Helios binoculars

[John Gibson2]

Hi,
I've got a Leica APO 62 scope and now want to buy a pair of binoculars. I'm drawn to a lighter pair, maybe a compact or 8x42 and a friend advised the Helios AM6HR. Has anyone any thoughts on this? I'm told they are very good value.
Has anyone got hold of the new Contax U4R yet? It sounds great, but I'll wait until I hear reports of it's performance (and depending how much I spend on the binos).
Cheers,
Novice birder

[Scott Poynter]

Hi,
I've got a Leica APO 62 scope and now want to buy a pair of binoculars. I'm drawn to a lighter pair, maybe a compact or 8x42 and a friend advised the Helios AM6HR. Has anyone any thoughts on this? I'm told they are very good value.
Has anyone got hold of the new Contax U4R yet? It sounds great, but I'll wait until I hear reports of it's performance (and depending how much I spend on the binos).
Cheers,
Novice birder
Hi John,
I have recently bought the Helios 8x32 waterproof roof prisms and cannot rate them highly enough.Very light around 500grams I think, and optically as good as anything I looked through costing a lot more.For £200 you can't go wrong.
Regards Scott.

[Yelvertoft]

Hi,
I've got a Leica APO 62 scope and now want to buy a pair of binoculars. I'm drawn to a lighter pair, maybe a compact or 8x42 and a friend advised the Helios AM6HR. Has anyone any thoughts on this? I'm told they are very good value.
Has anyone got hold of the new Contax U4R yet? It sounds great, but I'll wait until I hear reports of it's performance (and depending how much I spend on the binos).
Cheers,
Novice birder


Hi John,

I guess you've bought whatever you needed to by now, but for anyone else's benefit, I've just posted this review.
http://www.birdforum.net/reviews/showproduct.php?product=139
Very good VFM binocular.

Duncan.

[red dragon]

I have a pair of Helios 10x50 ultimate hr binoculars which i find are of amazing quality considering the £120 price tag.They have bak 4 prisms and have fully multi coated lenses,they also have a tripod adaptor.My astronomer friend put me on to Helios as he bought a telescope by them and was very impressed.His previos job was coating lenses for the military so I took his word for it.I am now looking for a pair of 8x32s and I'm seriously considering the Am6hr although I've heard so many good things said about the Nikon 8x32se which are twice the price but are they twice as good?

[Yelvertoft]

I am now looking for a pair of 8x50s and I'm seriously considering the Am6hr although I've heard so many good things said about the Nikon 8x32se which are twice the price but are they twice as good?

Hello Red Dragon,

Firstly, welcome to bird forum.

As with any "gadget", binoculars suffer from a law of diminishing returns. Each time you double the price, you will get a reduced degree of improvement. As for quantifying how much better something is, only you can be the real judge of that. It depends what your budget is, what you intend using the bins for, how important optical quality, build quality, warranty etc. is to you.

There are many factors to consider and having tried the 8x32se model myself when I was looking to upgrade my vintage Swift porros last year I can vouch for them being a very fine binocular indeed. Whether the advantages/disadvantages of the Nikons make them worth twice the price, only you can decide. This is best done by trying each of the models you are interested in. I know this isn't always possible, and can certainly be inconvenient to sort out, but if you can do it, you should. You can tell so much more by using things, even briefly, than you ever would find out by reviews alone.

Regards,

Duncan.