BuRR

Going to the West Coats of Scotland this Spring Bank, and would like an inexpensive pair of good quality binoculars - for general wildlife watching etc.

Want something small, with a wide field of view. Zoom would be nice, but not essential.

Anyone have any pointers or recommendations please?

The Chief

Just get a quality pair with a big objective lens, but i'm sure you already know that.

check this place out, very very helpful.
I bought my Telescope from here

Home

Hoppy

Avoid compact binos, eg 8x20 or something. Cheap and useless. Zooms sounds great, but offer no real benefits IMHO. It's not about magnification - size of the obective lens/magnification ratio is more important for general use.

I have the Helios 8x42 Mistral (42mm diameter obejective) - £90 from that site. Bright, sharp image, waterproof (at least shower-proof ), close focus 1.2m and excellent if you wear glasses. Seem well made. I actually preferred them to a pair of £800 Leicas, but if money was no object I'd have a pair of Canon Image Stabilised jobbies

Richard.

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

The Canon IS jobbies are excellent, I tried a pair last summer and wished I hadn't because nothing else will do now They did a binocular test on the Gadget Show recently with Chris Ryan being the main tester. Out of the three pairs the Canon IS came out top and Chris Ryan said he was so impressed he bought a pair for himself

Warehouse Express have them on offer at the moment... oooh

Rapid17

About three years ago i wanted to buy a top quality pair of binoculars and was prepared to spend big money to get what i wanted. I researched the subject by reading reviews in bird watching and shooting magazines. Two brands i considered were Leica and Swarovski. I couldn't find a stockist in Eastbourne where i live so i telephoned a shop which advertised in a birding magazine to find out more, specifically how much difference in optical quality there was between binoculars costing say two to three hundred pounds and others costing say six to eight hundred pounds. The man i spoke to recommended a pair of Ace Avian binoculars at £279.00 as being extremely close to the more expensive ones in optical quality. He didn't even stock them in his shop but said he could get them in and send them to me on a 14 day trial and if i was not satisfied i could have my money back. Any way, i paid for them over the phone and he got them in and sent them to me and they were and still are superb. The ones i bought are Ace Avian 8x42 and can be bought online from here Ace Cameras - digital cameras, binoculars, spotting scopes, digital camera memory cards. but they have since gone up to £289.00

Since i bought them i have tested them against a pair of Leica Trinovid BN 8x42 binoculars (£829.00 from Ace Cameras) and a pair of Swarovski EL 8.5x42 binoculars (£939.00 from Ace cameras) and they are of a similar optical quality, in fact an absolute bargain considering the price difference.

I hope this is of some help.

Geoff.

BuRR

Thanks for all contributions so far.... looks like I've got my work cut out for me!

Coupe-Se

I agree with the others, in that all compact binoculars are useless. I ended up getting a set of Inpro BC-3's 12x60. These really are excellent quality at a very reasonable price. I got my set for £70 from a trade stand at a motoring event, and a bit of internet searching should find a set at a similar price.

Binoculars UK Ltd. Inpro BC3

They aren't exactly small but do the job REALLY well.