I need a new pair of binoculars.

TQA

TQA

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sailingonelephantschild.blogspot.com
My old cheap Miranda 16 x 50s have succumbed to fungus and as I will be in the USA skiing soon I thought I might buy a replacement pair there. I use them mostly from the boat for bird watching and identifying coastal features. Not much night or land use but some.

I know nothing about stabilised binocs except that users seem to rave about them.Has there been any big recent breakthrough that I should know about?

A trawl through recent threads suggests that a pair of Canon IS 10 x 30 seems the popular choice and will cost me about £330. But the 12 x 36 Canon IS is about £400. Would I notice the difference?

Any recommendations?
 
Sailingsaves said:
try actionoptics who posts on this forum; great service, knowledge and customer service and good prices too.
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seconded but the excellent binos I bought from them I replaced last year when the compass lighting failed and us now being in the USA made return for repair less than easy. I tried Steiners but was not impressed and returned them to West Marine where I bought them and exchanged the for west branded 'Antigua' ones with compas and built in lighting. THes are excellent, very clear, light and the compass readings in the eyepieces fit my focus which the steiner ones did not. I also prefer the central focusing on the Antigua over the separate eyepiece focusing even though the ones I had for years from Monk were eyepiece focused. THe rubberised carry case too is one of the best, plenty big enough to access easily and the lens caps too stay in place unlike the ones on many others that I tried in my search especially those where the supplied case was too skimpy.

I tried to find a link to the West Antigua ones I bought but the page comes up error so maybe they are no longer called that or not available . Our local store had many types in stock and they allow returns unquestioned if you decide you don't like them once tried at home rather than in store, I tried and returned two. The warranty on our West ones is 30 years whereas on the designer label Steiners was only 10 years and then that was only direct with Steiner not through West.
 
Do you (or would you) use a compass in your binos? I do all the time, in fact I probably use the binos more for taking bearings than for seeing distant detail. As far as I know, there are no image-stabilised binoculars with a compass (I think there's a sound technical reason for that) so that rules out IS for me.

Pete
 
prefer the compass in binos to a small handbearing one and especially an illuminated one in binos which beats the glow in the dark markings of the hb compass by far. The illuminated built in compass was the reason I bought a new pair last year as the compass lighting in my old ones had failed and I could not revive it, although I keep the old binos as spares, to use, sans lighting of course, from our home overlooking the Intracoastal waterway. The compass still works in them anyway, just not visible in the dark, not that we do much night sailing these days.
 
I am more than a little surprised at the magnifications discussed here - for marine use, that is. Traditionally, without stabilisation, which I have no experience of, I believed that the common perception was that anything over 8X was unusable at sea unless a flat calm. I have a recently bought 10X pair of Nikon binoculars for land use, that are superb but I need to brace against something fixed if the image is not to move about too much - and my hands are quite steady in normal use.

But for me, the light-gathering quality of the standard, marine-grade 7X50s that I have on board makes them invaluable at night or in poor light conditions ... buoys that are invisible at dusk jump into view when looked at through the binoculars that have more light-gathering attributes than the human eye alone. I think I use mine at sea more for that quality than just magnification.

Edit:
From Astronomics - Some Binocular Specifications:
https://www.astronomics.com/binocular-specifications_t.aspx

Magnification and Aperture: A binocular's name describes its magnification and lens size. For example, a "7x50" or "7 by 50" binocular magnifies 7 times and has light gathering lenses (objectives) that are 50mm (2") in diameter.

The higher the power, though, the more difficult it is to hold a binocular steady enough to keep the image sharp - so the highest possible power is not always the most useful power. 10x is a practical maximum for hand-held use.

A binocular's lens size helps determine how bright the binocular will be, since large lenses naturally gather more light than small ones. You can compare the brightness of identical magnification binoculars by squaring the diameters of their objective lenses. For an example, since a 7x binocular with 50mm lenses (50² = 2500) gathers more than twice as much light as a 7 x 35mm (35² = 1225), the 7 x 50mm binocular is brighter in the dim light of dawn or dusk.​
 
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Dave-Shafa said:
TYP http://www.gaelforcemarine.co.uk/SearchResults.aspx?CategoryIDs=182
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I have a Steiner Commander 7x50 with compass. Everyone who has tried them on my boat is impressed with the quality of the image. I use them very often at night to discern those difficult (at least for me) ship's navigation lights and other lighted distant objects. Before that I used to have Steiner 7х30 Navigator but it simply can't compare to the one I have now. Do not make a compromise for saving the many extra bucks - buy the Commander 7x50. For me the compass feature is indispensable.
Rumen
 
If you are going to be in the US. Check out Leapold
I like Stieners, But I really like 8 x 40 leapolds. Never tried stabalised.
 
I have a Steiner Commander 7x50 with compass. Everyone who has tried them on my boat is impressed with the quality of the image. I use them very often at night to discern those difficult (at least for me) ship's navigation lights and other lighted distant objects. Before that I used to have Steiner 7х30 Navigator but it simply can't compare to the one I have now. Do not make a compromise for saving the many extra bucks - buy the Commander 7x50. For me the compass feature is indispensable.
Rumen
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Am I right that you had the navigator without compass and now the Commander with compass? I see that there is a Navigator with compass for £389 (amazon) whereas the Commander with compass is £451 (amazon). What makes the Commander £60 better?

