Birding equipment (1 Viewer)

I'm a new birder, and I was wondering what kind of birding equipment I need to have. I have a Canon FS100 digital camera as well as a pair of binoculars, but the binoculars don't suit me very well because I wear glasses and I have to take them off in order to see through them. I have been using the camera as both binoculars and camera, but the birds have to be fairly close in order for me to be able to take a picture clear enough to use for identification. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to see birds farther away? Or is it not reasonable to expect to see them farther away?

Hi,

What you probably need are binoculars with sufficient "eye relief"--see this article: http://www.birdwatching.com/optics/education/eye_relief.html With the right bins, you won't need to remove your glasses before looking.

Some recommended binoculars in various price ranges here (though check to see if they have enough eye relief):

http://www.birdwatching.com/optics/binocularpicks.html

I'm just a birder by the way and don't have any affiliation with the site I'm linking to.

Best,
Jim

Thank you! That's just what I needed to know!

Some binoculars have rubber at the end of the eyepiece to keep non spectacle users eyes at the right distance from the glass, which can be folded back to use spectacles. They are awkward, likely to perish with time, and inconvenient if you want to hand your bins to a non spectacle user. And aren't very adjustable

Others, like my Bushnells, have a screw in and out attachment on their eyepieces, which makes it easy to set the eye relief to suit, and make it easy to share viewing.

In my view, much better. I'd go for something like that.

David B