Do you all recommend any Chinese brands of binoculars? I am a complete newbie and I am living in Thailand. The prices here with all the taxes are usually quite high, but I have found with my photography gear I am able to purchase products from Chinese companies like Sirui at prices even less than they would be in the states. Just wondering if you could give me a head start with binocular brands that may follow the same pattern. Probably will head to Fortune Plaza here in Bangkok soon. Thank you!
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Chinese Binoculars (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Ussa
- Start date
Hi,
in general, you nowadays get exactly the quality you specified and paid for from China. So it might be good stuff for a reasonable price or junk for almost nothing or anything in between.
Most chinese bins we get here are produced for and to the specifications of a western label and these tend to be fairly expensive.
Optics made in china for the chinese market is difficult to obtain over here unless you use banggood, aliexpress et al. which is why we have not a lot of reviews.
BF member Holger Merlitz has lived and worked in China for a few years and has reviews for some better quality bins made for the chinese market (or the People's Liberation Army in some cases). See the following link at the bottom of the page. If these are still in production or were available to the general public I don't know.
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/binoculars_english.html
If you can test the bins in person at a brick and mortar store, you're in a good position. Maybe try sth reputable and available like a Nikon Monarch first for a baseline of what it should look like.
PS: Sample variation in optics does exist, so if you have tested and liked an example, it is a good idea to buy exactly that example depite the fact that it might be slightly used. Bonus points if you get a discount for buying a demo unit.
Joachim
in general, you nowadays get exactly the quality you specified and paid for from China. So it might be good stuff for a reasonable price or junk for almost nothing or anything in between.
Most chinese bins we get here are produced for and to the specifications of a western label and these tend to be fairly expensive.
Optics made in china for the chinese market is difficult to obtain over here unless you use banggood, aliexpress et al. which is why we have not a lot of reviews.
BF member Holger Merlitz has lived and worked in China for a few years and has reviews for some better quality bins made for the chinese market (or the People's Liberation Army in some cases). See the following link at the bottom of the page. If these are still in production or were available to the general public I don't know.
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/binoculars_english.html
If you can test the bins in person at a brick and mortar store, you're in a good position. Maybe try sth reputable and available like a Nikon Monarch first for a baseline of what it should look like.
PS: Sample variation in optics does exist, so if you have tested and liked an example, it is a good idea to buy exactly that example depite the fact that it might be slightly used. Bonus points if you get a discount for buying a demo unit.
Joachim
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Steve C
Well-known member
I am in general agreement with the above post. Here, moist companies that sell several model lines of binoculars have some which are Chinese. That is usually not advertised loudly. Contrast that to the "made in Germany" that is prominently displayed, when in order to claim the label only 10% of the work needs be German. So in short, here, you never really know unless you do some detective work.
Chinese binoculars have somewhat of a bad rap. That can be political, or it can be quality related. Leaving politics aside, some of the poor quality detriment is related to the Chinese giving the seller just what was required in the contract. If you keep to a higher standard of specifications, you will be better off. Do not buy ANY binocular because it is cheap. Cheap, as in cheap, not inexpensive and representing good value for the money. That does not mean you can not get a good Chinese binocular. It means you have entered an arena where we can't be of a great deal of help.
What brands that may be available there which are Chinese,I may never have even heard of.
Chinese binoculars have somewhat of a bad rap. That can be political, or it can be quality related. Leaving politics aside, some of the poor quality detriment is related to the Chinese giving the seller just what was required in the contract. If you keep to a higher standard of specifications, you will be better off. Do not buy ANY binocular because it is cheap. Cheap, as in cheap, not inexpensive and representing good value for the money. That does not mean you can not get a good Chinese binocular. It means you have entered an arena where we can't be of a great deal of help.
What brands that may be available there which are Chinese,I may never have even heard of.
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Hi,
that really depends if you paid for tight QC and the corresponding reject rates... Kamakura has some chinese factories and they have a quite good track record of delivering quality.
Also I think there are few of us in a position to have tested enough examples of some binocular model to do valid statistics with... let alone different models to compare...
Joachim
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You'd think the Razor HD, being a $1000 bino, Vortex would have paid for tight tolerances, wouldn't you? I would.
Hello Ussa. We used to have a member on this forum who used the name winwinbino. He was also from Thailand. I remember him mentioning in passing that there were certain Chinese domestic brands whose binoculars he enjoyed using. He has not posted on the forum for a while, but it might be worthwhile for you to attempt to send him a private message through the forum and ask him to recommend some brands that might be available in Thailand. You might not get a reply, but it's worth trying.
Hi,
seeing how companies are being ruled by beancounters and not engineers, no, I don't think so.
Joachim
Of the 30 6x18 probably Chinese waterproof roof prism IF binoculars.
10 were good.
10 were just about usable.
10 were failures. However, in this instance if they were cut in half, many would make useful monoculars, being IF.
There was basically no quality control.
Cost price £7.50 including nice yellow case.
They do seem to be waterproof, left in a bucket of water overnight.
Of the approx. 30 8x21 and 10x25 roof prism probably Chinese cheapies perhaps half were surprisingly good. £2 to £3 in charity shop. About £10 retail.
Glass optics, some of the later ones may be partly plastic.
What amazes me is how these binoculars can sell for less than a tenner, probably £2.50 from factory.
They were and maybe are made in vast quantities.
