Do I need better? Olympus Pathfinder 7x50 (1 Viewer)

Hi, I'm mainly interested in wildlife photography but also have what appear to be decent bins.

I have two sets:

Olympus EXPS (?) Pathfinder 7x50 porro prisms.
Simmons AETEC with BAK4 porro.

I see that many birders like roof prisms. I'm still not clear on what the pros/cons are. Brighter view?

I like my 7x50 more as they are easier to hand hold.

But the question is whether I'm missing out on not having a better set. I don't use them much, so it's not an issue of fatigue. More along the lines of whether I'll get significantly better results with a better set.

Thanks for any suggestions.

It does not sound like you need a significantly better binocular than that 7x50. You are not likely to get a significantly nicer/better binocular for $200, or $400. So, stick with what you have. However, if you start birdwatching on a regular basis, you may want something a bit lighter or smaller with a closer focus.
I used a 7x50 for 20 years. It died of use, abuse, and mold.

Matt_RTH said:

Hi, I'm mainly interested in wildlife photography but also have what appear to be decent bins.

I have two sets:

Olympus EXPS (?) Pathfinder 7x50 porro prisms.
Simmons AETEC with BAK4 porro.

I see that many birders like roof prisms. I'm still not clear on what the pros/cons are. Brighter view?

I like my 7x50 more as they are easier to hand hold.

But the question is whether I'm missing out on not having a better set. I don't use them much, so it's not an issue of fatigue. More along the lines of whether I'll get significantly better results with a better set.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Click to expand...

I agree with Luca that the Olympus are likely to be pretty good; the EXPS is their 'professional' range.

Porros are a more efficient design than roofs, so you would have to pay a lot to get a roof to equal or better your 7x50. The story you usually hear is that roofs were the poor relations in terms of optical quality until phase correction came along. But it seems to me that, even with phase correction, roofs still have problems. My three porros, an 8x30 antique, a cheap modern 8x32 and a reverse porro 7x21, never ever show any secondary colour (colours that shouldn't be there). Whereas I've seen secondary colour in Nikon HGLs costing £600+ and in Leica Ultravids (£900+). Admittedly I have antique 7x35 roofs that never show any secondary colour, but that may be because they have BK7 prisms, which show less distortion than BaK4.

Roofs are nice to use and a lot of people prefer them despite their inherent problems. Also a lot of people claim that they don't or can't see secondary colour, so for them the problem doesn't exist.

Michael.