Binocular Choices?

[johnalison]

About 30 or more years ago someone recommended and sold me Jason 7x35 autofocus and we have been using them on the boat ever since, they were around £80 which seemed expensive then but they are light, compact, neat and durable. I think the make was American and I have not seen it recently but compared to various 7x 50s I have tried and taking into account the heavy use over an extended period I would recommend them.

Google reveals that the name and the Autofocus patents were bought over by Bushnell about 20 years ago but the originals are still treasured by specialist repairers.
Bushnell 7x50 permafocus £87 on Amazon which is about what I paid in the 80s.

Your 7x35s will be light and handy, but they will be admitting about half the light of 7x50s. The are essentially two functions for binoculars on board, firstly to identify small objects in daylight, for which any pair will do, but the best including IS ones will be better. Secondly, you will occasionally want to pick up things in very poor light, for which 7x50s outclass most other common sizes, unless you want to fork out for image intensifiers.

Another consideration when choosing is eye relief. This is the distance the eyes need to be for the best image. Most binoculars have rubber cups to take up this distance and for most of us this is the most comfortable solution. I have occasionally been presented with binoculars without cups and found that I had to adjust the eye distance before getting a decent image, which could be very irritating in general use, so I would always suggest trying any pair before buying to check the handling qualities.

 

[Quandary]

The Jasons work for me but then up here with all the space we have I rarely need to examine anything more than 5 or so miles away, I would need a lot of persuading to swap for any of the 7-50s I have tried, the lightness, making them fast and comfortable to hold and use one handed compensates for the gloom at long distances but you will have noticed that the Bushnells I recommended are 7x50 so I am not really disagreeing with you.

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

Your suggested binoculars sound very interesting, but you will find that this post is almost two years old.

 

[STOL71]

I recommend German made Minox binoculars: Nautik-Fernglas BN 7x50 DCM | MINOX

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

I recommend German made Minox binoculars: Nautik-Fernglas BN 7x50 DCM | MINOX

So do I, just bought myself some for Christmas.

 

[Kukri]

My Zeiss 7 x 50s will see me out.