Chinese new cheap Waterproof roof prism 10x42 maybe. Had fungus in it when brand new.
Various crazy zoom small or very small binoculars, at least some probably Chinese. Maybe twenty tried.
Top magnification maybe 30x to 70x or more.
I reckon that only 2% of these mad binoculars work at maximum magnification when new.
Not very cheap.
To me these are a con, but that is what the buying public want. They also want 300x or more toy telescopes.
Firms get rich selling this snake oil junk.
My general impression is that Chinese binoculars range from the most awful binocular I have seen to very good.
They make and sell large numbers of fakes.
Many Chinese firms have no regard to copyright or honest advertising. This is of course not always the case.
But I think the only way one can get a rather good Chinese binocular is by having a Western importer deal with quality control., and keep a very tight ship.
This is not racist. I have dealt with China for 50 years. They used to be totally honest. Not now.
However, individual Chinese dealers are very honest.
It is the corporate companies that are giving this bad reputation.
In my experience much of this naughtiness started in the U.S.A. perhaps a hundred years ago with dishonest advertising, and this has spread worldwide.
One cannot grow a country's GDP by 8% per annum for many years without dodgy practices. Dumping, rigging exchange rates, no regard for the environment, poor worker conditions etc. etc.
It is us the buying public who have demanded Cheap above everything else.
However, Chinese astro scopes can be very good and very inexpensive. The mounts though are usually a bit dodgy.
I don't know how they can be made for the price.
In many cases a western made objective or mirror can cost more than the whole Chinese scope.
The main protection when buying Chinese optics is to test it and if satisfactory buy the tested one, not a similar new boxed one.
And hopefully, over time, modern Chinese products can regain the quality that they used to have in the past.
10 were good.
10 were just about usable.
10 were failures. However, in this instance if they were cut in half, many would make useful monoculars, being IF.
There was basically no quality control.
Cost price £7.50 including nice yellow case.
They do seem to be waterproof, left in a bucket of water overnight.
Of the approx. 30 8x21 and 10x25 roof prism probably Chinese cheapies perhaps half were surprisingly good. £2 to £3 in charity shop. About £10 retail.
Glass optics, some of the later ones may be partly plastic.
What amazes me is how these binoculars can sell for less than a tenner, probably £2.50 from factory.
They were and maybe are made in vast quantities.
Chinese new cheap Waterproof roof prism 10x42 maybe. Had fungus in it when brand new.
Various crazy zoom small or very small binoculars, at least some probably Chinese. Maybe twenty tried.
Top magnification maybe 30x to 70x or more.
I reckon that only 2% of these mad binoculars work at maximum magnification when new.
Not very cheap.
To me these are a con, but that is what the buying public want. They also want 300x or more toy telescopes.
Firms get rich selling this snake oil junk.
My general impression is that Chinese binoculars range from the most awful binocular I have seen to very good.
They make and sell large numbers of fakes.
Many Chinese firms have no regard to copyright or honest advertising. This is of course not always the case.
But I think the only way one can get a rather good Chinese binocular is by having a Western importer deal with quality control., and keep a very tight ship.
This is not racist. I have dealt with China for 50 years. They used to be totally honest. Not now.
However, individual Chinese dealers are very honest.
It is the corporate companies that are giving this bad reputation.
In my experience much of this naughtiness started in the U.S.A. perhaps a hundred years ago with dishonest advertising, and this has spread worldwide.
One cannot grow a country's GDP by 8% per annum for many years without dodgy practices. Dumping, rigging exchange rates, no regard for the environment, poor worker conditions etc. etc.
It is us the buying public who have demanded Cheap above everything else.
However, Chinese astro scopes can be very good and very inexpensive. The mounts though are usually a bit dodgy.
I don't know how they can be made for the price.
In many cases a western made objective or mirror can cost more than the whole Chinese scope.
The main protection when buying Chinese optics is to test it and if satisfactory buy the tested one, not a similar new boxed one.
And hopefully, over time, modern Chinese products can regain the quality that they used to have in the past.
Moonmoth14
New member
Excellent binoculars made in China which are blocked for political reasons, especially since 2016. China in the 21st century is focusing on premier products and it’s a society of highly educated engineers. I’m a birdwatcher from the UK living in China for 15 years and can assure you of the great quality of their binoculars. Do some homework and do your own research.
5 years late reply, but anyway:
I think the same. If I try a binocular in a store and after a careful investigation find everything to be ok, I will ask to buy that very sample, whether I get discount or not. What does it matter if it has been tried by a number of people in the store before, I get the full warranty and it's still propably handled maximum a few hours totally.
Peregrine Took
Well-known member
Okay, I'll chip in, just to get it off my chest. This is nothing to do with quality, but I avoid anything made in China, if I can, even if it costs me more. Obviously, with any equipment that contains multiple components, such as white goods, computers and mobile phones, that's not always possible, but for scopes and binoculars I choose products made in the USA, Japan or Europe.
And another bee in my bonnet - and something I suggest new members consider... OP asked a question and then disappeared without thanking anyone. Bad form. Please acknowledge the goodwill, time and effort that goes into responding to these threads..
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And another bee in my bonnet - and something I suggest new members consider... OP asked a question and then disappeared without thanking anyone. Bad form. Please acknowledge the goodwill, time and effort that goes into responding to these threads..
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