Hi, I have been putting some money aside for a new pair of roof prisim Bins. I have about £200 saved and I probably could be persuaded to add another £100 if I thought I was getting my monies worth.
I have looked at some Opticron's, Verano's and Countrymans and looking through both side by side, I couldn't really tell the difference, although the build quality on the Verano is better. I am planning on looking though the Helios AM6 and the AM6 super high resolution's next week. I tried some Bushnells, but I thought they were of lesser quality.
While I don't mind paying for quality, I don't want to pay more than I need and it seems with binoculars you get a diminishing return.
What other models should I be looking to try. I am in no immediate hurry to buy and will certainly wait until the local in focus event next month before deciding and where I can try the opticron BGA classic.
Any help or opinion on the bins I've tried and the bins I should try, would be very much appreciated!
Thanks
Dan
Bushnell Legend 10x42
Nikon Monarch 10x42
The Opticrons are probably OK
Make sure the unit you come home with works OK and is not out of alignment. Look at distant obejects for a while in the store at home. If it does not give eye strain, an unpelasant feeling, they should be OK.
Do you have 10x before? A good bright 8x may give you a wider field or other advantage. When you move up in price, you may find that 10x is not necessary. Color, contrast etc will give you more detail than you had before.
I use 10x42 and 8x32.
Well, I'd put in a suggestion to look for the Celestron Regal LX 10x42 roof. There are still some for sale out there and it is a very fine performer. Hands down beats the daylights out of the Nikon Monach 10x42 roof. In fact, the Monarch I tested had the poorest resolution of all roofs. In addition the Monarch had significant tilt in the light beam projection in one barrel. The Regal measured up as one of the top binoculars out of a group of 35 roofs and pooros. For total transmission, both the Regal 10x42 AND 8x42 beat out the Nikon Monarch 10x42.
The 10x42 Regal has close focus of 7' (2.1m) same as Monarch, weighs 25 oz. (700g.) 3 oz more than the Monarch, and has eye relief usable 13mm (1mm longer than the Monarch), 6.0° fov, the Monarch is 6.2°
The Nikon SE 10-x42 beat them all, in every single category, but cost considerably more, when you can find it.
See this review
42mm Roofs Compared
all the binoculars I mentioned above are included in this review
http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/roofs.pdf
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