• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Buying binoculars (1 Viewer)

MrBitsy

Well-known member
My wife and I have just started birding, so we decided this month to buy one pair of binoculars and next month the other.

Like many of us I spent a week or so reading reviews on the web. I came to the conclusion I wanted a pair of Hawke Frontier ED 8x43 at £269. I had never looked through them, but based on what others said, I wanted them! I ordered a pair for next day delivery to the store, which I would visit to pick up and pay. Unfortunately, they were not delivered to the store as promised.

Next day I went to a different store to actually look through some binoculars. The salesman suggested I forgot about price and based my decision to purchase based on how the binoculars felt, and how I liked the image I saw. So, he lined up 15 pairs on the counter, ranging from £100 to £700 and told me to use them at my leisure! Luckily, the store looks over countryside and has some feeders on nearby trees, so I could check out the close and far performance.

I spent an hour testing the binoculars for resolution, contrast, brightness, quality of controls, how they felt in the hand and their look. Some had flat images, stiff controls, lots of chromatic aberation and others had flat colours. I ended up with my favorite three out of the fifteen. I spent another hour testing those three until I had two pairs left.

1. Opticron Explorer 8.43
2. Zeis Conquest 8x40

Before finding out the price, I noted the Nikons had a tad more resolution, contrast and colour. The salesman then told me the Opticron were £169 and the Nikons £569! When I found out the price, I said no way did the Nikons have £400 more of these qualities!!

I ended up buying two pairs Of the Opticron Explorer for £338. They felt good in the hand, had a lovely smooth focus knob. Focusing from far to near was quick. Finding the right focus was also easy, where some of the other models needed a lot of twiddling to get focus. The image had a lot less Chromatic Aberation than many of the others. Colours were bright and the image contrasty. Of all the models tested (apart from the Zeiss), the Opticrons showed me more detail of a group of Radio controlled aircraft enthusiasts about two miles away.

The other models I tested were
Pentax DCF ED
Minox HG
Delta SL
Various other Opticron, Pentax, Delta, Nikon

I was actually amazed with the binoculars I ended up with - I had convinced myself I needed to spend at least £300 to get decent pair! So if you are about to buy binoculars, don't just rely on what others say - spend some time testing them for yourself to get binoculars that suit you!

The Explorers have Fully multi-coated lenses, phase corrected prisms, nitrogen filled and waterproof.

Ray.
 
thanks for that advice...i was interested in buying some new binoculars..did you try any viking vistrons..bushnell models..hawke..
 
thanks for that advice...i was interested in buying some new binoculars..did you try any viking vistrons..bushnell models..hawke..

No, I didn't try those models. However, I tested enough of a sample of manufacturers and models to know I have made the right choice for me. Rather than looking for particular models, test a few binoculars as you may be surprised!

Ray.
 
MrBitsy makes a pretty good point. There are few really poor binoculars out there. Technology has made really decent affordable binoculars a much less risky buy. There is however still enough junk to be wary of it.

When can you get several binoculars lined up and can test them out side by side as he did, he is definitely well served to just buy one like he did. He, and his wife both liked them, they could afford them, so why not. Just go forth and use them.

This serves to reinforce the try as many as you can before you buy philosophy. Reviews like are seen here can certainly serve to put a particular glass on the radar, but you won't really know if you like it until you have had it for several months.
 
...and this is one of those rare times when I wish I could give a binocular a try but cannot because of where they are sold at. :(

I was digging around a week or so back trying to find some place that sold the Opticron internal focus porros and struck out with anything this side of the pond.

Add the one mentioned to the list of binoculars I would love to give a go.
 
FrankD: Opticron do direct sales and accept a credit card for international orders (IIRC). Though for a person used to 'Merican prices the cost is rather steep.

See their web site for details (and I posted on this on a thread in the Opticron forum so a seatch there will reveal a clickable link).
 
It seems like the Leupold Cascade porros are the same item as the Opticrons. Why not just get a pair of those, which are easily available in the US?
 
The Explorers
http://www.opticron.co.uk/Pages/explorer.htm

I think Frank has the Cascades.

As to the original post and the concept, yes, you can get a really nice pair at midprice or sometimes less with porros. But you learn to see more as you go along. I got a pair of Monarchs a few years ago, it was a quantum leap from what I had before. I happily birded and got some 200 lifers with them. Then came the slow times of 250-300 lifers. I had too much time on hand to mess with binoculars and scopes. Thus, money was spent to improve those.

Lesson: If you want to save money but enjoy the birds, stick to one or two pairs.
 
Last edited:
Yes, I have the Cascades and the Minox BD BP porros. I was just looking to do a comparison to see how different the Opticron model was to the other two.

Kevin,

Thanks for the info. I may go ahead and order these once I find out how "steep" the price difference is.
 
The Explorers sound impressive, but I note at 750grams they are a bit heavier than most. Do you find them tiring to hold for long periods?
 
The Explorers sound impressive, but I note at 750grams they are a bit heavier than most. Do you find them tiring to hold for long periods?

Not the OP but ...

750 grams = 26.4554715 ounces

That seems about average for a roof these days. There are lighter full size roofs e.g. Bushnell Elite at 23oz something like 650g and quite a few heavier by a ounce or two. So I wouldn't call the Explorer heavy.

900g or more I'd think of as heavy.

Usually with medium or heavier bins (more than 23oz) I find a neck carry is tiring after a day. But holding them is never an issue.
 
If MrBitsy is still around I would be interested in which shop he went to, or at least the town. I'm in the same area and I don't know of many shops with a good selection of binoculars to try/purchase.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 15 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top