 

[OldJimbo]

Those bins with the built in range finders look excellent, but it might be a while before they come down to a reasonable price?

I love my Bushnell Fusions and they've worked well for a couple of years - as they should for that cost. I used to make range charts of hunting areas with an optical range finder prior to actual hunting by friends and what I found was that I got vastly better at figuring ranges just by having so much experience looking over areas with range charts from a notebook. There's a lot of optical illusion issues with guessing range, even with short ranges. We had targets set at 200M on a hill at one range and so obviously when looking back at the firing line when setting targets, that was 200M, but looking down instead of up, the range seemed greater.. There is the point that official rules meant direct line of sight range to target - and we'd had someone check that out with a laser range finder. Pacing out isn't accurate with hills. Although the angle of elevation wasn't great, calculating bullet drop relies on horizontal distance, and laser range finders will show that too.
I guess my point with the above is that a person needs an optical or laser range finder to actually measure distances in difficult terrain, just so they can learn range estimation by eye.

In a little while I'll be ranging my son's hunting areas and making range charts which he'll use in the same way. That'll be useful even though I'm not leaving him my expensive bins.

 

[Robson Valley]

Are you hunting or are you watching? If you get a look with any binoculars, a Swarovsky scope on your rifle (where it belongs) should give your the real picture.
Me and my vistors are out looking. I have a Nikon Prostaff 82mm spotting scope, 20X - 60X (40X is realistic.) Has it's own little spotting scope!
In a quick-release mount, it sits on a fat surveyor's tripod, pegged into the ground. Plus, that's 82mm light gathering, squished into the diameter of my pupil.

Silverback1 got it right = the only times when you can really "see" the magnificent difference is at dawn and at dusk.
Don't know how they do it but great optics are profoundly better than #2.

 

[Nomad]

Are you hunting or are you watching? If you get a look with any binoculars, a Swarovsky scope on your rifle (where it belongs) should give your the real picture.
Me and my vistors are out looking. I have a Nikon Prostaff 82mm spotting scope, 20X - 60X (40X is realistic.) Has it's own little spotting scope!
In a quick-release mount, it sits on a fat surveyor's tripod, pegged into the ground. Plus, that's 82mm light gathering, squished into the diameter of my pupil.

It's 82mm divided by the magnification, to give the exit pupil. 8x42 bins have an exit pupil of 5.25. For 20x, 40x and 60x, a scope with an 82mm objective has an exit pupil of 4.1, 2.05 and 1.37.

Silverback1 got it right = the only times when you can really "see" the magnificent difference is at dawn and at dusk.
Don't know how they do it but great optics are profoundly better than #2.

Two things affect brightness: the materials and coatings, and the optical geometry (exit pupil). The materials and coatings don't produce something that's better than 100% - they are only a means of making the transparency (and prism internal reflection) more efficient. Once we are into fully multi-coated optics and decent glass, the difference is in the range of a few percent. Exit pupil is where the big differences are, something that is easily seen when looking through a zoom scope. When starting at the least magnification and zooming in, the image becomes substantially darker as max zoom is reached. Since the coatings and glass aren't changing, it's a clear demonstration that the optical geometry has a strong effect.

It should be noted that the exit pupil number is the diameter of the virtual aperture at the point of eye relief (where the rays extend out of the last bit of glass and into the eye). An exit pupil of 4 is not twice as bright as an exit pupil of 2 - to gauge relative brightness, the area of the exit pupil needs to be calculated.

For the above optical geometries, and a couple of others for reference...

Geometry	Exit Pupil	Area	Difference
8x42	5.25	21.6	100%
8x32	4.00	12.6	58%
8x21	2.63	5.4	25%
10x42	4.20	13.9	64%
20x82	4.1	13.2	61%
40x82	2.05	3.3	15%
60x82	1.37	1.5	7%

If we were to assume that the coatings and glass are 20% better in a quality optic compared to a decent budget one (it might not be that much), the difference due to exit pupil is still much larger. An extra 20% added to the 25% that 8x21s can deliver is still only about 30% of what we might get from 'poorer' quality 8x42s.

 

[Nomad]

Those bins with the built in range finders look excellent, but it might be a while before they come down to a reasonable price?

