I recently purchased a new set of Nikon 7x35 Naturalists with an 8.6 degree field. I wanted to review them for this website and I assumed there would be a place for Medium Sized binoculars, but I couldn't find it. There is a review location for both Large and Compact binoculars so why not Medium sized binoculars? The Nikon 7x35 Action binocular I see mentioned here for $50 should be a great starter bin, so it should be reviewed all the time. Leuplod used to make 7x35s and I've seen great 8x35s as well. This is a handy sized binocular. It might not fit in a shirt pocket or be as bright as a 7x50 or 8x42 but it is as much of a classic as all the 8x30s and 10x50s that were the mainstays of birding for decades. My Trinovid 7x35s are still spectacular performers today.
Another question I have is why is there no place for older classic model reviews of binoculars to be archived, or re-reviewed in this website? There are so many great classic binoculars like the Zeiss 7x50 porros (especially the rubber armoured and waterproof models), the above mentoned early Trinovids, Zeiss Jena 10x50 Decarems, Fujinons, Cartons, Nikon 8x30 E, Steiner 8x30 Military or Hunting models, Swift 7x35 roof prism Trilytes, Minolta 8x40s and so many other top notch classics, that review/archive space would help newcomers to buy second hand models that other birders may have moved up from.
There is currently a huge supply of Hensoldt and Zeiss 8x30 NATO/German Army binoculars that are being sold at ridiculously low prices. These are waterproof and have great coatings throughout. Most have internal rangefinding reticles that can be converted to "size-finder" reticles if you calculate distances to your bird feeders. ID-ing some birds is helpful if you know the exact size and these reticles can help. These Bundeswehr bins are well designed for the hand and most come with integrated caps and eyecups. Having a place to review these bins where the review will be available for 1-3 years (while the surplus bins are sold off), would seem to make sense.
CAE Invertron UK has just dumped a bunch of their superb TSFO 7x50 binoculars (with internal rangefinder reticles) on the market. For those of you with blinds/hides and feeders closer than 30m (100 ft) there is a model of this bin that focuses from 100ft to 3ft, and another that focuses from Inf to 12ft. Both are fully multicoated and as razor sharp as my Zeiss BGATs. I was stunned looking through both the German and Invertron bins. Visitors have already bought up all the German 8x30s I had, and I only had trial samples of the Invertron bins, but when our governments spare no cost to buy contract bins, we, the citizenry, should benefit when they become surplus simply due to their age. Military bins are usually individually tested for collimation each maintenance cycle, they are ruggedly made and well designed for field use.
I hope that there is a Mid-sized binocular review area and a classic binocular review area set aside at some point in this website.
I'm having a hard time following statements like "...There is a review location for both Large and Compact binoculars so why not Medium sized binoculars? " Where is that?
Ed
We're talking about the equipment reviews section here http://www.birdforum.net/reviews/
Yep, slight oversight when setting it up. I've altered the descriptions now, it's 'medium-compact binos' binoculars with objective under 40mm
cheers,
Andy