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Best compact binocular for approx £100? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter amh2029
- Start date
Jane Turner
Well-known member
I picked up a pair of 8x20 Leica trinovids for about £100 from Schipol airport.. special offer... but unbeatable at that price
Jane Turner said:
What's that I'm feeling... oh yes - envy.
Having looked at compacts recently the top end models are so much better than anything else out there. So unless you can have Jane's fortune I'd say it's a matter of joining me on the look out for a good secondhand pair - leica, swaro and zeiss are all ecellent (as I've been told are the nikon).
Hugh Clayton
Active member
The Summit 8X26 MR is still available for £35-£50. It has a light coloured body and differs from the 8X26 HR and the current Summit series. The 8X26 MR was given the same rating for optical performance as similar Leica and Swarovski glasses in a magazine survey about two years ago and is by far the best "below £100" binocular of its type and size I have ever used. The image is unusually bright and the field of view one of the widest in an 8X binocular with objectives below 30mm. It certainly isn't as tough as the £200+ brands but I think beats them hands down for value.
amh2029 said:
Hugh Clayton
Active member
I've never found out the precise answer. Summit is a brand name used by the Japanese lens company Hoya mainly for contact lenses and the Summit MR binoculars are advertised as having Hoya lenses. But there's nothing on the binoculars, boxes or instruction sheet to say exactly who makes them or where. I think the brand name may have been sold or leased because the present Summit binoculars and scopes seem to be Chinese. Also, the Summit HR binoculars which were launched at the same time as the MR look quite different and aren't supposed to be nearly as good even though they cost more.
elgin5050.fsnet said:
pduxon
Quacked up Member
postcardcv said:
Got a chance to look through the Nikons and found they didn't fit my eyes at all well.
I thought the Delta BGA (yup an in-focus branch!) and Opticron Imagic BGA suited me better. The Delta's were better built and more compact if pricier than the Opticron's.
John Cantelo
Well-known member
I actually went out to get a pair of the Summit bins for my non birding spouse. However, we both thought that they were obviously out performed by Pentax 8x21 UCF M (at a similar price). This didn't entirely surprise me since the latter are mini porros. At this end of the market porros always represent a better bet optically. They are a little more bulky, but this suited my wife who, like me, finds small roofs much too fiddly to use,
John
John
Hugh Clayton
Active member
I think it depends which one you use. I believe the present Summit range comes from China and apart from the brand name is unrelated to the SummitMR series launched in the 1990s. I've tried all three of the MRs and have found the 8X26 far better than the 8X22 and 10X26. Reviews have said that the 8X26MR is superior optically to the SummitHR mini porro, which I don't believe is sold in the UK any more. At £35 a go, I'd certainly back the 8X26MR for value for money. I hope one day to pit it against a small roof from one of the acutely high-priced brands.
John Cantelo said:
