Binoculars

[johnalison]

+1

To date, still one of the best purchases I've ever made for the boat.

I also have Canon IS 10x40s. They are indeed brilliant but they are expensive and not waterproof and possibly not what the OP is asking for. It is hard to beat 7x50s for general use, and their low light performance will occasionally make them indispensible.

 

[alahol2]

As a cheaper alternative to Franks option I recently bought a pair a pair of Fujinon 7x50 WPC-XL

I'll second that. Mine are now 20+ years old, looking a bit tatty, but are still giving a very good image.

 

[KompetentKrew]

I'm in a similar situation to the OP andso far have narrowed my choice down to Bushnellsand Binolyt Searanger II. Any opinions on these? I have a pair of cheapo Plastimo which are functional but have a pretty dim image.
Luminosity is more important than weight, feel etc. I'm not going to fork out for Steiners so wonder if if I'll notice significant advantages in the £200 models. Is there a means of comparing image luminosity from manufacturers' data?

I have a pair of Searanger II's which I'm very happy with. I can't compare them to any others, as they're the only binos I've ever owned, but they've received very good reviews and mine have impressed other yachtsmen; they used to be advertised as "as used by the RNLI".

They occasionally come up on eBay in very good condition for as little as £80 or £85, if you're patient

 

[boatmike]

I'm in a similar situation to the OP andso far have narrowed my choice down to Bushnellsand Binolyt Searanger II. Any opinions on these? I have a pair of cheapo Plastimo which are functional but have a pretty dim image.
Luminosity is more important than weight, feel etc. I'm not going to fork out for Steiners so wonder if if I'll notice significant advantages in the £200 models. Is there a means of comparing image luminosity from manufacturers' data?

Interesting! I have a pair of Binolyt 7x50 with compass that I bought in 2002. Cost me about £230 from memory. They are conventional poro-prism bins and although heavy are superb on the boat. Ashore I do archery and have bushnell 10x50 roof prism bins that cost me £130 and are also excellent. Wife has bushnell 10x50 poro-prism also excellent but cost only £30 second hand on e bay..... There is no doubt that the Binolytes are slightly better than the bushnells in clarity but not much in it. 7x mag is quite enough on a rolling deck. Whatever you buy ensure they have bak4 prisms. Only cheapo ones use Bak7 glass these days but I think you will find the Binolytes compare very favourably with Zeiss Swarofski and other very much more expensive bins. I am very pleased with mine....

 

[Praxinoscope]

A couple of years ago I bought a pair of floating, 7x50 with built in compass from Gael Force marine, they were about £90, they have the brightest image in low light levels that I have found in any 7x50,
At the price I think they are certainly worth investigating.

 

[Seven Spades]

I have Stiener which are excellent. I had a terrible problem with Nikon, they went out of alignment the fist season. I took them in for repair which was done undr warrenty. The next season we went to Cherbourg (It was the first time since repair). Then On the return journet I took them out of the cupboard to use then and they were out of alignment. nikon refused to repair them FOC and claimed I had damaged them but they had not been used since the previous repair. I can only assume that they were looking at the marks for the previous repair. I then paid for the repair and immediatly sold them on eBay onlyfor the buyer to complain that their was dirt inside the lenses! It was a terrible mistake, we had half a seasons use from them and not support from Nikon at all. I am now boycotting all their products.

I also have te most magnificent pair of Canon stabilising binoculars. They are 18X50 and I they work really on the boat.

Canon 18x50 IS AW Binoculars | Free Next Day UK Delivery | Clifton Cameras

 

[PetiteFleur]

I've a Practica 7x50 which are excellent - about £100 about 25 yrs ago. Also a pair of Russian 7x50 which are 30 yrs old, ok but tired and heavy but did only cost $25 in Moscow from a stall selling army bits and pieces!

 

[Barnacle Bill]

Thanks for all these suggestions, I'll definitely look into them. I fully agree that far the best way to buy binoculars is to look through them and compare them, but unfortunately that's not so easy. I went to SIBS this year with the express purpose of finding a good pair, having bought from Monk in the past, but was disappointed. The one stand with lots of pairs mainly had 8x, with very little choice of 7x. Living in Ireland there's one decent binoc shop in Dublin - and same again, very few 7x. I suspect in these days of on-line shopping, real shops are reluctant to carry a good range, and those that do mainly cater for the bigger land-based market.

I did buy a £100 pair of floating/waterproof 'Waveline' (who they??) 7x50s in Bangor NI last week, because the image seems really nice and bright - but not quite the compact, high-quality ones I was looking for. Going to Oxford in April - any good shops there? Or near my route, from Pembroke?

 

[Lucy52]

Bristol Cameras is along your route. A small diversion, I have no idea what the parking is like but the have a range of binoculars to look at. No connection, but they kept coming up when I was searching.

 

[differentroads]

Genuine question. What, at sea, do you need really good bins for? I've done a bit of birdwatching, so appreciate the difference that high grade optics make for picking out the colour of an eyestripe or which of those tiny waders over there is a different shade of brown from the others. But I've not noticed the same need from my very ordinary bins at sea. Things at the limit of clear vision are either too far away to worry about yet or close enough to be sure that its seaweed and rust making it look like an east cardinal where I expected a north cardinal. It might be me being a bit slapdash, so I'd happily accept being put right from real world experience.
My wife craves bins with better optics at much lighter weight to make it easier to read the name of superyachts that we come across in the Balearics and then tell me which celebrity has rented it. I'm dreading the day she hears about image stabilisation!

