Monocular advice needed please. (1 Viewer)

The mother of a friend is considering buying a monocular (she can't use binoculars). She is nothing like an expert, and doesn't need/want anything hugely exotic or expensive. This is very much out of my area of knowledge, so I am hoping someone can give me some advice I can pass on as to what to look for (general purpose birding and so on), good brands, that sort of thing.

I am assuming that the same sort of considerations re magnification and so on that apply to binoculars also apply to monoculars?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Monoculars are hard to use and keep steady because of their small size. And the good ones are quite expensive. The inexpensive one's aren't very good.

Has she considered using a small binocular with a cover over the lens she won't be using. I would think that one with a nice wide field of view would be ideal. You might find something suitable with Opticron. They have a lightweight series of 6x32,8x32 and 10x32.

I recall a woman using a very large Swarovski binocular at Cape May, NJ. It looked like at least a 10 x 50 and might have even been a 56mm binocular. She had one objective lens capped and was using the binocular like a telescope, holding it vertically but with both hands for stability and looking through it with one eye.

Bob

ceasar said:

Monoculars are hard to use and keep steady because of their small size. And the good ones are quite expensive. The inexpensive one's aren't very good.

Has she considered using a small binocular with a cover over the lens she won't be using. I would think that one with a nice wide field of view would be ideal. You might find something suitable with Opticron. They have a lightweight series of 6x32,8x32 and 10x32.

I recall a woman using a very large Swarovski binocular at Cape May, NJ. It looked like at least a 10 x 50 and might have even been a 56mm binocular. She had one objective lens capped and was using the binocular like a telescope, holding it vertically but with both hands for stability and looking through it with one eye.

Bob

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Thank you for that. I sort of suspected that there would be drawbacks. I think the idea of the monocular is to have something as small as possible - though as you suggest indirectly, small isn't much use if she can't see anything!

David,

I had a monocular for a while but didn't really get on with it and gave it away. The view was a lot less steady than a bino, but the need to use the other hand for focussing kind of defeated the object for me. If I were to get another I would probably go for a 5 or 6x. Less susceptible to shake and with the better depth of field, less focussing. Not tried any, but there are a number of cheap ones about but they don't seem to be phase coated which might be particularly important with a small exit pupil. Nikon have a 5x15 and Zeiss have a 6x18 which seem to be very well regarded. Minox have 6x18 with a focus wheel which might be easier to use one handed, but I'm sure I've read that it's questionable optically.

David

PS. Note, the Eye Relief on some of these might be a little short to use with glasses if that's relevant.

My wife prefers monoculars and we have three
-brunton eterna 6x32
-minot 8x42 with a rangefinder
-orion 10-25x40 zoom

I find the brunton the easiest to use with good optics (I think it cost around $140 US several years ago)
The minot has the best glass but the rangefinder interfears with view
The orion is the cheapest
I have also heard good reports about the zen-ray 8x42 but have never seen one

note-the mm above may be off some as it is early in AM and I am half asleep

edj

Thanks for the help guys, which I'll pass on.

You might want to take a look at the Brunton 7x40 microscope. It close focuses to 18 inches and it's larger size makes it easier to use than one of the little pocket scopes. It also has a tripod socket. Having it attached to the top of a lightweight hiking monopod would be a handy setup.

Here is a link to an interview with the inventor. http://home.gci.net/~jeff/infinity/adnarticle.htm

Wuchak said:

You might want to take a look at the Brunton 7x40 microscope. ....

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macroscope not microscope