Binoculars for extensive marine use (1 Viewer)

Though I am not in a hurry for buying a pair of binoculars, I want to start preparing the wallet for a future buy in case I finally end needing them. I do some digiscoping but I do not know much about optics. The binos I have around now and I get to use are really low budget and other inherited really old binos, so I don't have any idea about specifications I should look at.

They should be prepared for extensive marine use. They must be confortable to use for hours, lightweight and especially resistant.

My budget would be around £500, more if I decide to sell my scope. I am asking in advance of needing them so I can start to search good deals and also in the second hand market.

I know this is a very often question here but I don't get any conclusions after a big search, and I really fear making a wrong choice when buying. Any list or links to learn more will be a good start. Thank you very much.

I can't say I know very much about marine binoculars except they are mostly 7x50s and probably don't meet your lightweight requirement. Individual eyepiece focussing tends to feature strongly for increased water and corrosion resistance. The Steiner Commander 7x30 is both light weight and optically very good in my opinion. Although not the usual 7x or particularly light I personally liked the Opticron Marine M-3 8x30 a lot for it's wide sharp view, but you might want a bigger exit pupil for low light on the water.

David

typo said:

I can't say I know very much about marine binoculars except they are mostly 7x50s and probably don't meet your lightweight requirement. Individual eyepiece focussing tends to feature strongly for increased water and corrosion resistance. The Steiner Commander 7x30 is both light weight and optically very good in my opinion. Although not the usual 7x or particularly light I personally liked the Opticron Marine M-3 8x30 a lot for it's wide sharp view, but you might want a bigger exit pupil for low light on the water.

David

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Hi David:

"They should be prepared for extensive marine use. They must be confortable to use for hours, lightweight and especially resistant."

Those things DO NOT go together. Marine stores are filled with binos that are little more than chum for a plastic-eating shark. They're light, yes. But, especially resistant . . . no way.

The Fujinon FMTR-SX or MTR-SX will fill your needs, be worth repairing, should they need it, and will cause one of you grandkids to bless your memory.

They are NOT, however, for birding . . . unless you're doing raptors up high in crags.

When birding glasses and marine duty glasses come together, some things are left out of the equation.

Cheers,

Bill

PS If you're considering Steiner, be sure to get one made in Germany; more and more aren't. In the repair fleet, we referred to them as "the disposable binocular."

Bill, I'm very aware of the Fujinon's reputation but unfortunately not seen it myself. Monk optics has the FMTR-SX 7x50 at £550 but the 1.45kg (51oz) sounds a lot to me.

The Steiner is less than £450 and and 518g (18oz). The Opticrom M-3 is £289 680g (24oz). Rather different propositions.

David

Hi Radler,

Forget lightweight, you won't get it hand in hand with the quality and durability you need. Instead allow a little in your budget for a good quality bino harness, it will make your viewing much easier with a heavier binocular.

Marine 7x50 ? Well I guess the traditional Porro format could be said to be looking a little dated. Virtually everyone does them, the market is totally saturated and trending downwards in price. Time for something new.

Marine 8x56, well now you are talking, extra wide objective, sharp 7mm exit pupil, cool, fashionable, modern roof body, no difference in weight really but still heavy.

There is a dead smart new product the Byfield Tracker 8x56, a ‘big view afloat’ binocular, and with not a bad field of view for an 8x56. It is a polarised binocular and if you enjoy a consistently high level of light intensity in your birding and sporting year then they may be worth serious consideration as they are just within budget.

You can find them here : http://www.byfieldoptics.com/index.php/polarised-binoculars/tracker-detail, although I do not know of any retailers in Europe.

There is a review of the Byfield Recon 10x42 here : http://www.birdforum.net/reviews/showproduct.php/product/445/limit/recent.

I own both, and have yet to review the 8x56, and have no commercial connection with the company.

The Byfield Tracker 8x56 has been very well received by the sport fishing community to universally good reviews.

It may be worth a look.

Fujinon FMT-SX 10X70 are very hard to beat.

typo said:

Bill, I'm very aware of the Fujinon's reputation but unfortunately not seen it myself. Monk optics has the FMTR-SX 7x50 at £550 but the 1.45kg (51oz) sounds a lot to me.