 

[johnalison]

Genuine question. What, at sea, do you need really good bins for? I've done a bit of birdwatching, so appreciate the difference that high grade optics make for picking out the colour of an eyestripe or which of those tiny waders over there is a different shade of brown from the others. But I've not noticed the same need from my very ordinary bins at sea. Things at the limit of clear vision are either too far away to worry about yet or close enough to be sure that its seaweed and rust making it look like an east cardinal where I expected a north cardinal. It might be me being a bit slapdash, so I'd happily accept being put right from real world experience.
My wife craves bins with better optics at much lighter weight to make it easier to read the name of superyachts that we come across in the Balearics and then tell me which celebrity has rented it. I'm dreading the day she hears about image stabilisation!

You are perfectly correct. The ability to hold binoculars steady is far more important than the finer points of the optics. I doubt if many of us hold the glasses up to view for more than 5-10 seconds, so quality and even weight is not critical. Stabilised binos improve matters a lot, but at a price that makes them not worthwhile for many sailors. I bought my stabilised pair after a frustrating time trying to find my way through narrow buoyed channels between the Danish islands, marked with little stick buoys surmounted by brushes to indicate shapes. None of us on board could really cope with the windy conditions, so it was straight to Monk Optics at the next boat show.

 

[differentroads]

You are perfectly correct. The ability to hold binoculars steady is far more important than the finer points of the optics. I doubt if many of us hold the glasses up to view for more than 5-10 seconds, so quality and even weight is not critical. Stabilised binos improve matters a lot, but at a price that makes them not worthwhile for many sailors. I bought my stabilised pair after a frustrating time trying to find my way through narrow buoyed channels between the Danish islands, marked with little stick buoys surmounted by brushes to indicate shapes. None of us on board could really cope with the windy conditions, so it was straight to Monk Optics at the next boat show.

Ah, that makes sense.
I'm an East Anglian sailor shifted to the Med. A stable compass with a decent light has proved a more important feature in my optics so far, for position fixing and judging collision risks. But I dont want to start off even worse thread drift....

 

[alahol2]

My wife craves bins with better optics at much lighter weight to make it easier to read the name of superyachts that we come across in the Balearics and then tell me which celebrity has rented it. I'm dreading the day she hears about image stabilisation!

The cheapest way to get image stabilisation is to use a travel zoom camera. We use ours to identify distant ships/yachts etc. Photo on maximum zoom (30x) then zoom in to the photo. Amazing just what it can resolve. Maybe phones can do it now?

 

[differentroads]

The cheapest way to get image stabilisation is to use a travel zoom camera. We use ours to identify distant ships/yachts etc. Photo on maximum zoom (30x) then zoom in to the photo. Amazing just what it can resolve. Maybe phones can do it now?

Now that sounds to me like an expense thats not primarily related to boat use, therefore not out of my budget. I might mention it to my wife as an investment that she'd like to make to enhance her celebrity snooping ??

 

[actionoptics]

Whatever you buy ensure they have bak4 prisms. Only cheapo ones use Bak7 glass these days

Careful as some have BaK4 and others have BAK4. What's the difference?
Bk7 is Borosilicate Crown . (Not Bak7 )
BaK4 is Barium Crown.
BAK4 is Phosphate Crown . Cheaper and lower refractive index and allowed to have twice the density of bubbles within it.

 

[boatmike]

Careful as some have BaK4 and others have BAK4. What's the difference?
Bk7 is Borosilicate Crown . (Not Bak7 )
BaK4 is Barium Crown.
BAK4 is Phosphate Crown . Cheaper and lower refractive index and allowed to have twice the density of bubbles within it.

Happy to be corrected! Didn't know that......

 

[geem]

I have Stiener & given over 12 yrs service now & have a 30 yr warranty

We a.so have Stiener bins. Cant fault them

 

[Plomong]

Has anyone mentioned auto-focus here yet ??

I find those to be particularly useless at night. Much prefer the ones with a focus adjustment and the possibility to adjust one eyepiece so that you can compensate any difference in ones eyesight from eye to eye.

Plomong

 

[ashtead]

Have always wanted some Steiner but as would our 4th pair of bino cannot justify but might put on birthday list

 

[alahol2]

Has anyone mentioned auto-focus here yet ??
I find those to be particularly useless at night. Much prefer the ones with a focus adjustment and the possibility to adjust one eyepiece so that you can compensate any difference in ones eyesight from eye to eye.

My Fujinon Mariner are 'auto-focus', except that they don't 'auto' anything. Auto-focus just means that they have a very long depth of field so, in most circumstances, there is no need to focus them.
There is focal adjustment on each eyepiece so that they will accommodate differences between eyes.
The depth of field starts too far away to pick them up and see the masthead, for example, but you can adjust both eyepieces to focus on closer targets.
They are very good at night, in fact I probably use them more at night than in daytime because my night vision is rather poor.

If you get the chance try a pair, I think you would be surprised.