Entry - Midrange Binocular Recommendation ($500) (1 Viewer)

[dries1]

I find the marketing overboard, LOL. And as far as chinese glass, I will defer to my European and Japenese glass. I have no need or want anything optic related from them, enjoy.

 

[albie...]

And as far as chinese glass, I will defer to my European and Japenese glass. I have no need or want anything optic related from them, enjoy.

I feel the same way for a number of reasons , one of them being perceived build quality , fit and finish . My main binocular will never be MIC . I do have a MIC Papilio though , that binocular is inexpensive and loads of fun . My 15x70 is MIC (Kunming BA8) and I almost replaced it with a Nikon Astroluxe . The Astroluxe didn't have enough eye relief for my glasses so I kept the BA8, "shrugs" .
I've had many made in Japan bins such as the Nikon SE's 8x32 and 10x42 , both the E2's , a made in Japan Celestron Ultima 7x50(pebble skin) , the Bushnel Elite Custom Compact and a few others . The made in Japan bins and a few European bins always gave me the impression of better build fit and finish AND they seem to feel better in my hands .

 

[Binovehje]

I would go for used high end bins for 500$ budget. My first good bino was at that price and I ended up upgrading within a year. You seem to notice small flaws easily and they irritate you. Welcome to the club. You probably will not be happy with anything available new for 500$. But a few years old bino from 800-1200$ class will still be just as good when new.

 

[OneH]

Not sure of you have already found your $500 best bang for your buck binos yet but I personally collect binoculars as a hobby of mine and for right around your $500 price range, the Skyrover Banner Cloud APO 8x42 simply cannot be beat for $499 plus $50 shipping. They're about the same level of glass as Maven B1, B6 Vortex Razor HD, Nikon Monarch HG, Zeiss Conquest HD (NOTE supposedly if you actually get a much better than average Conquest HD) but with a humongously wider FOV you have to see to believe. Some of them are even a little wider than my Swarovski NL Pures.

They aren't Swarovski NL Pures because there's almost $3000 price difference in glass. They're right about in line with $1000 - $1200 glass thereabouts though.

Other than that, the Vortex Razor HD next time Cabela's have their $500 sale plus 10% off with club card. Or a used Nikon Monarch HG for $500 if zero warranty doesn't matter to you when buying used Nikon's.

I cannot recommend Zeiss Conquest HD even on sale for $480 Like New DEMO due to the one I just bought and received from EuroOptic that totally totally totally sucks optically and received in literally extremely dirty and all beat up "truck binoculars" condition. When I mean totally optically sucks it's even comparing it to my friend's $50 Bushnell which is in fact clearer and with far less chromatic aberration and haziness/fogginess and distortion than this clearance Zeiss Conquest HD. It is unbelievable how absolutely terrible this Zeiss Conquest HD really is and they really used to sell for $1000??? I also have a Zeiss Victory pocket that's night and day clearer with very terrible eye cups as well.

 

[Binocollector]

Skyrover Banner Cloud APO 8x42 simply cannot be beat

Unless you want: decent quality control, build quality, long warranty, buy locally, something that's not a cheap copy of an already existing binocular, or a bino that's not made in China. Some people on this forum actually value these things. Just saying.
After a failure quote of 2/5 with modern day Chinese binos, I'm all but healed of buying any of them. Especially after the ridiculous post of sky rover on cloudy nights where they demanded, a customer who had received a faulty bino should take hi-res pics through the bino to help them resolve the problem. Lol. If they'd ask me, I'd take pics for 200€ per image and 60€/hr to help them find the issue with their lacking quality control (the issue probably being that nobody looked through the darn thing before shipping it out because QC is expensive). I mean, what the...?
Just send them back, get free shipping to China (which is super expensive when paying it yourself) and your money back or a new, non-faulty product. I can't believe people take this behavior from a company and still advertise for them. Just because they believe they're getting a "cheap alpha". Sorry, no such thing. China didn't find "the secret sauce" to bino making. And sky rover behaves like any random aliexpress vendor - stalling, deflecting and probably ultimately ignoring the customer when he becomes a nuisance. I've heard it all before with other products.
Recommending this bino on this forum is like recommending a Rolex lookalike on a watch forum.

 

[OneH]

Unless you want: decent quality control, build quality, long warranty, buy locally, something that's not a cheap copy of an already existing binocular, or a bino that's not made in China. Some people on this forum actually value these things. Just saying.
After a failure quote of 2/5 with modern day Chinese binos, I'm all but healed of buying any of them. Especially after the ridiculous post of sky rover on cloudy nights where they demanded, a customer who had received a faulty bino should take hi-res pics through the bino to help them resolve the problem. Lol. If they'd ask me, I'd take pics for 200€ per image and 60€/hr to help them find the issue with their lacking quality control (the issue probably being that nobody looked through the darn thing before shipping it out because QC is expensive). I mean, what the...?
Just send them back, get free shipping to China (which is super expensive when paying it yourself) and your money back or a new, non-faulty product. I can't believe people take this behavior from a company and still advertise for them. Just because they believe they're getting a "cheap alpha". Sorry, no such thing. China didn't find "the secret sauce" to bino making. And sky rover behaves like any random aliexpress vendor - stalling, deflecting and probably ultimately ignoring the customer when he becomes a nuisance. I've heard it all before with other products.
Recommending this bino on this forum is like recommending a Rolex lookalike on a watch forum.

Matter of fact one out of the four I bought was defective but they sent a prepaid FedEx return shipping label and I received a replacement a month later. At least they honor their lifetime warranty and I didn't have to pay anything for shipping it to them.

They did dilly dally for the first two weeks back and fourth wanting pictures of the artifacts inside the lenses I must admit though when it could have talkn less than two weeks total turnaround time including counting total shipping days internationally.

I actually collect binoculars of all different tier levels as a personal hobby of mine and you could call me a binocular whore. I try to buy from all worthwhile interesting brands since I don't only buy Swarovski NL Pures.

 

[Chris Pringle]

Matter of fact one out of the four I bought was defective but they sent a prepaid FedEx return shipping label and I received a replacement a month later. At least they honor their lifetime warranty and I didn't have to pay anything for shipping it to them.

They did dilly dally for the first two weeks back and fourth wanting pictures of the artifacts inside the lenses I must admit though when it could have talkn less than two weeks total turnaround time including counting total shipping days internationally.

That’s great news that Sky Rover did indeed honor their lifetime warranty and that you didn’t have to pay a dime for shipping.

Not sure what the big deal is about taking some digital photos for a preliminary diagnosis. People these days take photos even of their food with their smartphones and share them everywhere. I’m sure I am not the only one who’s had to email a few photos to a given company before receiving a return authorization on a product. Each company is entitled to their own internal policies.