A built in rangefinder strikes me as a somewhat niche market, given that nearly all bins don't have that feature. I don't see much, if any, comment in bird watching circles about the need for it (birding is probably one of the biggest binocular markets). I dare say it would trickle down to the cheaper bins eventually, but there might be less motivation for the makers to incorporate it if the demand is perceived to be low (unless people can be convinced that they 'need' it).

It's an odd thing, but estimating the size of a bird through bins doesn't seem to be that hard. Not in terms of measurements, but with reference to typical size (like sparrow, thrush, seagull, etc). There's also the fact that a bird tends to be spotted first with the naked eye, which helps gauge size. I can't think of a reason other than gauging size for wanting to know how far away a bird is, but that would mean some sort of range/mildot procedure, and I suspect that's too much hassle given that the size is readily estimated anyway.

 

[Robson Valley]

Thanks, Nomad. Your explanation of the oprical geometry isn't hard to see in the Nikon. Hence I suggested that 40X is the realistic limit for what I do.
Up the Holmes River is a Mountain Goat and Mountain Sheep No-Hunting sanctuary region. Fortunately, the road is on the opposite side of the valley & river.
I'll guess we're looking at the goats from 2-3 miles away. My old eyes can see them as white dots moving along rock ledges.
My Pentax 7x50 binoculars make the animals recognizable even when they are bedded down.
With the Nikon at any mag, 20X and above, you can see their individual legs.

An associated feature: I've seen some examples of binoculars and spotting scopes with Image Stabilizing optics.
The claim is made then that the mag can be higher (10-15X) without the associated hand-held shake.

 

[Nomad]

Robson, I agree - the magnification on scopes is great if one is willing to carry the bulk of the scope and tripod. On the odd occasions I've tried them, the darkening at max zoom has been very noticeable, even in normal daylight. I'd agree that 40x is about the limit on a 20-60x82. Personally, I'm not into the monocular thing, and good scopes with binocular attachments are way too pricey for me (and I'm not especially into the weight and bulk). I tend to just wander around and point my bins at whatever looks interesting, rather than settle in a place to observe something in particular. I guess bins are more of a bimble thing for me.

Image stabilisation should certainly be able to make bigger magnifications more manageable if its use in photography is anything to go by - often read of IS systems capable of allowing shutter speeds 2 or more stops slower (so 1/50th second instead of 1/200th to get a shake-free image with a telephoto lens). That should translate directly into bigger magnification for observation optics. I guess it's down to how well the particular system design works.

 

[Robson Valley]

I live in a little village in the mountains. Most of my vistors are inhibited by anything as large as a hill, 2 blocks long. I sort of expect that as host, they want to see what I live with = everything. The cats, the dogs the ungulates, they are all around me, even on my front doorstep in the nights of winter. So, we go game spotting. The Nikon Prostaff82 has been an absolute dream for "show-and-tell." I know what to look for and where. Guests would never ever see it. The Nikon, on a surveyor's tripod, stomped into the mud, gives me the satisfaction of picking out sheep and goats miles away and 5,000' up on rock ledges. My guests see them, I count their legs and go home knowing that my world is still intact.

Show up in September, we go have a look-see.

 

[OldJimbo]

With spotting scopes one has to be careful about whether they have a fixed power eyepiece or a zoom. It's only recently apparently that zooms have made great headway. For 200 meter pistol matches I happily used my fixed 20X for spotting in preference to lots of other scopes (which I tried) with zoom eyepieces even with those set at 20X. I'm seeing that lots of progress has supposedly been made with current fixed power eyepieces, so obviously there's something to the notion.
http://betterviewdesired.com/Pentax-80mm-Ed-Spotting-Scope.php

Image stabilization is wonderful for most people with smaller cameras. I'm still sceptical about its use in getting people to buy higher powered bins. Hunters have used lower powered spotting scopes (20X) for a long time with them braced on a pack or stick, since they don't want to carry a tripod. Holding them steady is one practised skill. The other skill needed is to quickly line up the scope on what you want to see, and that can be the harder skill to acquire.

 

[OldJimbo]

I just noticed your post, Robson. How successful are your friends at lining up the scope on the critters by themselves?

