BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EnjoyTheView" data-source="post: 3608531" data-attributes="member: 133854"><p>You need to go and see if you can get some hands on with binoculars.  I shoot a lot of photography with 400mm and longer lens, and as you probably know already when you think about it, a lot depends on what your environment is.  Right now I have a lot of open Marshes I visit. The birds there are not domesticated, a heron will spot me long before I can spot them with my naked eye.  I have to use tricks to get close as usually I'm using 400, or 500.  I would not be without my 10x, and I'm thinking about higher power stabilized binoculars.  Your budget is a bit limiting so you need to see to see what works for you in your environments.  When I'm lugging a lot of gear and decide I don't want to carry my heavy 10x42, I use a very small 8x25 compact with awesome glass.  It works very well for spotting, but not so good as 10x and the 10x is stabilized which is awesome for longer observations. Even my small 8x are outside your budget even though they look like toys to many.  So do some shopping and hands on evaluation.  Nikon binoculars seem pretty consistently very good for their price, the other brands I can't make any general statements about.</p></blockquote><p></p>