So what do $500 binoculars offer that $100 (or $50) ones don't? When I wanted something halfway decent I sprang for a pair of Minolta 10x50, which set me back something around $80-$100 IIRC. They're about as heavy as I'd like to carry around full-time, so going for larger front elements wouldn't appeal to me. And going for greater than 10x magnification makes for a darker image, and more problems hand-holding for a steady view.
Once you get away from obvious distortions, chromatic aberration, and vignetting, the human eye is remarkably accomodating. While you don't want a camera to degrade the corners of the image, that's a whole lot less important for binoculars; they're a real-time device, so you're practically always limiting yourself to using the centre of the field of view; if you're interested in something off to one side, you just point the binoculars at the area of interest. On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 11:25:50PM -0400, Stan Halpin wrote: > Meg and I will probably be buying at least one pair of binoculars for > birding. Something in the $250-500 range - i.e., quite a bit better than the > $40-50 compact everyday binocs we have now, but not anything in the $1000+ > "serious birder" category. > > My inclination to brand loyalty tells me to buy Pentax, all other things > equal. But the few reviews I have found (e.g., in Cornell's birding magazine) > put Pentax toward the bottom of the list. And I don't want to buy a clearly > inferior product just for the Pentax name. > > So, anyone here with experience with Pentax binoculars? Can you provide any > comparisons with other brands in the same price range? Can you convince me > that I should (or should not) go for a Pentax? Note that I am not that > concerned with the price as long as it is in my general price range; if there > is a Pentax model that costs $499 that is equivalent in features and > performance to something else that costs $349, I would probably buy Pentax. I > just don't want to pay the same or more for the Pentax if it is clearly > inferior. And I don't have any local stores where I can go and see and try > out any of those I am thinking about. > > I am also toying with the notion of a spotting scope, and Pentax has an > eyepiece adapter that converts their scopes to a 780mm or 1000mm f/12 K-mount > lens. But, again, the reviews put Pentax spotting scopes toward the bottom of > the list. Anyone here with experience with this class of product? > > Any information, opinions (informed or otherwise), pointers to good web > resources, etc. would be greatly appreciated! > > stan > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
