¡Found! a decent pair of binos

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

I'm still looking for a good pair of binos for under $300, but preferably closer to $200. I have decided on the 8x40-ish size for general hand held use and narrowed my options down to these:

Olympus EXPS I 8x42, $206 from centre.net.au
Minolta Activa 8x40, $??? from Michael's Camera in Melbourne
Pentax PCL WP II 8x40, $215 from centre.net.au

Apart from the FOV they all have pretty similar specs, and all have full multi-coating. The Pentax has the narrowest FOV at 6.3 deg, followed by the Olympus at 6.5, and the Minolta is a more comfy 8.2 but I assume not so sharp at the edges.

Besides manufacturer's info, I haven't been able to find out much about the Minolta and even less about the Olympus, but the EXPS is the top of the Olympus range and has 2mm less eye relief (ER) than the Pentax, which is a plus. Most binos have too much ER for my liking. I tried a pair of Olympus 7x35 DSP I the other day and they have only 12mm of ER and that was perfect for me. The wider FOV of the Minolta also sounds tempting but it might be useless if it's just more long winged seagulls. I managed to try a 12x50 in this range, but I found I couldn't look at the edge of field directly because I got blackening every time I tried to look to the side. But I expect the 8x40 would be quite different. Argh, decisions, decisions.

BTW. I went to Chadstone today, naively thinking that the largest shopping centre in the hemisphere must have a decent selection of binoculars. Yeah right! Around 400 shops of useless crap! You can't even find any half decent powertools. What a waste of space!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I have a pair of Pentax XCF 10X50 and I love them. 6.5 deg field and during the day I do notice curvature for about a fifth the way in from the edge but I don't notice it at night star scanning. Lovely and comfortable to grip and not to heavy. I bought them for $199 from Cameral House.

Iddon won a pair of Celestron 10X50? at the QLD Astrofest. I managed to get them off him for about 15 sec for a look. Clear and sharp to the edge. Great views.

[Iddon]

yeah the Cestron 10x50 are very good value for sure - very easy to knock out of focus, but that goes with their lightness I guess.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Which ones are the Celestron ones? These are the ones listed at centre.net.au and they range in price from $66 to $1144:

Noble
OptiView LPR
OptiView Polarizer
Porro Outland LX
Regal LS
Ultima
Ultima DX
UpClose

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Not sure Steve . Hopefully Grant will see this post and respond.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Steve,

I suggest you read this review by Ed Zarenski on Cloudy Nights. Note that this is a cloudy nights review, not a review by an inexperienced contributor. You should also note that the Nikon Action Extremes reviewed in this article perform a lot better than the standard Nikon Action Series.

http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/nikon.pdf

CS-John B

[Iddon]

I think mine are the Upclose 10x50 - only $70 AUD or so. Great value.

[johnno]

Reply to John Bambury.
John, I quote,
"NOT A REVIEW BY AN INEXPERIENCED CONTRIBUTER".
it appears to me Then,
that reviews by "inexperienced contributers",dont count for much.
NOW, you know why I removed my posts you had answered in an earlier thread.
I, and many others are "NOT AS EXPERIENCED", as some,and as such, would be put off,from posting OUR review/impressions on this forum, as it would appear our trivial contributions are worthless in the eyes of our more EXPERT members.
It might be a better forum,if all INEXPERT members were BANNED from submitting their reviews/ suggestions/etc,and just posted questions to the EXPERTS, instead.
It might shorten the life of this forum,but at least it would feed the ego's.
John

[Lee]

I picked up a pair of waterproof 10*50 at Andrews Comms in Sydney.... just his own badged ones. $149 I think. My impression - fantastic. And from other experiences his prices are really good.
From the binos - Fully-Coated.... BAK4 Prism....

I am going to grab a pair of 10*70 before I go overseas for 4 months soon....

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by johnno

I, and many others are "NOT AS EXPERIENCED", as some,and as such, would be put off,from posting OUR review/impressions on this forum, as it would appear our trivial contributions are worthless in the eyes of our more EXPERT members.

Ouch !

Im not aware of the reviews or posts that you made johnno and what lead to this. These are just a few thoughts of mine regarding reviews.

I recently wrote a mini review on the AOE 15x70 binos that I had just purchased. In that review I gave very general impressions and described a few tests that I did in such a way that Im not comparing bino x to bino y, or claiming any absolutes as them being better than anything costing 3x the price.
People look to reviews to help them make purchasing decisions, and when it comes to high end gear they want to feel confident they are spending their hard earned money well. I have seen reviews singing the praises of mediocre or crap gear and the newbie usually has no way to know which author has the experience to know what they are talking about.