The Steiner is less than £450 and and 518g (18oz). The Opticrom M-3 is £289 680g (24oz). Rather different propositions.

David

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Yes, the Steiner is lighter. BUT, don't base QUALITY on WEIGHT. The commercial fishermen and Navy and Coast Guard sailors I worked with wanted a workhorse binocular--they weren't into birding. It would be good to remember that BOTH are Individual Focus instruments and hardly the choice of the serious birder.

Another thing to mention is WHY the Steiners are shorter and lighter. You will notice the objective lens has a steeper curve than many of it's competitors. This usually means a shorter focal ratio and, anyone who has made a few telescope mirrors, can tell you that controlling optical quality GROWS exponentially as the focal ratio is shortened.

Other good marine binos would be the Old Swift Storm King (still available with other brands, like Tamaya). I called it the "binoscerus" of binos. Then there is the Nikon Sports and Marine and the Swift Seahawk/Bushnell Navigator/Fujinon AR. It's not of Zeiss, Nikon Prostar, or Fujinon FMT quality. But most mariners would never complain, and it doesn't cost as much.

Still, all are Individual Focus binos. That's birding talk for . . . BAD JUJU!

Bill

There is much knowledge here.

I have sailed (read sail boat) 10 meter boat for 30 years. Being able to hold them still too track is most important. Currently I am using Nikon monarch 8x42's and find their light weight very helpfully. In a small boat learning how to hold them is also necessary (siting down elbows on knees).
A lot of the of noise seems to be for young sailors on a 100+ ton boat.

SailorDoug said:

I have sailed (read sail boat) 10 meter boat for 30 years. Being able to hold them still too track is most important. Currently I am using Nikon monarch 8x42's and find their light weight very helpfully. In a small boat learning how to hold them is also necessary (siting down elbows on knees).
A lot of the of noise seems to be for young sailors on a 100+ ton boat.

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Hi Doug:

With the Navy having spent months—after WWI—trying to figure out what the best binocular to take to sea would be, I will make “noise” without tossing the venerable 7x50 to the dogs, just yet. It might be remembered that, while many young eyes could take BETTER advantage of the 7mm exit pupil, often the most critical decisions were being made as much older men drew conclusions from their own observations through binoculars.

I have never sailed of boat for an hour. However, I spent every day for 21years repairing binoculars, sextants, and such, trying to keep yachters happy, and know empirically that the large exit pupil is not wasted on older sailors—especially those on small boats. When the exit-pupil is smaller—as many view as not WASTING light—the observer is more opt to experience blackouts, especially in higher sea states, when the bino is most crucial.

The safety people in the Coast Guard determined the best bino for a “small boat” was a 6x30, which provides a 5mm exit pupil. At that time, Steiner and Fujinon were the only two quality units available. And while it is certainly convenient, the same blackout problem exits.

Lest you think I’m a dyed-in-the-wool 7x50 guy, please have a look at my Dockside article—PDF, attached. The “A New Twist on ‘Marine’ Binoculars” paragraph will show that I don’t hold with owning a bino that can’t perform double duty. Besides, every square inch of surface area on the objective gather the light of 9 fully dilated young eyes. And, while the brain only recognizes a little more than the light from ONE objective, that is still so much more than could be done with the unaided eye.

Finally, I showed folks at a Celestron convention this trick for holding LARGE binos steady, and you would have thought I just invented glass.

Hold the objective END of ONE telescope with BOTH hands—the left, if you’re right-handed, or vice versa—and allow the other telescope to rest on your wrist. Now, place the EPs in your eye sockets, and I think you will enjoy much steadier viewing.

Cheers, |=)|

Bill

For light weight & "extensive marine use", I think the Steiner Commander XP 7x30 is the best choice. They are IF but have very good DOF. The optics and workmanship are also very good. Priced at $500 something is within your budget.

I have done a lot of sailing, quite a bit of it competitive in 38-40 foot keelboats, and have also done a lot of birding and plenty of binocular testing, so you obviously need to take my advise with a grain of salt that seawater has left in my beard.

