Blue72
Well-known member
What’s your opinion of the 15x vs 20x monarch 5
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Big Binoculars for Birding - a Pipe Dream? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Tringa45
- Start date
What’s your opinion of the 15x vs 20x monarch 5
Kevin Conville
yardbirder
It looks as though your question is directed to Jerry, but if you're interested, here's a short review I did on the 16 x56 Monarch 5s. BTW 15x56 must be a typo.
https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=358012
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Blue72
Well-known member
Good stuff! Thanks for sharing
But I’m still need help in deciding getting a 15/16x binoculars or 20x
The other point is that using an Astro scope and eyepieces allows for wider apparent fields making the view more immersive and easier to see where you’re pointing it. Rangemaster and 8x30E2 have spoilt me with binocular views as well. Large apparent field (>70degree) bins with higher power are unobtanium and with bins the field edges tend to be less good than with Astro eyepieces.
My workhorse spotter is a 66mm ED refractor with a 13mm ultrawide eyepiece, nicely convenient on a reasonable tripod. Adding a second eye would seem to mean a decent 20x80 or moving upto one of the new oberwerk/APM 45degree (more convenient) 80mm binoscopes (heavy but “better”). I mostly observe medium distance from hides for prolonged periods, using the smaller bins for closer stuff and when walking about..
PEterW
My workhorse spotter is a 66mm ED refractor with a 13mm ultrawide eyepiece, nicely convenient on a reasonable tripod. Adding a second eye would seem to mean a decent 20x80 or moving upto one of the new oberwerk/APM 45degree (more convenient) 80mm binoscopes (heavy but “better”). I mostly observe medium distance from hides for prolonged periods, using the smaller bins for closer stuff and when walking about..
PEterW
A possible exception is the Docter 40x80 Aspectem with 84° AFOV and 18 mm eye relief. Most ultra wide astro eyepieces, however, are probably too large in diameter to allow practical IPDs in binoculars.
John
Ah, replying to my own post. Now I use a pair of APM 70mm ED binoculars with a range of (ultra) wide field astro eyepieces (17/22/30/60x) Individual focus which is quite easy to adjust. Not lightweight, but easy to backpack carry and use a fairly light tripod. Very enjoyable for detailed 30x examinations of long distance stuff from hides or other fixed locations and very intimate views of much closer stuff. A ”two eyed spotting scope”.
Peter
Peter
I'm new to the forum, and I send you my regards.
My experience with variable magnifications up to 36x has established that the best is at least 25x56 with a weight less than 1Kg.
A good pair of CF 25x56 binoculars has enough power to see well a few minutes after sunset (10x35 equivalent). So it is more than enough for 98% of the time and very comfortable even freehand. Of course, magnifications between 30x and 60x will be better in various situations, but the increasingly narrow field of view will make it difficult to target moving subjects.
My experience with variable magnifications up to 36x has established that the best is at least 25x56 with a weight less than 1Kg.
A good pair of CF 25x56 binoculars has enough power to see well a few minutes after sunset (10x35 equivalent). So it is more than enough for 98% of the time and very comfortable even freehand. Of course, magnifications between 30x and 60x will be better in various situations, but the increasingly narrow field of view will make it difficult to target moving subjects.
In fact, my copy works well. The Celestron SkyMaster 25x70 has some design flaws, but on average it is done well and is better than many other similar binoculars. Measured properly, it is 23.5x and not 25x. The focus is slightly hard, but it is sufficient to replace the type of sticky grease with other less viscous grease. The chromatic aberrations are quite present, but it is sufficient to diaphragm it between 56 and 42mm, to improve the situation and also to greatly increase the depth of field.
If they produced the same binoculars, but really 25 or 26x and with 56mm ED lenses, it would be perfect even at € 100 more.
Hi Rico,
Welcome.
What do you mean by 10x35 equivalent?
I have a Russian 30x50, which has excellent resolution, as good as the Zeiss 20x60S.
But the 30x50 has poor coatings and ordinary mirrors.
It uses mirrors not prisms and is a folded refractor design.
Personally, I prefer large scopes to large binoculars.
I have a Japanese 25x-135x 80 centre focus binocular that is well aligned at all powers.
But anything above 80x is empty magnification.
Even here I prefer a scope.
I do wish there was a Canon 25x50 IS or 25x56 IS binocular.
Regards,
B.
Welcome.
What do you mean by 10x35 equivalent?
I have a Russian 30x50, which has excellent resolution, as good as the Zeiss 20x60S.
But the 30x50 has poor coatings and ordinary mirrors.
It uses mirrors not prisms and is a folded refractor design.
Personally, I prefer large scopes to large binoculars.
I have a Japanese 25x-135x 80 centre focus binocular that is well aligned at all powers.
But anything above 80x is empty magnification.
