In the woods today while sitting and looking for an owl I found that Zeiss Victory 8x20 in my coat pocket. I then noticed that they fit very well inside the eye-cups (in the extended position) of my SteinerXP 8x44.
Amazingly I could focus them but the range was very narrow and extremely shakey. I guess this setup would be 16x, do you add the magnification when combined? It is virtually unusable, unless maybe if you had a tripod.
OK bins experts what about a real low powered bin like the Zeiss Diadem which I think are 3x. I have never seen a pair except in catalogs. If they fit into the eye-cups would it be 11x and possibly not too shakey. Does anyone have a pair of these to try. I like the idea of adding extra power to both barrels kind of like a 'poor boys' Leica Duovid . Would this work?
That would be 64x mag, Statestat!
I happened to have a similar experience, but unintended, when I had my Canon 18x50 IS's mounted on a tripod and accidently looked through them with my Canon 10x30 IS's. I saw tree leaves in a very, very dim image. I got 180x mag. Totally unusable, but fun to experience.
Your suggestion of a 3x mag small bino is not so bad! You'd have 24x mag with them on your 8x44 Steiners. That would just be useable in the field if you could rest your Steiners on something.
Best regards, Ronald
PS : As an aside: I'm curious how the Nano coatings on your Steiners work in the rain?
Do they repel water?
Wow 64x that is incredable and I was able to see at dusk.
O yes the Nano coating works great, on the way back to the car we had freezing rain today and I just blew off the drops, nothing sticks to it. I had a finger print on the objective once(friend used it) and just a very light swirl with a cotton ball removed it. It reminds me of RainX that we put on our car windshelds here. It is a wonder, but I have not tried using them in the rain.