I'd second the advice of looking at 7-8x30mm size class as suggested by David, but would perhaps extend that to 42mm objectives as well. If money was no object, I'd suggest the Swarovski SLC 8x42 or the Leica Ultravid HD 7x42. Our boat has a Fujinon FMTR-CSX 7x50 Marine binocular which is, like Bill says, built like a tank and has superb image quality. Unfortunately, holding it around your neck or viewing with it for any extended time also feels like handling a tank, and its superb image quality does not actually offer that much of if any advantage over good middle-of-the-range to excellent 7-8x roof prism bins of today.

For about half of the price of the Swaros or the Leicas, the Meopta Meopro range should offer equal handling and durability with very nearly equal image quality.

For marine use, image quality is actually not as important as it is for most other binocular uses, except for flare control and at least average to good brightness. That is because on the seas there is almost always a lot of bouncing and thrashing happening, so image shake is going to hugely compromise the image anyway, and because most of the time the lenses will be less than perfectly clean, and you have other priorities over keeping your binocular in like-new condition.

What I use mostly on the boat instead of the big Fujinon is my primary birding binocular which is the image-stabilized Canon 10x42. This is because the stabilization helps so much, even though the particular system in the Canons is not designed to compensate for large movements an despite the magnification being higher than would be ideal. For boating, a waterproof 7-8x42 IS would be my ideal configuration, but such a binocular is not being made.

Kimmo

I was wondering when the IS binoculars would come up-too fragile?

edj

Having done quite a bit of cetacean surveying from large and small boats I find 7x50s just too heavy for continual use, and almost impossible to use one handed, (one hand for you, one for the boat). My binocular of choice for such work is in the 6x30 range, bright enough but light enough. I use a Vortex Fury 6.5x32, which sadly they no longer make.

Thank you very much for all the nice information you are writing here.
There are a few different models and I need to do a search on them. After a quick look I've seen there are between 500 grams and 2000 grams, and I think I could go up to a kilogram, because anything weighting over 1kg gets too much to handhold for a long time... or maybe better around the 700grams (7-8 x 30-42) I speak at least from my experience with photographic equipment. I also backpack many times so I need to think about this too.

You can see that as I don't know about this subject, I didn't state my needs clearly. I intend to use them for marine life searching and identification, from boats and also from the beach with bad weather, so they need to resist corrosion but also sand during the windy days.

I like the polarised idea after reading Samandag review -really nice review, btw- and those seem very nice too. I use polarised sunglasses most of the day, but I don't know at what point I should pay for that at this moment.

I am deeply grateful for this excellent response, I have a lot of search to do now with all the info you've put here. I feel I've just entered a new unknown world and I need time to digest all this information.

I would say the Fujinon is my first choice but when that one is to heavy I would consider the Swarovski Habicht GA 7x42. The brightest in its class.

Jan

radler said:

and also from the beach

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For which you certainly should keep your scope!

Fujinon FMT-SX 7x50s are great optically and also made to kick around and still work. But if you are a typical birder, you will probably hang on to your binocular, not let it go sliding around on the deck. Then, all you need is a well built waterproof roof prism binocular. 7 or 8x42 is what I'd get. Choices are legion. In your price range, an older top brand (Zeiss, Leica or Swarovski) would be the most trustworthy. A new cheaper make will be brighter with more modern lens coatings, and might even have ED glass in the objectives for an improved image quality, but might not be something you'd want sloshed with freezing brine (along with yourself).

Ron

I work at sea on ships and spend approx. 6 months a year living and working on ships. I own and use a Steiner Commander 7x30XP and can recommend it as a sturdy lightweight binocular for use in a marine environment. It is very handy for observing wildlife at sea and on the coast.

If I was a professional navigator and needed to rely on the binoculars for observing ships and beacons at night and in all weathers then I would most certainly want a good 7x50 such as the Fujinon mentioned above. Others include Zeiss, Nikon and Steiner professional level marine 7x50's. Bill (WJC above) speaks wisely.

So, as my marine binoculars are Opticron Pro Series 2 7x50, and individual focus, does that make me not a 'serious birder'? Just curious...

martin

WJC said:

... Individual Focus instruments and hardly the choice of the serious birder...all are Individual Focus binos. That's birding talk for . . . BAD JUJU!

Bill

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