Bushnell Excursion 42mm, 8x and 10x (1 Viewer)

I don't have the 10x on hand to compare, but someone else might report on those.

I have the 8x42. I decided they were more reliable than the open frame 8x Excursion EX.

Mechanically they are quite good, I expect as good as Nikon Monarchs. I suspect they are not as bright as 8x42 Monarchs, but sharpness is really good. About the same as 8x32 Legend roofs indoors. A touch better maybe than the 8x36 EX.

Color is not as pure white in the image as in my 8x42 porros. There is some slightly warm shade.

Are these better than Diamondbacks? Probably not, may even come from the same plant.

Testing outdoors, optics are very similar to the Excursion EX series. I had them out at near sunset, and there was plenty of color in the birds. I was using these in the woods. At great distance, other models may easily beat these for sharpness. For instance, Bushnell Legend 8x42 are sharper.

But overall, a good package. 4-5 years ago Bushnell had nothing like this to sell for under 200, all cheap Bushnell roof prisms were junk to me.

If someone offered me a free pair, Monarch 8x42 or these, I would pick these. At 10x, possibly the Monarch. The 340ft fov vs 315ft for the Monarch would not be a deciding factor. I suspect the 10x Monarchs would be brighter, as my 10x42 Monarchs are about as bright as the 8x42 Excursions indoors.

And who is making these Excursions and Diamondbacks, recent arrivals. I feel there may be a connection to the ProMaster, Hawke etc production.

These look like a keeper so far, but the issue remaining is are they bright enough? I have a pair of 8x porros that are more than bright enough, but heavier.

Testing indoors confused me, as the white piece of paper had a slight yellow cast, but I was able to make out the text some 20ft away in room light. So, outdoors testing in winter now. I wish I had the Diamondback to compare side by side.

Well It was a cloudy day, miserable light. It did poorly but so did everything I have except the scope at 20x.

So I am still undecided with these. The indoor test made an impression, but outdoores they were pretty ordinary. I guess a slight loss in sharpness and a slight dimness could be expected for 140 dollars. And I am quite comfortable with the view, partly as it it is 8x, but also pretty flat. I do not spend much time focusing. I focus and look at the birds and forget the optics at that point.

Ducks were pretty hard at 8x, I still prefer 10x, where I use a Pentax.

Well, this pair was not bad. The brightness definitely could be better. I am sort of committed to too much other stuff, so they will go back. I will in fact exchange them for a tripod that started to fall apart. A very old Manfrotto base.

If I had started with these some 4 or 5 years ago, I would have gone to 8x42 Viper of Pentax, but it would have been strange to lose the 420ft fov of these, once you got used to it.

The good points of the Excursion 8x42, to summarize
-solid build, good eye cups (one postition)
-wide field
-relatively sharp
-quite good depth of field for this price...even 300 dollars pairs do worse
-overall comfortable...very little wow but also no disappointments and annoying features
-stray light did not check, but presumably pretty average...with wide field you expect some?
-recommended for beginners and second pair if you like 42mm

I personally get away with 8x32s most of the time for 8x. This pair was not necessary, though my big porro is more weight to haul around when I think I need more light.

I had the opportunity yesterday to compare my newly acquired Excursion 8x42s against my father's Opticron Countryman BGA 8x42.

The Bushnell's were far sharper and had a brighter image whilst the Opticrons had more accurate colour registration