Best £50 worth (UK) ? (1 Viewer)

Still having fun with my birthday money (Nikon P5000 plus digiscoping stuff so far), and I have a few quid left to buy other bits and pieces.

I already have the Swift HHS Audubon 8.5x44 bins which are truly fantastic (to me anyway), but if I go out with them and the Nikon D70 slung around my neck it can be a pain (literally).

So, what small bins are recommended for a UK purchaser, around £50 max. Lightweight, 8x21 ish sort of thing...

Olympus and Nikon have caught my eye so far, anything else ?

Have you considered a harness for the camera rather than a neck strap.
I had a similar problem with Canon 300d and bigma lens until I bought a harness,£12.50 from the London Wetland Centre.
I can now carry the bigger binoculars and camera all day without getting a stiff neck.

Take a look at the Opticron 8x25 at £39. Amazingly good for the money.
Can't remember what they call the model, but it's made of greeny-black rubbery plastic, and feels super. A good point about them is that they only have one central pivot, not two. So they look like small 'normal' roof prism bins. Handling is great, armouring solid, and image excelent for small bins. In fact, for £39 they're damned near amazing.
cheers Paul g4xta

g8ina said:

So, what small bins are recommended for a UK purchaser, around £50 max. Lightweight, 8x21 ish sort of thing...

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If you go to 8x25, you get better quality for not much increase in size and weight. The Olympus PC I looks like the best value. The 6° FOV is the only downside.

Michael.

I have to say I agree with you about the Swift HHS Audubons – excellent binoculars.

The Opticron 8x25 Taigas are frequently recommended but I suppose they are out of your budget at around £80-£85.

Ron

I'm pleased to see this thread, as I was budgeting £50 for binos. I'm not rich nor am I a frequent birdwatcher, but would like something a bit better than what we have now. When we go out we have two binos owned by my partner. One set is a larger, but very old set. They don't have a good image, often with double images, and are hard to use. The other set are a compact 7x25 set, which seem OK, and are easier to use. I think they cost £10 or so second hand at astrofest.

However, I don't really think I can justify spending the type of money that people on here are talking about. At a more recent astrofest, someone was selling binos. While these would have been binos selected assuming that potential purchasers would use them for astronomy. When I tried pointing some £50 binos at trees, the images looked fine to me, and much better than what we have now. Certainly enough of an improvement to justify the price. Sadly I didn't write down the make and model at that time.

Looking around, and thinking that I want something to complement the 7x25 binos we have, not replace them, I'm currently looking at these two:

http://www.scopesnskies.com/prod/bi...ter-10-30x50-high-powered-zoom-binocular.html

These have a large lens size, making the 10x magnification plausible. From what I've read and my limited understanding of binos, the 30x magnification may be useful in bright light, which will typically be the case when I'm using them. Though, I think if I had binos useful for using at night, that I'd use them. Observing foxes, for example.

The following ones have a larger lens, but a fixed 16x magnification, and they may be heavy.

http://www.scopesnskies.com/prod/big-binoculars/adler/saturn/16x70.html

I've looked on walters photo and video for second hand binos, but while there are many products in my financial range, I don't know which are which. And they all seem to have small lenses. In thinking "big lens is better" am I misleading myself?

OK, back to reading pages on "how to choose binoculars".

Without doubt Pentax Papilio's 6.5x21 at £56 from Techno. Truely superb compact bins, especially if you wish to observe other wildlife such as dragonflies, butterflies & insects generally.

The close focus ability is totally amazing at only 1.6ft - Sometimes less is more !!

Rapidly becoming my favourite set of Binoculars, search the forum for other comments, quite a view glowing reports to be found.

Buy them from Tecno and save a good £30 on RRP:

http://www.tecno.co.uk/Products/ProductDetail.aspx?SkuId=44365

Regards

Mark

Agree,agree,agree. Every naturalist should by law be compelled
to have a pair of Papilio!! There would be so much contentment about.

Kind regards,
young Ian.

I'm reading reviews of the Papilio and despite the low magnification, I am being converted. I would find things such as close focussing on bugs in grass helpful. The reviews seem amazing. I quote from one review:

Oh, wow! Wow! Wow!