Reviews by all people are always welcome, but its helpful for those reading them to know a little background about the experience level of the reviewer. This way their opinions can be given an appropriate weighting by the reader, especially when those opinions carry bold statements or conflict with the opinions of others on the gear being reviewed.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Johnno,

You have obviously never "WASTED" your hard earned cash on a crap product recommended by someone that didn't know the difference between crap and quality and said the crap product was FANTASTIC. I have and learnt the hard way, through my pocket.

Cloudy Nights has an extensive world wide reading audience and historically there have been issues with Cloudy Nights reviews where people have posted product reviews that were clearly innaccurate and this is the reason "Cloudy Nights" now break their product reviews into 2 categories, "Cloudy Nights Reviews" and "User Reviews", to assist potential end users sorting the wheat from the chaff. These innaccurate user reviews caused a large amount of dissent amongst Cloudy Night members because of the number of people that wasted their hard earned and this was when they split them. You probably were not involved in the hobby when this occured and weren't aware of it. I made the comment to indicate to Steve that the review was one endorsed by cloudy nights and hence likely to be accurate.

The internet has been a great place for people to improve their technical knowledge of astronomy and astronomical products immensely but it has also led to a lot of innaccurate and incorrect information being made available, as people freely pass on the innaccurate tidbits they pick up which tends to have a mushroom effect across the reading public. All you need is one person to say something incorrect and very soon you have 10 people then 100 people regurgitating the same garbage.

My greatest bugbear ?? is when people continually post comments about products and rate $100 products as Fantastic, Incredible, Superb, Outstanding when they have never used the $1,000 equivalent of the same product to know what Fantastic, Incredible, Superb or Outstanding really are. There is a major difference between a budget product being a fair performer and representing good value for money to being outstanding. Classic example. I would like a $1 for every time I have read how good the 2" 30mm BW Optics 80 deg eyepiece is (Also sold by Andrews). The eyepiece represents good value for money for people on a limited budget. In reality, compared to the 31mm Nagler T5, 26mm Nagler T5, 30mm Pentax XW, 35mm Panoptic, 27mm Panoptic its junk, yet the words superb, outstanding and fantastic flow freely when describing its performance, invariably posted by people that are using a 2" wide angle eyepiece for the 1st time or have never used one of the premium 2" eyepieces.

CS-John B

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Geoff,

A couple of months ago Johnno responded to a thread on binoculars saying that Lee Andrews was selling some "Really Good Binoculars". I posted a comment saying that "Really Good Binoculars" were made by companies like Zeiss, Leica, Canon, Nikon, Fujinon, Miyauchi, Swarovski, Steiner, Minox and Takahashi and that Lee Andrews didn't sell any binoculars produced by those manufacturers consequently he didn't sell any "Really good binoculars" and what Lee in fact sold were some reasonable binoculars that represented good value for money for people on a budget. Johnno for reasons known only to himself, decided to delete his own posts which I thought was an overreaction in a major way on his part.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...7855#post27855

CS-John B

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Allright, experts and non-experts,

First about Nikon. I am not going to buy Nikon because of what I've learnt about their marketing practices. Ron from Sirius Optics tells me that Nikon's Australian representative sells to small dealers at highly inflated prices. He pays more for the Nikon binos wholesale than big stores like Ted's ask for them retail.

Now, I absolutely cannot spend more than $300 and what I really wanted to know is:

1. Is there much of a difference in quality between the top of the range binos from Olympus, Minolta and Pentax?

2. Is there much difference between these brand name binos (between $200-$250) and one of the better noname binos from Andrews or AOE (between $120-$150)?

I might go to the city sometime this week and have a look at what they have in some of the bigger camera shops.

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

I do not call myself an expert..however I bought an Oberwerk 20 x 80 from the US based on an Cloudy Nights review some time ago ..now I find Lee Andrews has the exact same binos for sale at $100 less than it cost me to import from the US.