Even here I prefer a scope.
I do wish there was a Canon 25x50 IS or 25x56 IS binocular.
Regards,
B.
Thanks for the welcome
By equivalent, I mean equal light output. The same ability to read in the twilight.
The equivalence is: 25x56 = 10x35 = 8x32 = 7x30, as the ability to read twilight.
Unfortunately, the 18x50 is not enough. And I think that a good 25x 42-56mm binoculars, could be a godsend for birders.
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Thanks. The bins are around 4kg, but then you got to carry some eyepiece pairs. Pretty rapid to setup, but I’m not going to be carrying it around setup. 30x works in most daytime situations, 60x is getting a bit dim, can knock back to 16x for nighttime use. All eyepieces are >65degree and sharp to the edge and colour free. Great for scanning and picking up tricky birds hiding in reeds and the like or looking off shore. APM sell much bigger ones, but you’d not be wanting to haul them around a lot. Recently carried mine round for a number of hours at a nature reserve. I couple them with some wide 8x binoculars for providing the overview. Positive comments from those who’ve looked through them.
Peter
Peter
Peter Leitzman
Active member
eitanaltman
Well-known member
You resurrected a thread that hadn’t been active in almost a year for THAT?
I meant to make this post for quite a while - apologies!
I did, in happier days, get the chance to try this exact setup and found it both impressive and enjoyable. Peter kindly set it up with various magnification eyepieces and I found I liked 18x best - which represented a big increase over the largest magnifications I normally use (10-12x) while maintaining a reasonably comfortable exit pupil and decent brightness. 15x widefield would be really interesting to try.
It is a big unit and Peter is a better man than I for lugging it and the associated tripod etc. out to hides, but as a pure observation tool it's great. I've tried the Swarovski BTX, which is optically excellent and easier to hump around, but this setup is not that far off optically (I'd guess with really top-notch eyepieces it'd be very close indeed), and a lot less expensive. If you were lucky enough to live near something like a peregrine nest site you'd get countless hours of enjoyable observation with it, and if you could handle lugging it up somewhere like Primrose Hill or Streatham Hill it would be quite the weapon for identifying and following raptors over distances beyond any normal binocular. No doubt there are lots of other situations where it would be wonderful to be able to look through one - but not enough to make carrying it around worthwhile...
This sort of setup works much better if you're part of a two or three man team - the weight can be spread between yourself and your mates, and having one or two spotters with widefield lower mag binoculars works really well for finding targets for the big gun.
Attachments
Thanks. I really should try to get birding again, not been out for ages.
The lowest the 70mm will go is with 24mm eyepieces (65degree apparent field), for 16x which I have, though I mainly run at 30x. There are other ultrawide field models (>75 degree apparent field) that provide greater eye relief than the ones I currently use (APM, Baader Morpheus) and are still sharp to the edges. I’ll probably get some when I eventually need glasses all the time.
It’s a bit over 4kg to carry, but I carried it around all day at a local club visit to RSPB Arne last year, which didn’t result in any regret and was greeted with “interest” by the others, though few dared to look through. You make Streatham and Primrose Hills sound like Mt Everest?!
I also had some great views last year off the coast of wales, picking up seabirds you just couldn’t see otherwise. I agree using them in combination with something wide and lower powered works best (maybe a little cheaper than the WX!). Looking for raptors is always best done in a team, the more eyes the better!
The WX isn’t a lot lighter, but woooo the views are just crazy wide and really are sharp to the edges… if you can look round the edges to find them! The tripod adapter seemed a bit flimsy though.
Need to catch up some time when the world has settled back down again, the only peregrines I’ve seen recently have been on a webcam.
Peter
The lowest the 70mm will go is with 24mm eyepieces (65degree apparent field), for 16x which I have, though I mainly run at 30x. There are other ultrawide field models (>75 degree apparent field) that provide greater eye relief than the ones I currently use (APM, Baader Morpheus) and are still sharp to the edges. I’ll probably get some when I eventually need glasses all the time.
It’s a bit over 4kg to carry, but I carried it around all day at a local club visit to RSPB Arne last year, which didn’t result in any regret and was greeted with “interest” by the others, though few dared to look through. You make Streatham and Primrose Hills sound like Mt Everest?!
I also had some great views last year off the coast of wales, picking up seabirds you just couldn’t see otherwise. I agree using them in combination with something wide and lower powered works best (maybe a little cheaper than the WX!). Looking for raptors is always best done in a team, the more eyes the better!
The WX isn’t a lot lighter, but woooo the views are just crazy wide and really are sharp to the edges… if you can look round the edges to find them! The tripod adapter seemed a bit flimsy though.
Need to catch up some time when the world has settled back down again, the only peregrines I’ve seen recently have been on a webcam.
Peter
