Bushnell Excursion (1 Viewer)

Have anyone test the Bushnell Excursion 8X42 ?

Liliput said:

Have anyone test the Bushnell Excursion 8X42 ?

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I did. Nothing to talk about.

Otto,

Would you care to elaborate? At $200 they are in a very small group of phase coated roofs (Carson XMs being the only other I am aware of ). They seem to be about the same length and weight as the Nikon Monarchs but similar in design to the Legends...without the rainguard. On paper that 430 foot field of view seems quite large. What didn't you like about them?

Bushnell Excursion Binoculars
In low light, it's usually your eyes that have to adjust. Now it's your expectations. In rain or fog at dawn or dusk your eyes don't plan on seeing much detail. So when you put one of our new Excursion™ series in front of them, what they see may come as a shock. This composite chassis, roof prism design is lightweight and packed to the eyecups with quality features, from PC-3® phase-coated lenses to BaK-4 prisms. The result? Outstanding clarity, detail and brightness in low light conditions. Your eyes will be amazed. So will the rest of you. You could pay more for binoculars that have some of the same features, but why would you want to? Excursion full-size binoculars have fully multicoated optics with PC-3 phase coating for exceptional image clarity. Roof-prism design incorporates BaK-4 prisms that deliver crisp, clear details in a wide field of view. Waterproof, fogproof and coated with ultra-rugged rubber armor.

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8x42 426 ft. 5.5 24.5
10x42 341 ft. 5.5 24.5

I would guess that to get the field that wide it is quite distorted. Look for trees to go bendy bendy at the edges.

>>...from PC-3® phase-coated lenses to BaK-4 prisms...<<

The prisms shall be phase-coated not the lenses.

Walter

The sample that i looked at had a close focus of 45 yards. That is yards, not feet. Optics were ok in the left barrel, but awfull in the right one, and in my endless patience (10 minutes), i could not get both my eyes to see the same thing, the same way. I am too poor to buy something like this.

Rob,

Thanks I had not considered that.

Wehr,

I am assuming a typo. I will send a brief note to Cabelas to ask them to change it. They are good about such things.

Otto,

The sample that i looked at had a close focus of 45 yards.

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Ok, now that is just scary! How did you manage to focus them at all...especially with the problem with the right barrel.

I am going to have to head to the local retail store to see if they have them in stock yet. They are beginning to intrigue me. I was expecting somewhere of a step up from the H20/Buckmarks but a step down from the Legends.

FrankD said:

Rob,

Thanks I had not considered that.

Wehr,

I am assuming a typo. I will send a brief note to Cabelas to ask them to change it. They are good about such things.

Otto,



Ok, now that is just scary! How did you manage to focus them at all...especially with the problem with the right barrel.

I am going to have to head to the local retail store to see if they have them in stock yet. They are beginning to intrigue me. I was expecting somewhere of a step up from the H20/Buckmarks but a step down from the Legends.

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Take a look at the Nikon forum

What do people think of the natureveiws? Not having any experience in bino's I bought a pair of the 10 x 42 roof prism jobs. To me they seem superb and don't appear to be any worse or better than my partners Minolta 12 x 52 activa-wotsits. they replaced my 8 x 30 panda chinese thingies with their yellow tint (very noticable). I also had a few pairs of £5 10 x 25 roof binos from my local garrage - cheap and chearful, which I keep in my car.

Otto McDiesel said:

The sample that i looked at had a close focus of 45 yards. That is yards, not feet.

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Are you serious? I was thinking about getting a pair, but if the close focus is 45 yards, nope. 45 yards? Close focus? I don't see how they can call that 'close'.

marcus said:

Are you serious? I was thinking about getting a pair, but if the close focus is 45 yards, nope. 45 yards? Close focus? I don't see how they can call that 'close'.

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The published specs list 6 feet for the 8X42 Bushnell Excursion.
It costs $160 USD.

John Traynor said:

The published specs list 6 feet for the 8X42 Bushnell Excursion.
It costs $160 USD.

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Make sure that you try them, or that you order them from a place that will take them back.

so which one is better, excursion or trophy ?