 

[Robson Valley]

Very, very few of them understand the habitat so they don't know where to look.
Sometimes hard to explain the patterns of intersecting lines of trees on a glaciated mountain side,
even in plain sight just a few miles away.
But if I succeed, the Nikon Prostaff82 has it's own spotting scope!
No mag at all. Inside the little tube, it's a tapered post with V-shaped notch in the tip.
Get the animals in the notch and have a real look at 20X or more.
Quite effective.

 

[OldJimbo]

Thanks! I was wondering about my post before last. Typically I used the scope for both spotting at shorter ranges or taking a good look at stuff at closer range like coats on bears for rubbing. Obviously the experience people I was with, who did standing rifle shooting with high powered rifle scopes for silhouette, and so equal time spotting, had no issues with getting (even a braced on pack/stick) spotting scope on target and steady. With people who didn't have all that experience I had to use a tripod and so be able to lock the scope on target for them ever to be able to locate the animal. That small sighting scope makes a lot of sense.
I don't have a spotting scope at present, but using the 24X on a rifle I find that I can lock onto things in short order because as you say, you get to know patterns in things and so form a mental picture and quickly make adjustments to immediately get on target. I guess that's why I do well with 12X bins. I'm still wondering how well things will work for people with higher powered bins with image stabilization, if they don't have the experience of getting onto target fast.

 

[Robson Valley]

Some people get the "creeps" using a rifle scope to see stuff. The Nikon Prostaff82 is quite benign by comparison.
I've been up the Holmes valley more than 100 times. I know where the sheep & goats hang out.
Trying to explain the locations to a flat-lander is like selling a toothbrush to a chicken.

The Nikon is on a quick-release, large-format camera mount that buckles into a surveyor's tripod. Rock-freakin' solid,
on and off in less than a second. I get in there, it's nice to see the animals doing their things, undisturbed.

I shoot 7mm/.308 IHMSA Unlimited Pistol. How's by you?
For those who don't get the chance, it's a rebarreled Remington XP-100 bolt action pistol with a custom stock.
Creedmore and I can hang on to it quite easily.

 

[OldJimbo]

I was just trying it with the bolt out, through a window, to see if I really could get onto things as quickly as I thought - since I overlook trees, no complaints. I've never used a rifle scope for looking at anything, only sighting on targets or animals for shooting.
I shot the 7 International based on the 300 Savage case in the XP, though to tell the truth I prefer the T/C. Mine still wears its orig stock with epoxy putty modifications, though it does have a King tube sight. I got used to the Anschutz in UL .22, but again really preferred the ergonomics of the T/C. With the T/C I started with 30-30 back in the early days of heavy targets and when targets and settings were standardized - got sensible with a 7 TCU. I had to try everything with the T/C, though,even the .44. With revolvers I went through so many, eventually trading them off until I settled on a DW 44, a DW .357 Supermag and a DW .22. With only half the price of each one in postage and who knows what cost to DW in gunsmithing and parts replacement, they now work really well, but mine sure were crude junk as bought. In later days here we all got interested in fun cowboy shooting both in .22 and big bore on pistol targets - so it was always a question of what guns to shoot, in order to leave time for that.

 

[Robson Valley]

I must be getting old. Some days, I'd rather watch the grouse (Franklin, Dusky & Ruffed) do their thing rather than shoot.
I suffered from SAS (Shotgun Aquisition Syndrome) but now, 10/12 are gone.
I gradually became a "social trap shooter," visiting with my geezer pals means as much as the trap.
Just a Baikal o/u 12 and a sweet Baikal s/s 20. To hunt with Russian shotguns, you must carry a tool kit as pieces fall off when you least expect it.

I must remember to take the Pentax 7x50 with me more often.
They've been frozen and thawed so many times that the gas seals are long gone = keep them dry!
When they fog up inside, a few minutes over a heater vent in the truck clears things up.
Top end binoculars are on my bucket list but so many essentials get in the way (eg new house roof).
The Pentax must be pushing 40 years old and beat on pretty hard. If I had Zeiss/Leica/Swarovsky now,
I think I'd be preoccupied with preserving them.

 

[Robson Valley]

I just Googled B&H Photo in New York. Under Optics, then Binoculars, I found 1024 entires to pick from!
I like the prices, too. Despite the fact that our CDN dollar is down around 72(?) cents, USD.
I bought the Nikon spotting scope from them.