Cheap binoculars

BruceDanforth

BruceDanforth

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I just took delivery of a pair of heavily built 'Kenlock' 7x50's from Oxfam for about £35. Not waterproof but certainly a lot better than the plastic lensed ''yachty' pair that they are replacing.

They have a couple of other pairs of 7x50s on their website if anyone else is sailing on a budget.

I'm really pleased with mine. No connection etc. and you can probably find them in plenty of other charity shops.
 
Quite. The whole point was to get a cheap and reasonably high precision optical instrument that is nice to use rather than something plastic with bad lenses and slightly wonky plastic mouldings that give such horrible collimation issues that they rarely come out of the locker as they only really look like binoculars...

The ones being replaced came from a large American chandlery and cost more than twice as much.

AngusMcDoon said:
What for? Some new spanners? Not for binoculars, because he's just bought some. And for £21 they will be plastic trash, which he has just replaced.
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Well, chaps, the other instructors who use my boat have no complaints about the £21 binocs. Try a pair for yourself and you may be surprised at the quality/value ratio. As I said, they do the job and for the use to which they are put, they are value for money. Now if you are a serious bird watcher like a neighbour of mine then £800 for a super whizzy pair is normal but I only want to pick out buoys and other vessels that I either know should be there or I have already seen with the Mk. I eyeball.
 
I didn't want an £800 super whizzy pair any more than I wanted a £21 plastic pair. The £21 pair would be worse than the $90 pair from West Marine that I am getting rid of. Why would I want to replace them with even crappier ones?

I obtained a properly made Japanese optical instrument, made of metal and which is nice to use for very little money.

You seem to have entirely missed the point.

Rock Dodger said:
Well, chaps, the other instructors who use my boat have no complaints about the £21 binocs. Try a pair for yourself and you may be surprised at the quality/value ratio. As I said, they do the job and for the use to which they are put, they are value for money. Now if you are a serious bird watcher like a neighbour of mine then £800 for a super whizzy pair is normal but I only want to pick out buoys and other vessels that I either know should be there or I have already seen with the Mk. I eyeball.
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Good article on bins in last months MBM. Its not always the most expensive which are the best. One things for sure, aluminium bodied ones are superior to plastic ones and if my memory serves me correctly Bak 7 glass is better than Bak4.
 
It's all getting a bit technical now as this was a thread about half decent bargain binos from charity shops for £35 but here is an explanation of the effects of bak7 vs bak4 prisms and how to identify them:

http://www.microglobe.co.uk/info/bak-7vbak7_prisms/

The 'new' pair are bak7 and the old pair are also bak7.

But the 'new' charity shop pair are much nicer to look through and don't have collimation problems.

sunquest said:
Good article on bins in last months MBM. Its not always the most expensive which are the best. One things for sure, aluminium bodied ones are superior to plastic ones and if my memory serves me correctly Bak 7 glass is better than Bak4.
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nickf said:
BruceDanforth said:
The £21 pair would be worse than the $90 pair from West Marine that I am getting rid of. Why would I want to replace them with even crappier ones?
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You might be right - but I would be interested on what evidence you base this on, other than price.
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Jeez, it's his opinion, why do you want to start a fight over it. Bruce was pleased with his purchase & passing it on as a tip. If you don't want to take advantage of it, that's fine, but why try to start a fight? FFS.
 
nickf said:
BruceDanforth said:
The £21 pair would be worse than the $90 pair from West Marine that I am getting rid of. Why would I want to replace them with even crappier ones?

You might be right - but I would be interested on what evidence you base this on, other than price.
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Just a hunch based on the fact that I did buy a £20 pair once as a second pair and they were so bad I gave them to a 5 year old for Christmas.
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Searush said:
Jeez, it's his opinion, why do you want to start a fight over it. Bruce was pleased with his purchase & passing it on as a tip. If you don't want to take advantage of it, that's fine, but why try to start a fight? FFS.
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Apologies if you missed my point. I have no issue with the OP recommending 'Kenlock' 7x50's . My query related to Bruce's further post (that the £21 pair would be worse than the $90 pair from West Marine) in that I asked for what evidence this was based on. This was in light of my experience with German "quality" binos bought in the 1970s which I have found inferior to cheaper more recently purchased Lidl binos. He has now clarified that this was a hunch, which is fine. Not sure where your "why try to start a fight comes from"?
 
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sunquest said:
Good article on bins in last months MBM. Its not always the most expensive which are the best. One things for sure, aluminium bodied ones are superior to plastic ones and if my memory serves me correctly Bak 7 glass is better than Bak4.
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Bak 4 is best then Bk7 but the Chinese use BAK4 ( note the capital A ) which is about equivalent to Bk7.
 
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