Excursion. Size and image quality are better than a similarly configured Trophy model. I cannot speak for Otto but must assume he had a really poor model to view. I looked at them a couple weeks ago at the local Cabelas and found them to be quite good optically for the price. Though they are a bit distorted in the outer 1/3 of the view I still thought that the extra wide field made them very easy to look through. Optical quality was very close to the Legends in my opinion. Resolution wasn't the greatest though in my opinion.

FrankD said:

Excursion. Size and image quality are better than a similarly configured Trophy model. I cannot speak for Otto but must assume he had a really poor model to view. I looked at them a couple weeks ago at the local Cabelas and found them to be quite good optically for the price. Though they are a bit distorted in the outer 1/3 of the view I still thought that the extra wide field made them very easy to look through. Optical quality was very close to the Legends in my opinion. Resolution wasn't the greatest though in my opinion.

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thanks frankd n i will be trying this bino once i've decided to change my porro olympus this year hopefully ...

Let us know what you think when the time comes. For the price I really do not think they are that bad of a bin. Now if they could get the distortion reduced and still maintain as wide of a field of view then they definitely would be a bargain at that price point.

I just got a new 8x42 Bushnell Excursion. It's view is great, but the new and different way the neckband connects to the binocular isn't too great. It keeps coming loose.
I suppose the focus feels rather slow and stiff, even though it seems that will get better with time. I hope.
But the eyecups are also rather 'stiff' and when I twist them up to where I want they won't go back down every time I look through them. That's good.

Wanting to purchase new binoculars for a trip to the Galapagos Islands, I did an in-store test of many products. The two that I liked the most (in the $150 to $500 price range which was my willingness-to-pay range) were the Bushnell Excursion 8X42 and the Nikon Monarch 8X42. Both of these models have very similar features (fog proof, waterproof, etc.). Although the Nikons cost about $125 more than the Bushnells, I found the Bushnells slightly better (although both were excellent). I tried focusing on a map in an atlas in the store. At 7 feet away, the Bushnell Excursions focused perfectly (the Nikon Monarchs did well at about 10 feet). I could clearly read the names of towns that were in extremely small font size. The in-store distance test was great too (the store was large but much less than 1,000 yards) with no noticeable distortion on at the outer edges. In both the close-up and distance tests, the resolution was very good. The Excursions focused very quickly as I moved from object to object at differing distances. Based on my tests, I bought the Bushnell Excursions.

On the Galapagos Islands, the real field experience more than confirmed the my in-store test results. The resolution was excellent at 7 feet and at 1,000 yards. I had expected some distortion at 1,000 yards since the field of view is a very wide 426 feet (compared to 321 for the Nikon Monarchs), yet there was no noticeable distortion at the edges.

I wear eyeglasses and I could set the twist-up eye caps perfectly and never had to reset them. I was able to focus very quickly. The binos handled very well. They have very sturdy construction. They also showed a bright image even in the dim early morning and evening hours. As an added bonus, they came with an very nice padded carrying case, a thick padded strap, good lens caps, and a lens cloth.

Overall I am extremely satisfied with this sturdy pair of binoculars.

Marcus ... my neck band does not come loose and I can focus quickly. I like the idea that the twists ups stay where I set them.

Interesting comments as many of them are somewhat contradictory to my experience with the Excursions...most notably the distortion for about a 1/3rd of the field of view and the resolution. Though I do believe they offer good resolution levels I did find them a bit less sharp than either the Legends or the Monarchs. I am wondering if either you have a "cherry pair" or I just had a poor set.... I will have to check them out again the next time I head down to the store.

FrankD said:

Interesting comments as many of them are somewhat contradictory to my experience with the Excursions...most notably the distortion for about a 1/3rd of the field of view and the resolution. Though I do believe they offer good resolution levels I did find them a bit less sharp than either the Legends or the Monarchs. I am wondering if either you have a "cherry pair" or I just had a poor set.... I will have to check them out again the next time I head down to the store.

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I have seen four comments on this forum, including yours Frank, that are contradictory to Tom's description of the Bushnell Excursions. These comments -- including mine -- talk about the stiff sloppy focussing and about the lack of resolution in the outer parts of the field of view. Tom's post completely contradicts these previous posts. I suppose if you have only ever looked through cheap binoculars all of your life, the Bushnell Excursions *would* be all the things that Tom says. They would appear very sharp and appear to have smooth focussing mechanism. But Tom compared them to the Monarchs -- which are so very much better than the Excursions in all ways (except FOV). Very odd.