I purchased a Steiner Safari Pro 10x26 and instantly regreted it (1 Viewer)

I purchased a Steiner Safari 10x26 and instantly regreted it

These are the current versions of the Safari 10x26 currently listed on Steiners website.

What orginally brought me to purchase them was the cylindric twist up eyecups, and the large stated field of view (312ft) 59 degrees AFOV. Basically a small compact pocket binocular I can carry around with a decent field of view.

THEY DO NOT HAVE TWIST UP EYECUPS

This is what shocked me, they list them as cylindric rotation eyecups on the main website, in reality they are just very flimsy loose fold down eyecups. These binoculars have very short eye relief, you can feel your eyeballs pressing up against the oculars on some occasions.

Image begins to blur and distort 40% from the center

Edge resolution is bad and distored, image is "stretched" with very strong fisheye effect. The left barrel has this hazy double image captured in the the included snapshot.

Edge is not defined, very strong vignetting, orange chromatic aberrations throughout the field of view.

In my opinion $15 Tasco Essential binoculars are better than this, how Steiner can sell this for $160 is pure asinine.

I was just looking at the Steiner XC 10x32 Binocular when I was hunting for the right pair and the price was about half off and I almost got taken in by that bait but someone here said they were about the worst binoculars in 32mm he'd ever looked through and weren't worth it in his opinion even if they were half price. So I immediately wrote them off as he spoke with such conviction that I had a feeling he was correct. I had always thought of them as one of the Alpha companies but maybe only at the high end of what they offer.

Tried some moderate priced Steiner's. Never liked any of them. Never tried their higher end stuff.

Cheap or good.

Choose one only.

black crow said:

but someone here said they were about the worst binoculars in 32mm he'd ever looked through

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I was the one who offered up the comments on the XC. At NO POINT in my previous post did I state what you wrote above.

Sorry I was guessing because I couldn't remember exactly what you said. Somehow my silly brain manufactured that statement out of whole cloth and looking back at what I said in print I have no good idea or excuse for why I said that you said it in that way but there it is in print for all to see and to my embarrassment. You did say you didn't think much of them or something to that effect and somehow my creative "memory" made that into a much more extravagant statement than you ever intended and I obviously got carried away.

Sorry for not being at all accurate. In the future I'll try to find the exact quote and paste it. I sincerely apologize.

black crow said:

.....
.....
.....I had always thought of them as one of the Alpha companies but maybe only at the high end of what they offer.

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That is right in my view - some of their top binos are really good (7x50 Commander, or the new 8x56 Nighthunter, etc), but several of the cheaper ones are really bad - e.g. Safary „Ultrasharp“ (Haha!!!).

Unfortunately, I recently discovered that also Steiner’s expensive binos are not always beyond all doubt. The big 20x80 „Observer“, designed to military specs, operates at much less than full aperture (73mm to be exact), I did not expect that in this price range.

Maybe "Made in Beyruth Germany" is Made in Beiroet Lebanon?

AFAIK all roofs are now made in China and only the Porro's are made/assembled in Germany.
Could be the reason of a raise and fall of a German brand.

Jan