GFX@PSUVM.BITNET (05/24/89)
The day before I left for vacations, I had asked for comments on compact binoculars. Here is the summary I promised: My impression is that there are few hard criteria by which one can judge the merits of binoculars. For example, I have not been referred to an issue of Consumers' report, nor is there a consensus formed around a definite best buy. I have purchased Minoltas 8x25 ($70) and am very pleased. The vision angle is a bit narrow (no hard measure -- sorry!) which makes them a little difficult to use when you try to spot warblers or very active birds, but the convenience of compact binoculars more than outweighs this limitation. Comments follow From: jklee@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (James Kin Wah Lee) I currently own a pair of Bushnell Custom Compacts (7x26) which I have owned for at least 10 years, and they have served me faithfully and well. They are very rugged (important for me) and I have almost no complaints. The one minor complaint I do have is that they are just not quite powerful enough on many occasions to catch important details while birding. Eye rings, wing bars, etc., are sometimes difficult to make out. This, plus the fact that my binos have gone through some very rough times, has led me to look for a new pair in today's world of new technology. From: rdavis@oracle.com (Richard Davis) I absolutely love my 10x50 lietz binocs. They are fairly light and small (can be used 1 handed), very sturdy, and have extraordinarily crisp resolution. They are also exceedingly expensive. In general, what you pay for in binoculars is light-gathering ability, well ground and matched lenses, and ruggedness. Note that slapping some rubber onto the outside of a pair of cheap binoculars just makes them rubberized cheap binoculars. As far as light-gathering ability goes, the second number (which is the aperture of the lense sort of) should be as big as you can find in relation to the first number. Thus, 8x25s are brighter than 9x25s (and you can see the difference when birding at dusk or dawn. By the same token, 8x40s are brighter than 8x25s and are preferable. You really have to decide how much birding you will be doing in less than ideal conditions. Do you go on pelagic trips (and contend with fog, rain, etc)? Do you bird in rainy or misty areas or times of year? Do you like to get out and start birding just as its getting light? Do you stay out for that last half hour of birding before its pitch dark? The more stuff like that you do, the more you will want to have the best light-gathering power you can get. I personally lust after Nikon's 10x70 field glasses. The next issue is lens quality, and this is less easy to spot right off the bat. All I can say is that bad lenses give me headaches (really) and good lenses do not. The major brands of binocs should all be fine in this respect, but be aware that the larger the lenses (and thus the better the light-gathering abilities) the harder it is to grind quality lenses. So they are more expensive. Associated with this is general alignment quality. This is easy to test. Pan the binoculars while following a moving object (ideally a bird :-). The dizzier you get when doing this, the worse the alignment. Again, all the major brands should be fine in this respect, but even here, the cheaper pairs of glasses may have poorer quality control. I've had bad experiences with Swift glasses in this respect. The final issue is durability. Birding glasses get banged around all over the place. They have to be sturdy because when they go out of alignment or start fogging uncontrollably when the temperature changes they become practically unuseable and can ruin a good trip. Have you ever tried finding a life bird with a scope because you glasses are so fogged as to become unuseable? Its no fun. Thats what you pay for when you buy Lietz or Zeiss glasses. They are outrageously priced, by all means, but when you figure you want to rely on your binocuilars for many years, you realize that they end up costing just about the same as the cheap glasses you need to replace over and over again. From: emunix!mal@cardiology.ummc.umich.edu I have a pair a cheap, $25.00, binoculars that I have used for years. The expense involved to buy "top quality" is not justified when you are going to be tramping around in the woods, sometimes when it is wet. 7X25 have served me well. When evaluating glasses, look for the "light index", ie. the opening divided by the power, 25/7 = 3.5 index. An index of less than 3 will made viewing in less than brigth sun difficult at best. Zeiss lens for glasses are expensive 'cause they are the best. Crafts- manship. - - - - - Thanks to those who responded. Stephane