Looking For Binoculars

[gino_76ph]

hiya. i was wondering if you guys can recommend one or two leading makes or types of binoculars on the market today. (ill mainly be using it as a personnal mean...say for instance you're on holiday and just wana see the view,etc.)

[TheReaFireblade]

I know you've asked for "leading makes" - specifically... but you'd be best to mention your budget nonetheless... else you're liable to get recommendations for ludicrously expensive binos, which might be way outside your price range?

[mediaboy]

He's especially liable to get them on this forum, where people seem dedicated to making you spend money...

[Clunk]

He's especially liable to get them on this forum, where people seem dedicated to making you spend money...

Rubbish.

Try these.

[HSK]

Rubbish.

Try these.

nice, they're on sale also.

[IBM]

"...say for instance you're on holiday and just wana see the view"

Yeah, we all know what kind of 'view' you're going to be looking at

[Rave]

Cheap binos can work fine for light use, they (apparently) just hurt your eyes after a while, hence why serious birdwatchers and other heavy users spend more for higher quality optics. I've never been a serious user and I've never got sore eyes.

Binos come in lots of sizes and magnifications and it's as well to know the details. Basically, they are described by two numbers- the magification and the objective lens size- so a pair of 8x25s would have a magnification of 8x and an objective lens size of 25mm, while a pair of 10x50s would have a magnification of 10x and an objective lens size of 50mm. The objective lens size is the main determinant of how big the binos are- 50mm binos are what most peoiple would consider to be a "full-size" paid of binos whereas 25mm would be a portable pair.

How 'bright' the binoculars are- which you can see at a glance by holding them up and looking at a distance at how big the spot of light you can see in the eyepiece is- is basically the objective lens size divided by the magnification. So, a pair of 7x50 binos would be very bright indeed and usable in almost pitch darkness, whereas a pair of 10x25s don't let a lot of light through and become hard to use in low light (though I did once use my old 10x25s to observe Jupiter's moons). It's all do do with the size of your pupils as it gets darker- when your pupils are much larger than the spot of light coming through the binos, you're not going to see much.

Finally, you also need to consider your ability to hold the binos still- at 10x magnification I can't really get the picture still enough to see anything without something to rest the binos on. Any more than that would be useless without a support (ideally a tripod) unless you have exceptionally stable hands. I wouldn't recommend most zoom binoculars for that reason.

This thread reminded me that I recently bought on impulse a pair of 10x50 binoculars for something like 10 or 13 quid (from a shop I'm no longer prepared to recommend, or even mention). I've just got them out and they enabled me to see individual girders on the Crystal Palace tower from my window, and that must be 4 miles from here- I even got a pretty good view of the Croydon tower which is another couple of miles further away. Most spookily I managed to watch a flock of swifts flying about which weren't even visible to the naked eye. Once I knew where to look I saw the odd flicker but only once or twice- but through the binos, they were clear as anything.

I also need to rescue my 10x25s from my mum's house as they'd be ideal for reading the numbers of buses that I missed when they drove past me. They'd also be ideal for distance perving, if I'm honest.

[Whalefish]

Plenty of the Astronomy guys I know have bought the £10 Bresser\Meade 10x50s from Lidl. They work well and are ideal for slinging in the car. No worries either if you lose them.