These binoculars replace a venerable pair of heavy porro-prism Minolta 10x42s that had served me well but were starting to show their age.
I'd been wanting a set of ED glass binoculars but could not see myself paying $500+ for that feature. I believe in the law of diminishing returns that you will get relatively less value the more and more you continue to spend on items like binoculars. So when I heard of this model was on sale and had all the good reviews that they'd gotten on this site, I was very interested.
So I'd already been impressed with a pair of Atlas 8x42 Radian binoculars which I found, much to my amazement, better in optical clarity than Vortexes that cost double. How would their more expensive cousins compare?
The Intrepid EDs are green, clad with a smooth rubber armor, no ridges or anything fancy texture-wise. The only very thoughtful design touch was a pair of thumb indentations that feel very nice when holding them. Also the open bridge design actually allows you to hold this one-handed, if you had to, but more-so allows your fingers to grip the barrels in a nice, comfortable, fashion.
The focus knob is probably my only gripe about these, there is some play (probably 1/8th inch) between when you start focusing and when the mechanism actually catches. Once it does however, the focusing speed is very reasonable and I had no problems focusing near (love the near-focus: 6.5 Feet!) and far without feeling frantic about the slowness of the refocusing.
And the optics on these are so clear! To be able to get additional 25% magnification over the 8x models and still experience all the fine detail, without light loss, is exactly what I was looking for, and these did not disappoint.
As an avid birder, however, I was concerned that the 10X power would be too much (causing shakes) but this is not a problem with these. I think if they were too light or too heavy this would have been problematic but I have so far found this not to be an issue.
There are some minor negative points though that I will note: The objective lens covers (the larger far side lenses) are too loose and will come off when simply pulled from the rather cheap, black, non-logo-ed case. The twist-up/down multi-position eye-cups are comfortable enough for eye-glass wearers like me but do have some play in the mid position and less in the fully up position.
There is no manual really, just a generic single sheet of folded paper, with the requisite Italian, French, Spanish, German and Dutch taking up most of the space. There is also an attempt to provide a lens cloth, but it looks like a cheap piece of felt.
The provided neck strap is wide and comfortable but the weight of these binoculars will cause them to really swing when you are walking; a harness strap will redistribute the weight and make them more stable to use than what was provided.
That said, these are excellent binoculars for the money and if you do the research, these will have few peers that can match them for features, design and a comprehensive warranty from Eagle Optics.
