ChromeDome
Well-known member
Fujinon and Canon models with stabilization are brilliant for marine use.
Not cheap, but outstanding.
Not cheap, but outstanding.
Are monocular scopes a better bet than budget binos?
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Poecheng
Well-known member
Agree. I have the Fujinon stabilised bins and they are superb. They let more light in than Steiners IMHO (repeated side by side tests in the dark at Iken).
Neil_Y
Well-known member
I'd always go for focus free as you can be much quicker, especially with gloves on, to see what you are looking at clearly. I've had a pair of budget ones, glued back together once and 25 yrs old, now more bird watching than sailing. These BARSKA focus free are very similar, mine were 7 x not 10 7 Best Automatic Focusing Binoculars | Reviews & Buying Guide About £30 or £40
johnalison
Well-known member
When we sailed back through Denmark with our then new boat many years ago we had to work our way through narrow sounds marked by their funny little stick buoys, and it was absolutely necessary to distinguish port and starboard. In still water but with a lot of wind none of us could reliably judge the channels with good quality 7x50s and 8x24s. It was this experience that led me to buy my Canon 10x40s with IS, and they have given me much pleasure ever since, both on the boat and bird-watching. The only alternative from Monk Optics at the time was a very bulky Fujinon pair that stabilised in more than one axis, but they were three times the price and unnecessary for me. I haven’t needed to look at the current offerings.
However, I would not recommend that people immediately fork out for IS binoculars without first deciding if they really need them and trying them out. For some reason that I don‘t really understand, there are those that don’t ’get’ the point of IS when they try them, and the extra money would obviously be wasted on them. They are reasonably robust, but expensive and not waterproof, so it is well worth having a pair of 7x50s on board as well, especially for use at dusk.
ChromeDome
Well-known member
Not only in Denmark, the so called side markers.
Read and green, different top signs to help identification in less than perfect light conditions
Some places may offer variants - this one showing why they're called brooms also:
Seen in Germany, of course not meant for long distance identification
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
Focus-free is fine for those with good uncorrected eyesight, or who use contact lenses. But for those who use glasses, it may not be a good solution unless the eye-relief of the binoculars allows for the use of glasses and, to coin a phrase, your mileage will quite definitely vary! Otherwise, binoculars with focussing allow for correction of vision (within limits) and for differential correction between the eyes. It does, of course also mean that other people struggle to use "your" pair of binoculars! Focus-free also imposes limitations on the optics of the binoculars; basically, it's a fixed focus system designed to have a wide depth of field. Greater depth of field results from a smaller aperture, so the light-gathering power of focus-free systems may be constrained.
Praxinoscope
Well-known member
Atlantic Pilot I normally agree with you, but not on your reasoning on ’focus free’ binoculars is not determined by smaller aperture (neither objective or ocular) it is that the focus of the binoculars is set at the ‘hyper focal point’ which gives the maximum depth of field, but results in the ’minimum object distance’ being at a greater distance.
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
Thanks - I was going by my (limited!) knowledge of how it works for photography! But Optics is not my specialty; A-level physics is as far as I went with it. Your explanation is well beyond my knowledge of lens systems.
Praxinoscope
Well-known member
You are perfectly correct in that reducing the ‘aperture’ would increase the DoF, with both your camera lens and binoculars, but with bin’s (certainly 7x50) the exit pupil is normally set at roughly 7.1mm which corresponds to the maximum opening of the human iris, making them the optimum for low/poor light levels, unless of course, one starts to go for image intensifiers
Poecheng
Well-known member
John,
A not dissimilar route to purchase for me.
We bought our last boat in 2013 and brought her from Hamble to East Coast and, going north through Fisherman's Gat for the first time, we were moving around and I couldn't positively identify a buoy simply because of the movement on the Monk waterproof bins I bought many years ago (otherwise excellent). I saw the Stabilised Fujinons for sale (I think it must have been Ebay) and they have been great in both modes. They are distinctly better thank most as standard bins (the quality of the optics is excellent) and make a material difference in stabilised mode.
NickRobinson
Well-known member
Another option- I struggle with bins, even when I use a single eyepiece.
I use a camera, 24x optical zoom, snap my target, often on 'burst', then view the image at serious magnification and no jiggling up and down. My s/h ebay Lumix was £25 too,
I use a camera, 24x optical zoom, snap my target, often on 'burst', then view the image at serious magnification and no jiggling up and down. My s/h ebay Lumix was £25 too,
Clunk
Member
I have 2 monocular, but I am a touch boseyed, on the plus side it does mean I can look up and down river at the same time. Bonus.
johnalison
Well-known member
You are mistaken if you think that A level physics is of any use in the real world. All the time I spent trying to master things like Wheatstone bridges was of no use whatever when faced with my boat’s electrical circuits.
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
Yes - there's a big gap between theory and practice in that sort of area.
reeac
Well-known member
The Wheatstone bridge is a remarkably simple but nonetheless elegant, device. It’s more that 150 years or so of hardware development have made left it behind. As a retired experimental physicist I find the discipline applicable in many different areas ….navigation, sail trim, home heating, weather forecasting, hi fi, , binoculars, .. . .
RunAgroundHard
Well-known member
Yet high school physics allows simple mechanical advantage loads to be understood and provides understanding for basic, electrical design and problem solving. Personally, it was not wasted on me. I once raced a yacht with a Wheatstone bridge charging adjuster.
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
I find that my physical knowledge greatly helps me to understand how systems work; I can usually calculate things like loads and currents in circuits quite well using basics like Ohm's Law and Kirchoff 's rules (but I'll leave things like an infinite grid of 1 ohm resistors to others!). Of course, Newton's laws are encountered every day, and vector maths is an integral part of marine navigation.
Where I fall down is in the practical implementation of circuits. There is so much best practice requiring knowledge of relevant standards and protocols that I prefer to leave it to people with that training. I could create systems that would probably work, but a) they might be unmaintainable by anyone else and b) I might not take into account edge cases that are handled by standard systems. I will tackle simple things that don't interact with other systems, but nothing where things might interact in unexpected ways.
johnalison
Well-known member
Many years ago I used to suspend a Blipper from the crosstrees via a block so that it could be raised and lowered. Unfortunately, this caused the crosstree to droop, but eventually it dawned on me that I could halve the stress on the member by shackling the Blipper up instead. I related this to a friend who didn’t believe me, although he was a successful electrical engineer, but without a university background. In the end, and unprompted by me, he rigged up a block to a postal scale and finally proved to himself that I was right.
Alfie168
Well-known member
That last photo suggests you've found my mother in law's crash site.
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ChromeDome
Well-known member
Oh - so she'd be stuck to the other end?
