I bought my wife a pair of Pentax Jupiter 7x20 over 15 years ago and she's been very happy with them. They are pretty cute. Just recently, though they've not been focussing beyond a dozen metres or so. Assuming they can't be fixed easily and cheaply, I thought I would buy her a new pair, maybe for Christmas. (That's also assuming I can persuade her that she needs a new pair). I'd like to get her a pair that are as close as possible to the Pentax in size, weight, field of view and general demeanour, but are the highest quality possible. These are the details:
Height 86mm
Width 108mm (at widest)
Weight 250g
Field of View 7.5° (131m @ 1000m)
Eyecup diameter 30mm
Colour black
General appearance dinky
Her IPD is in the normal range, unlike mine. I don't know how she would get on with smaller or larger diameter eyecups, but in general, the likes things to stay the same - unless they can be made simpler. Which is why I'm pretty sure she wouldn't like a double hinge.
The Pentax Papilio 6.5x21 is out, because she's buying me that for my birthday and I don't want us to be going around with matching binoculars.
Any suggestions?
Michael.
Tero is the one who can probably be of the most help in this case. My thought is that it is going to be hard to match that FOV. The Bushnell 7x26 Custom is the only reverse porro that I know of that is small, relatively wide-field, and has good eye-relief. But if your wife doesn't need much eye-relief, maybe the Swift 8x21 minimicron (800R) would be worth a try. There are probably others like it that I am not familiar with (because they all have too little eye-relief for me).
--AP