Hiya all
I'm looking to purchase some new bins and am wondering what brands I should be looking at for the budget that I've set myself.
I'm ok with what to look for once I have a pair of bins in my hands and to test to see if there's any collimation and anything else that might be wrong, and I have an idea of what type of glass I'm after (probaby 8x40/42, but may go down to 8x30ish), and would probably go with roof rather that porro prisms.
But just to get me started, for a budget of up to 500 quid (at the most), what sort of bins should I at least be looking at? Which brands and models would fit into that price range?
Many thanks
Top of my list would be Opticrons 8x42/7x42 Imagic SE at around £340ish depending on where you shop, great optics with sound build quality and customer service you can trust. Nodoubt someone soon will suggest the Hawke ED 8x43 Frontier but the focus is too slow for my liking...nice optics though with a wide field of view.
RSPB have just upgraded and tweaked their top of the range HD models which I've always been impressed by, these are priced just under £500.
Failing that you could always try and track down a secondhand Leica or Swarovski etc, though prices (along with new models) for even grubby used specimans seems to have increased significiently recently.
Matt
Zen Ed 2 8x43 or 7x36, surely best for that kind of money, and maybe even one of the best bins out there if it proves to be as good as I think.