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Hello carless, Whatever you end up considering, keep the power down to a maximum of 10x, and IMHO stay away from any zoom binoculars costing less than $2000 (about 900 pounds) . I have never looked through any zoom binoculars that I would consider using at less than this approximate minimum figure. Also. IMHO, powers such as 30x are best used in a spotting scope.
Regards, John

jjg213 said:

Hello carless, Whatever you end up considering, keep the power down to a maximum of 10x, and IMHO stay away from any zoom binoculars costing less than $2000 (about 900 pounds) . I have never looked through any zoom binoculars that I would consider using at less than this approximate minimum figure. Also. IMHO, powers such as 30x are best used in a spotting scope.
Regards, John

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I've ordered the Papilio binos. Thinking about things carefully, the close range focussing sounds very interesting, and definitely adds a "+alpha" to what we have at the moment. I was a bit hesitant to go for something with only 6.5x magnification and a 21mm lens, but the reviews convinced me. In particular the reviews that said that these are quality scopes made from quality components. From other experiences unrelated to binoculars, I'm aware that quite often quality is worth paying for, or in this case accepting compromises on specification for.

Also, I noted that Lidl (or was it Aldi?) are said to sell Bresser (sp?) 10x30 binos occasionally for £10 or so. If this bargain comes up again, then I can of course buy a pair of those as well. I'd guess that the bins sold cheaply were the same as these:

http://www.scopesnskies.com/prod/bresser/travelview/10x50/porro-prism/tvbino.html.html

If I hadn't gone for the Papilios, then I probably would have bought these.

From what I've seen online, the Adler 16x70 binos I linked to a few posts ago are "OK, but nothing special", and "I wouldn't recommend them".

WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!!!!!

Be very careful buying from Tecno. They use City Link as a delivery service. City Link are worse than useless, they just don't deliver things at all!!!!!

Here is about 60 bad experiences with City Link, and about four good reviews which I personally believe are probably by people who work for them.

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Reviews/Initial_City_Link__5287114

Here's another batch. Note that the numerical reviews given to the company both average less than 1/10.

http://www.reviewcentre.com/r93418_4_City_Link_Parcel_Delivery_Serv.html

My experience was exactly the same as many people in the reviews. Not being familiar with City Link, I googled them last night. I found the two review sites listed above, and thought "right!, I'm not letting them card me and disappear after not knocking".

So I wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Then suddenly I notice that the city link website says that my delivery is "delivery point closed (carded)". There is no card here, and I was watching the front door (with big friendly sign telling City Link that I'm in and to knock on the window) like a hawk. Nobody came, nobody attempted to deliver anything.

I phoned up Tecno and cancelled the order under the Distance Selling Regulations. However, after speaking to the person on the phone system, I made a new order, this time using Royal Mail to deliver the package. So while it might take a bit longer, at least I'll get the binoculars.

Check out the 8,5x Papillos as well, compare to 6.5x. I would be happy with 8x, so this 8.5x is not much use to me. But between the two I would get 8.5x.

Tero said:

Check out the 8,5x Papillos as well, compare to 6.5x. I would be happy with 8x, so this 8.5x is not much use to me. But between the two I would get 8.5x.

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I've used the 6.5x Papilios for just over a year and my 8.5x arrived Saturday. I did a few comparisons and closeup the 8.5x don't seem to have a darker image but they also don't seem to make the image much bigger either. However when the dragonflies are 40 metres away the 8.5x helps.

I wouldn't want to use them for rangeing for raptors but as a close-focus bincoular they are #1.

Tero said:

Check out the 8,5x Papillos as well, compare to 6.5x. I would be happy with 8x, so this 8.5x is not much use to me. But between the two I would get 8.5x.

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Given the reviews of the 6.5x some of which mentions the 8.5x, I think the 6.5x will be fine for my needs. I may add a pair of Bresser 10x 30 binos later on.

Try the Opticron Adventurer WP available in 8x25 or 10x25. These little fellas are available for less than £50, are rubber armoured, Waterproof, nitrogen filled and come with a five year guarantee too.