I do not own any premium binos but own a 7 x50 (Gerber), a 11 x70 (Andrews) and an Oberwerk 20 x80. I find all suitable for astronomy-again I have never owned a Fujinon (even though I have looked enviously through the odd pair from time to time) so I can't really compare. However of all my binos the 11 x 70s are easy to hand hold and have the greatest eye relief..not withstanding the exit pupil not being theoritically right for someone my age , I still find these the binos I use most. These are the ony binos I can use without having to take out my glasses. And they cost the least...$119 from memory.

anyway it may be worth asking the folks at the bino astronomy yahoo group for an opinion, though Andrews sells the same product supposedly



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/binocularastronomy/

hope this helps

[johnno]

To John B

First off John,

Thank you for a good explaination.
I NOW understand where you are coming from.
Of course,you are correct.
Any Binocular review by very experienced people such as Ed Zarenski,
would indeed, be a more valuable reference than the normal inexperienced user.Myself included.
Point taken.
I also understand how annoying,frustating it would be to buy something,and be sorely dissapointed in its performance,based on a review by someone with limited knowledge in the field.
I tend to base my reviews on Binoculars, per price/performance,which as you say does not necessarily reflect the quality compared to the high end brands,like Zeiss,Leica,Fujinons etc.
I do this, because as I see it, While SOME people can afford the best available, most people I believe, (wrongly,or rightly) Can not,or WILL not,spend the money required to obtain a good glass.

I did make some reference to Ebay in one of my earlier posts.
Again I DO agree with you, MOST of the equipement available is total and absolute Rubbish.
However,I find IF,you know what to look for you can sometimes get a worthwhile piece of gear.
For eg.A pair of early Japanese made Nikon Travellite series 9x25,I bought for $26.00,of course only good for daytime use.
Why only $26.00?
Because the label on the end stating size, and magnification had gone missing.
not too hard to work out,if you can measure the objective lens size/exit pupil.

Why did I mention this?,and what the heck has it to do with the topic?
Simply,if you dont know,Ask questions.
Thats what this forum is all about.

To Geoff,
I probably did overeact by deleting my posts in the thread mentioned,
But as John pointed out, in that thread,my comments may have influenced a newcomer,into making a foolish purchase.
Fair enough.
Regards to you both.

John

[iceman (Mike)]

Both John's have points, let's just try to be "nice" to each other and remember to re-read your post before pressing submit.

While it would be nice to see reviews from experienced people all the time, it just doesn't happen. So we often get "reviews", or "impressions" from less experienced people.

That's fine too, we just have to remember, that as newbies read these threads it's very easy to get confused by the conflicting information.

Most newbies will never get to look through expensive $1000+ binoculars, and so their impressions of cheaper binoculars is sometimes all we have to go by. It's true for any gear really, not just binoculars. The view might not be fantastic compared to a $1000+ pair, but for $100 it may be fantastic, for the price.

So when anyone does reviews, experienced or not, we just have to remember what the cost is, what our experience is, and what we are comparing it to.

That might help ease the confusion for others who use reviews to base their next purchase on.

[toetoe (Peter)]

I find these to be fantastic, http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ead.php?t=3633 and for the price of them they are good value for money. Andrews have them for around $140.00 i think, they have come down in price over the last few weeks. Great binocs to start out with, i get fantastic views with these..

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Peter, I am not keen on the idea of zoom binos because of narrower FOV and the more complicated lens system (never used one though). Here, I am only interested in wide FOV binos for handheld use for under $300, and want to get the best for the money. John & John, there is no need to get so fired up. They're only binos.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Steve,

The problem with Wide field of view Binos at this price level is that not all of the FOV is likely to be useable anyway. I stand corrected on this, but most of the binos I have used at this price level, exhibit some field curvature and astigmatism in the outer 25% of the FOV. The Pentax's have a narrower reported FOV but I think you will find it is flatter over a larger % hence providing you with a similar useable FOV compared to the wide angle models anyway. As reported by Ed Zarenski the Pentax PCF WP are very good binos for this price level. The only reason I am trying to sell my 8x40 Pentax's is because I intend to replace them with a $1,000 pair of Nikon 10x42 SE's and if they don't sell I will be happy to keep them.

CS-John B

[toetoe (Peter)]

Originally Posted by janoskiss

Peter, I am not keen on the idea of zoom binos because of narrower FOV and the more complicated lens system (never used one though). Here, I am only interested in wide FOV binos for handheld use for under $300, and want to get the best for the money. John & John, there is no need to get so fired up. They're only binos.

No prob just thought i'd throw that in to simmer things down . The prob with binocs is the same as telescopes, toooo many to choose from good luck with which ever set you go for..