Binoculars.org

I must admit, I am a bit of a tech junky.  I always feel I must have the next new thing.  Love gadgets.  Was drooling over the new iPhone for months.  I was not fortunate enough to have an AT&T account, and was stuck waiting on a competitors contract to expire.  Honestly, I would have stayed with that competitor, but they could not deliver the iPhone on their platform.   I wanted it bad enough so I cancelled and moved on to AT&T.

And now I’ve got it!  All the silly things you can do in the commercials you see - tell me where to go get a coffee, even a bubble level.  This thing is a lot of fun.

I am also an avid backyard astronomer and was blown away by the iPhone applications (apps) available to me.  One of my favorites, the Clear Sky Chart, now has its own dedicated iPhone app.  Moon phase apps, star chart apps, podcasts about astronomy - way cool!

I was browsing available applications and stumbled upon the app iBird Explorer Plus.  (a simple search on the app store will locate this for you) and was blown away at what was available.  At first I was shocked to see the $19.99 pricetag, where most other apps are either free or a couple dollars each - but after reading some reviews I decided to give it a try. 

It will play the songs and calls of almost any species of bird in North America.  Tons of photographs and detailed information - its a field guide in the palm of your hand.

I just had to get a post up to shout out about this great app. In my opinion, its worth every penny and exceptionally well done.

Most customers who are searching for their first binocular first need to get an understanding of what the numbers mean.  Once they have learned what “8″ in 8×42 and “50″ in 10×50 means getting out there shopping for binoculars can be a bit intimidating.

One common question that comes up is “what makes that 2000 dollar 10×42 binocular better than the $200 10×42 binocular?  If they are both 10×42, what could possibly make them have so many different price ranges? 

Well I am certain you could guess that its optical quality.  But what does that even mean?  Really?  Two-thousand dollars for a binocular??  I could use comparisons like television video quality, or VHS vs. DVD, or the sound difference between 8-track and CD, but I still don’t think that fully answers the question.

It starts with Glass

Better optics come from better quality glass.  Quality glass can be expensive.  Ultra-High Quality glass can be really expensive.  The better the glass, the less imperfections in it that can scatter or keep light from moving through it correctly.  This is ultimately what you are paying for - the quality of the glass.

Coated Optics

Coatings are applied to the glass to help with light transmission.  But not all coatings are the same quality, and not all binoculars apply coatings to all surfaces.  If a binocular says “coated optics” generally that means they have applied coatings to the outside lenses.  But not the inside?  Look for “fully coated” to be sure the glass has been coated on both sides for even better light transmission.  You will even find “multi-coated” and “fully multi-coated” when more than one coating is applied to the lenses. 

So what is going to look different?

You can take a 100 dollar binocular and a 500 dollar binocular out on a sunny day and both will perform very well.  They will do their job, bring objects in closer for your viewing enjoyment.   But if you were told to look at the quality of the image from the edge of the field to the other edge of the field, you would start to see some differences.  If you also were told to look at the color difference between them, you would begin to see even more differences.  As you get up to the highest quality binoculars, you immediately notice how “perfect” things look.

So who buys $2000 binoculars? 

People with a lot of money!  But seriously, this isn’t always the case.  Why do golfers buy $600 drivers?  Are all golfers wealthy?  A binocular is an important tool in two very popular hobbies.  Birding and Hunting.  Birders will spend top-dollar on high end optics because they look out of those binoculars for hours at a time, the quality of the image is very important in their enjoyment of their favorite hobby.  Hunters rely on high quality optics to mean the difference of not getting that trophy buck or not even seeing it. 

Think about what you are using your binoculars to view and how often you will use them.  Most of the best selling binoculars are priced under 150 dollars because this is the budget for that use.  Just be aware that if your looking at that 40 dollar binocular, and love to go to every Friday evening high-school football game, than maybe you should consider something with a bit better optical quality.   If your only use is to get a quick check out the back field to observe any activity on your property, a simple inexpensive binocular will do the job just fine.

If you have any specific questions about binoculars or would like to see a review of a binocular please post your questions here.  Having a hard time deciding between a couple binoculars - feel free to send in your questions.