Binoculars - useful, essential, unnecessary or just nice to have?

Not bad for the money and very quick Amazon.co.uk delivery, might have been disapointed if I'd payed the Irish bricks and mortar shop price of €70 or more, but for around €50 delevered I'd say they were a good deal.

Look and feel is good, colour is a nice non reflective graphite and the all the body work is rubber covered, nothing that feels loose on them. The twist out eye cups are solid and the diopter ajustment is nice and stiff so set it and forget it. The top of the binoculars have a finger groove that puts your fingers right on the focusing wheel.

The strap is a bit of a conundrum? It fits on fine and works as you'd expect but gets in the way when you stuff the binoculars back in the case because the bins are a tight fit in the case. I decided not to use the strap as the intention is to carry these in a pocket, not around my neck, might add a short lanyard later.

The case proves OK (sans neck strap) but is a little bit small, a slightly bigger case (only a couple of mm each way) would make its use much more convienient. Only a soft case so only really acts to keep the unit clean - no dust caps btw but you'd loose them or spend too much time putting them on and off if you had them.

I was a little concerend about the weight of these and the folded shape, they are solid but heavy and fold to a nearly square profile (looking from the either lens end). Fortunately neither seems to be a problem as they fit fine into a combat style jacket top pocket and I hardly noticed the weight, that could be because my std jacket is so full of crap survival stuff already:rolleyes:

On test they do everything I need of them, they are 12 x 25 so you are getting up to a magnification that really needs some sort of steady and I found them much easier to use and focus when leaning on a fence post. One bad point is that the nearest point you can focus on is about 20m away so can't use them to take a closer look at whats on the bird table. No problem at 2Km where I use them to scan the beach for other dogs and walkers did notice the image quality is much better in good bright light but thats part of the price you pay for a small 25mm objective lens. Focusing can also be a little fiddly and I found myslef spending a few seconds to get the focusing right at objects 400m away (distance from where I'm sitting now to neighbors house). Dispite the small 25mm objective lense I found it quite easy to watch birds on the beach including ones in flight.

Conclusion, good solid binoculars for the money that I'm not going to be worried about getting damaged (because of both the sold build and price) optics are could be better but you do get what you pay for.

Intersting comparison, hardly a fair one

Lidl Meade (€16.99) 10x50 v Bushnell (€52) 12x25 on optical quality the Meades win but having a 50mm objective lens is a big advantage as is not having the roof prisum but does show the Lidl Meade bins are good value for money. I'd still happily pay for the Bushnells for the convienience of having a pair of binoculars with me.

If they are cheap enough I will still get a pair of the small Lidl bins when they get them in and compare the Bushnells with them.

Final note I noticed when testing using one lens and both eyes open that I might be better off with a monocular so will keep an eye out for one.

slowburner wrote: »

Having used bins for many years professionally, both in daylight and after dark (for keeping an eye on two-legged creatures), there is one thing that used to drive me mad: that was people who didn't take care of them.
Binoculars are extremely delicate pieces of equipment - if the prisms are out of place by a fraction of a millimeter you will get double vision and a headache.
It takes very little impact to knock the prisms out of place, so having invested, it makes sense to take care of them.
If they do go out of alignment it can be too expensive to get them re-aligned.
I like to make monoculars out of the side with the adjusters when this happens.
The other half can be dismantled for magnifying glass lenses, but I have yet to find a use for the redundant prisms.

No matter what the delicate piece of equipment is there is always going to be someone who will fcuk it up and not care about it - a hanging offence in my book! Wherever I've worked I've always bought my own tools and been told I'm stupid to be spending my own money, but never long before the same people come looking to borrow my stuff because its still working, better quality and not been lost - you can guess my answer. Some people you can trust with decent gear others its just safer not to let them near it.

Sorry for jumping in and answering all your posts but I think there are a couple of points worth making, firstly magnification isn't everything. My Busnell 12x 25mm are proving to be a good buy (daily use) but I'm not sure if I'd have been happier with 8x 25mm because the 12x really need resting on a fence post or rock while I use them and then with the small 25mm objective lense you are left searching for objects in a small field of view. The second is size and weight which relates to how you carry them, again the Busnell 12x 25mm are on my limit of size and weight for carrying in a pocket. A bigger pair (size or weight) would relegate them to a bob and I know that they wouldn't be used anything like as much if I had to stop and take them out of a bag. Quality is another big issue but its possible to be too precious with really good bins and not use them so I prefer a cheaper pair that get used and abused rather than an expensive pair that stay in the box.

Doc Ruby wrote: »

This is an important thing to keep in mind, I got a pair of Konus 10x42 Titanium waterproof and fogproof nitrogen filled binoculars, picked for toughness and that I was mostly going to be operating in a very damp environment where they would be immersed at times (Ireland). Years later they are still working perfectly, although they're far from the most expensive.

Nice!!! but no longer avialable afaik http://www.binoculars-uk.org.uk/konus_titanium_camo_10x42.htm . Definitely compact but do you find them a bit heavy (700g) I think of compact to mean suitable to carry in a pocket - but then I think too much and do too little

grapeape wrote: »

I got a pair off a mate last week they are Prakica sport 12x25 their a nice set not heavy or bulky He thinks he paid around €35 a couple of years ago

Anything like these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Praktica-12-25-Sport-Binoculars/dp/B0000YW7S4/