Binoculars

You might think this strange, but I rarely use binoculars. I find them cumbersome and in the woods you don't exactly have the opportunity to see any great distance. Conversely, the benefit of a good pair is that you can see even close up objects in more detail and you can look into dark foliage to see what's there. As you know I also like to get quite close to animals as naturally as possible but at times, this isn't an option.

My current binoculars are about 30 years old. I got them second hand and they certainly did me proud during the height of my bird-watching days. They are a pair of Carl Zeiss Jenoptem 8x30.

Carl Zeiss Jenoptem 8 x 30

When I signed up to go to Namibia (did I tell you I was going to Namibia?) my first thought was that I would treat myself to a new pair of binos.

Where to start? Luckily I have a birding friend who has a pair of Opticron Verano 10x50 so that was a good bench-mark for a modern pair and a comparison to my old Carl Zeiss. There was quite a difference not just in magnification but light gathering properties. The Carl Zeiss is a porro prism system (giving the binos its traditional shape) as opposed to the roof prism (straight shape) of the Veranos. The porro prism gives the Carl Zeiss binos a bit of blurring around the edge of the viewing circles. Roof prisms then were the way to go.

Opticron Verano 10 x 50

My next step was to go more up market and look at some higher end instruments. I had a look at my mate Maverick's Leica  8x32. Very, very impressive with a superb sharp image but at £1,000 plus (new) they were out of the question. Binos are very personal and you have to try them out. One persons delight is another's disappointment, so it's no good saying that the more expensive the better. However, in this case I thought the Leicas were fantastic, but I just couldn't justify the price.

I went back to the Opticrons and looked at a higher spec model. By all accounts (and reviews) the imagic was the better instrument than the Veranos although this was £80 over my budget at £380-00.

Opticron imagic 8 x 42

As luck would have it, my local bird reserve had an optics day and I travelled down to see what was there. Most of the binoculars were Hawkes, Opticrons, Minox and Bushnells and I tried them all.

I played with the higher x 10 magnification, but, as was pointed out, they are on the limit of a hand held stable image and a bit of wind would render them useless. In comparison, there wasn't a great deal of difference in any case in my opinion. I also tried out a pair of the imagic 8x42 in direct comparison with my Carl Zeiss pair.

I made up my mind. The imagics were the ones for me. My plan was to buy them on line... until... what was that? Out of the corner of my eye I saw a group of second hand binoculars. And guess what? A pair of Opticron imagic 8x42 was amongst them. The pair was one version down from the current version with slightly less field of view and pull out instead of twist out eyecups. Apparently, there's no other difference. The price was definitely right at £199-00.

I'm never that lucky. But today it looked like it was my day. After a thorough check for any defects, I gave the chap my plastic card, which he kindly gave back complete with a pair of Opticron imagic 8x42 binoculars. Job done!