Thanks

TS
 
Robin said:
prefer the compass in binos to a small handbearing one and especially an illuminated one in binos which beats the glow in the dark markings of the hb compass by far. The illuminated built in compass was the reason I bought a new pair last year as the compass lighting in my old ones had failed and I could not revive it, although I keep the old binos as spares, to use, sans lighting of course, from our home overlooking the Intracoastal waterway. The compass still works in them anyway, just not visible in the dark, not that we do much night sailing these days.
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Whilst the idea of a compass bearing within the binocular field of view seems appealing at first, I'm wondering what use I would make of it. I cannot remember the last time I used my hand-bearing compass - beyond setting up the satellite dish antenna azimuth for the marina pier mounting.

With plotter and computer OCPN position displacing bearing fixes and AIS target reports providing accurate bearings for approaching ships I find it superfluous to requirements. I agree it is always part of the backup kit for when technology fails but to pay the extra for enhanced binocular functionality doesn't quite add up to me.
 
tudorsailor said:
Am I right that you had the navigator without compass and now the Commander with compass? I see that there is a Navigator with compass for £389 (amazon) whereas the Commander with compass is £451 (amazon). What makes the Commander £60 better?

Thanks

TS
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Commander is the higher class. The optics is better, you can see brighter images. Check thei Steiner website http://www.steiner.de/en/binoculars/marine/commander-7x50-k.php and compare it with the navigator pro and you will see the differences.
I am sorry, but I missed to point out that mine is XP, which is this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steiner-Commander-XP-Binoculars-Compass/dp/B000KU2TL8, while not the top class like Commander Global, which is this http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...onics&field-keywords=Steiner+commander+global.
Rumen
 
TQA said:
My old cheap Miranda 16 x 50s have succumbed to fungus and as I will be in the USA skiing soon I thought I might buy a replacement pair there. I use them mostly from the boat for bird watching and identifying coastal features. Not much night or land use but some.

I know nothing about stabilised binocs except that users seem to rave about them.Has there been any big recent breakthrough that I should know about?

A trawl through recent threads suggests that a pair of Canon IS 10 x 30 seems the popular choice and will cost me about £330. But the 12 x 36 Canon IS is about £400. Would I notice the difference?

Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

Dredging memory here of when I bought my own 10x30 and trying some bigger stabliised bins at SBS. I found the bigger bins when I moved them whilst looking through the lkens made me feel nausious. There was something weird about the way they behaved when moved about as you would do at sea. They adjusted / stabilised a lot faster than the 10x30.

The 10x30 arent perfect and I would prefer a bit more mag and a bit more stabilisation if I could so I suggest you try both and see where you get.

Barnac1e said:
I am more than a little surprised at the magnifications discussed here - for marine use, that is. Traditionally, without stabilisation, which I have no experience of, I believed that the common perception was that anything over 8X was unusable at sea unless a flat calm. I have a recently bought 10X pair of Nikon binoculars for land use, that are superb but I need to brace against something fixed if the image is not to move about too much - and my hands are quite steady in normal use.

But for me, the light-gathering quality of the standard, marine-grade 7X50s that I have on board makes them invaluable at night or in poor light conditions ... buoys that are invisible at dusk jump into view when looked at through the binoculars that have more light-gathering attributes than the human eye alone. I think I use mine at sea more for that quality than just magnification.

.[/INDENT][/I]
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Thats the point of stabilisation - allows you to use a larger magnification than would otherwise be possible. Yes you are right about the bigger lens - the 50 bit. But there is a trade off with weight.
 
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I have two pairs
One from Monk Optics bought about 20 yrs ago. Superb optics and compass. Think I would have to get Steiner Commanders to improve on the Monk.
Treated myself to second-hand Fujinon Image Stabilised a year or so ago. Sailing up the Kent coast and through the Thames Estuary the Monks gave me a very optically clear but jiggly image and I could not properly confirm the identity of bouys - their image in the bins was just moving around too much however much I braced myself and took time.
So I got the Fujinons and, whilst the optics are not IMHO the equal of the Monk quality, once the IS is turned on, the image on a moving boat is excellent such that the overall balance is clearly in favour of the Fujinon IS bins.
Quality of binoculars is fine for land or if you are on such a large vessel that the movements are very slow. At sea in a small boat, I think IS is the way to go.
all IMHO.
 
Poecheng said:
I have two pairs
One from Monk Optics bought about 20 yrs ago. Superb optics and compass. Think I would have to get Steiner Commanders to improve on the Monk.
Treated myself to second-hand Fujinon Image Stabilised a year or so ago. Sailing up the Kent coast and through the Thames Estuary the Monks gave me a very optically clear but jiggly image and I could not properly confirm the identity of bouys - their image in the bins was just moving around too much however much I braced myself and took time.
So I got the Fujinons and, whilst the optics are not IMHO the equal of the Monk quality, once the IS is turned on, the image on a moving boat is excellent such that the overall balance is clearly in favour of the Fujinon IS bins.
Quality of binoculars is fine for land or if you are on such a large vessel that the movements are very slow. At sea in a small boat, I think IS is the way to go.
all IMHO.
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fujinon from monk optics - been great for us for a number of years
 
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