Any views as to whether these have a fighting chance of seeing off the all conquering roofs for a bit longer? Certainly in the 8x40 range they certainly seem capable of offering wider fields of view in mid-price range. Must we expect a little less robustness, though?
Any info on just how waterproof they tend to be? I guess the Swarovski Habicts and B&L Elites should be pretty good. Have heard the Swift Audubons are a bit more iffy. The RSPB/Viking models have been around a while. Wonder how the new generation Opticron Imagics, Nikon Action EX, Minolta WP FP, Bushnell Legend etc etc compare.
Part of my reason for starting this thread is hoping someone might assist Windlord in search for porros where the list of required uses includes fox and badger observation. His suggestion was that brightness is very important followed by sharpness and being waterproof. $300 is the approx budget.
I’d guess a 7x42 would be a possibility; though some suggest the extra magnification of a 10x50 can be helpful for very low light work. Here’s an interesting looking (over budget!?)7x50 which has a CF version :
http://www.monkoptics.co.uk/Marine/artemis.html
Any suggestions?
Hi norm,
Great link- The specs on those bins look good. Im going to have to go to the wye valley to look at them! In my post (the perfect bins) these specs come close to my ideal birding bins. I prefer however, a wider field of view. Also, they may not focus close.
Most roofs don't offer a decent field of view (ie: 8x42's roofs are around 6.3 degrees).
Opticron make very good value bins. The real bargin bin is the 8x42 aspheric porro at around £80 ($150). (I would spend the extra $100 and get the swift 820 porros)
Good luck
When it comes to rugged, quality poros, I onle look at Steiner and IOR.
ranburr