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Brand New to Birdwatching - What Binoculars?? (1 Viewer)

Bradj81

Brand New to Birdwatching
Hello all,

My girlfriend and I are interested in getting into birdwatching. What is a good starter pair of binoculars for under $50?
 
There really aren't many binoculars under $50.00 that will get unqualified recommendations as suitable starter binoculars for bird watching. There are, however, a number of them between $50.00 and $100.00 that will be quite adequate. Here are a couple of them: Leupold Yosemite 6 x 30. (About $90.00) Nikon Actions 7 x 35 and 8 x 40. (Under $70.00 many places.) Bushnell Nature View 8 x 40 Birder. (Under $60.00 many places) Eagle Optics Triumphs 7 x 35 and 8 x 40. (under $80.00--see www.eagleoptics.com) Eagle optics has an excellent 30 day return policy.

Cabelas and Bass Pro Shops among other sporting outlet stores should have the Nikons and Bushnells.

IMPORTANT: What ever you do, DO NOT GET A ZOOM BINOCULAR. (To clarify: That means binoculars that can zoom their power from say 7x to 15X or so by use of a lever near the focus knob) They are poorly made and hard to use. They are dim and have narrow fields of view.

And -- Welcome to Bird Forum!:hi:

Bob
 
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Thanks for the suggestions. I was doing a little digging back a few pages and the Leupold Yosemite 6x30 seem to be a good choice. Still going to do a little more research. I am leaning toward those right now. We will also be using the bins for Geocaching as well.
 
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Geocaching? Now that is a new one for me! I had to look it up. Sounds like a combination of Orienteering and Hide and Go Seek!

Bob
 
Take a look at the 8x25 Olympus Tracker PCI as it is compact, lightweight and has excellent optics. You can generally find them for around $60 and there's not much better for the $$.

Tom
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I was doing a little digging back a few pages and the Leupold Yosemite 6x30 seem to be a good choice. Still going to do a little more research. I am leaning toward those right now. We will also be using the bins for Geocaching as well.

Take a look at the Nikon Action Extreme series. The 8x40 or 7x35 would be better choices for a beginning binocular than the 6x30 Leupold. A bit more magnification will make a lot of difference when observing and binoculars in the Action series have a very wide field of view.
 
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