Many years ago, in the days when UK birders were known as Bird Spotters, and before Twitchers and Twitching emerged, I imagined there would be, one day, a bino that was perfect for me. Note the singular. There would be just one that fitted my hands, whose weight would be bearable all day, whose focus wheel would never need searching for, because it would always be found under my first finger, whose overall shape would just be so comfortable that no other bino would be able to match it. Its optics would be unlike any other and only this one would deliver the images that were pleasing to my eyes.
Life with binos has turned out not to be so simple, but neither has it been an unfulfilled search for perfection. For a start, like many, I have dismissed the concept of the perfect binoculars. Being a balance caught between often conflicting requirements and a set of optical compromises, I have come to see binos as much the same as the people I know. A mix of characteristics and qualities that make them lovable for quite different reasons.
Cleaning out the various places around our house where binoculars are stored in between field trips, I ended up at one point with three on the table that I always thoroughly enjoy using and yet are so different from each other in so many ways. Let’s take a look at them now.
They are Opticron’s Imagic 8x42 BGA VHD, Meopta’s B1 MeoStar 8x42 and the Zeiss SF 8x42. Now before anyone protests at the absence of any 32mm models, let me say right now that I could just as easily have written this about three 32s. It just so happened that it was three 42s on the table that got me indulging in this line of thought.
Just look at them in the photo below. What a disparate bunch they are. The Opticron with parallel sided optical tubes, the Meopta with flared out shoulders like bottles and the Zeiss an open-hinge design with three bridges. And yet they all slip into my hands comfortably.
The texture of their armour is more different than you might imagine from the photo: the Zeiss is silky smooth, the Meopta has a gentle roughness to it while the Opticron has a no-nonsense grip-able surface that stops just short of being called rough. Blindfolded, you could tell these apart from fingertip’s touch on the armour.
Balance-wise, the Zeiss is in a world of its own, but both the Meopta and the Opticron settle down in my hands like the handshake of an old friend. They aren’t a perfect fit like the Zeiss (and actually, neither are the hands of several old friends) but they are welcoming and comfortable.
As for the focus wheels, with all three, when my hand is under the point of balance, my first finger lies on the focus wheel, what could be better? And to my amazement, my thumb finds itself perfectly at home in the indents on the back of the Meoptas.
I am not going to attempt to strip down their optical performance to its bare bones or compare and contrast their specifications, because that isn’t the point of this piece. To my eyes, these three each have a clear and pleasant transparency, so that when partnered with their sweet handling, it is such a pleasure to look through any one of them.
Lee
Life with binos has turned out not to be so simple, but neither has it been an unfulfilled search for perfection. For a start, like many, I have dismissed the concept of the perfect binoculars. Being a balance caught between often conflicting requirements and a set of optical compromises, I have come to see binos as much the same as the people I know. A mix of characteristics and qualities that make them lovable for quite different reasons.
Cleaning out the various places around our house where binoculars are stored in between field trips, I ended up at one point with three on the table that I always thoroughly enjoy using and yet are so different from each other in so many ways. Let’s take a look at them now.
They are Opticron’s Imagic 8x42 BGA VHD, Meopta’s B1 MeoStar 8x42 and the Zeiss SF 8x42. Now before anyone protests at the absence of any 32mm models, let me say right now that I could just as easily have written this about three 32s. It just so happened that it was three 42s on the table that got me indulging in this line of thought.
Just look at them in the photo below. What a disparate bunch they are. The Opticron with parallel sided optical tubes, the Meopta with flared out shoulders like bottles and the Zeiss an open-hinge design with three bridges. And yet they all slip into my hands comfortably.
The texture of their armour is more different than you might imagine from the photo: the Zeiss is silky smooth, the Meopta has a gentle roughness to it while the Opticron has a no-nonsense grip-able surface that stops just short of being called rough. Blindfolded, you could tell these apart from fingertip’s touch on the armour.
Balance-wise, the Zeiss is in a world of its own, but both the Meopta and the Opticron settle down in my hands like the handshake of an old friend. They aren’t a perfect fit like the Zeiss (and actually, neither are the hands of several old friends) but they are welcoming and comfortable.
As for the focus wheels, with all three, when my hand is under the point of balance, my first finger lies on the focus wheel, what could be better? And to my amazement, my thumb finds itself perfectly at home in the indents on the back of the Meoptas.
I am not going to attempt to strip down their optical performance to its bare bones or compare and contrast their specifications, because that isn’t the point of this piece. To my eyes, these three each have a clear and pleasant transparency, so that when partnered with their sweet handling, it is such a pleasure to look through any one of them.
Lee