I am looking at getting a small pair of binoculars to put in my daysack for the occasional session of bird spotting and just simply using on the hills.
A few years ago I bought my wife some Practica compact zoon binoculars which are pretty good quality and I quite like them so I was thinking of getting myself a pair (about £40). However, they now do a ruby coated version. What does the ruby coating do? and is it worth having? The additional cost is only £10 but what does it do to the image? My gut feeling is its a gimmick on cheap optics but I am known to wrong - a lot of the time!
I know there may be better bins out there but I only really want to spend £50 max as A) I'll probably drop them and B) I have a telescope for any 'serious' bird spotting.
Posted by Best Binocular Reviews "A common question I get asked is about binoculars with ruby coatings on the lenses and if they are a good or bad thing:
The first thing to mention about “ruby” coatings on binoculars is that the coating has nothing to do with the mineral ruby.
As far as I know, ruby coated lenses were first seen on Steiner binoculars who were just starting to make coatings for specific environments, such as hunting binoculars whose coatings are specifically designed to block the colours of haze and foliage, whilst at the same time enhancing the visibility of browns, reds and other wildlife colors. The idea is that this will help you spot hidden wildlife in the bush and they have developed this idea and it now works very well on the Steiner Predator Binocular range – but it must be emphasised that these binoculars have a specific purpose and are not intended as general use binoculars.
One coating developed by Steiner in the past had a ruby color. It worked acceptably, but to make it work, it partially filters some of the wavelengths of light. The Steiner version did this only a little and like their current predator series were designed for a specific use. The biggest problem was that the red coating looked cool!
Because it looked cool, many low-end binocular producers started churning out ruby coated binoculars but there was a problem: Ruby Coatings don’t really give you a very good image and some manufacturers use it to filter red to compensate for their poor-quality optics that do not properly converge the color spectrum.
By eliminating red from the spectrum, the optics first appear to do a better job of minimizing color abberations, but tf you look through a Ruby coated binocular and compare it with a “normal” coated binocular you will see that the ruby one looks a little washed out and often have an unnatural greenish cast.
The greens and blues stand out too much, the reds are faded. In the worst cases, the view can look like at a photo that has had some sun bleaching. This is because the red portion of the spectrum is being deflected by the Ruby coatings, which low-end binocular producers made with brighter and brighter red coatings that dropped more and more red light.
My general feeling on binoculars with a ruby coated lenses is to stay well clear of them as they are simply a gimmick with no redeeming qualities."
Any reason why you want zoom bino's? 10x28 have a pretty narrow field of view as it is, I've never tried 40x28 but I would have thought that at 40x
a. they'll have a seriously restriced field of view left to right
b. they'll be so difficult to hold steady that you'll have problems keeping the subject in sight due to a.
Personally I wouldn't go higher than 10x on 25's (prefer 8x) and no higher than 12x on 50's (prefer 10x) if I wanted to hand hold. At 40x28 not only will the field of view be narrow but the depth of field (area in focus in front and behind the subject) will be measured in centimetres. On top of that at 40x25 they'll be pretty poor in low light unless you spend serious money.
Personally for something cheap and compact I'd go for the Barska Blackhawk 8x25WP
Ruby coating (apart from the Steiner type...) is a gimmick.Avoid zoom binoculars. I'll bet that by the time you go over 20x or so they will be out of collimation (IE your eyes will see two slightly different images)BTW, at 40x your exit pupil (the amount of light that hits your eye) is.5 of a millimeter . Not very much.... With a 21mm front element a 10x magnification is already too high. Divide the front element (21mm) by the magnification (10x) , anything less than 2.5 or so is too dim for decent viewing.Franco
I'll follow on from R_Mac, do you really need zoom binoculars?
I had for a while zoom binoculars (8 - 20x zoom), but was never fully satisfied with them in low light. Not only that, I rarely used the zoom much in excess of 10x magnification!
When I did, I found that the image viewed exaggerated any shake while trying to hold the binoculars steady. Perhaps the use of a tripod would have made them more usable, I will not now know.
I then bought a pair of 8x25, which are far better in low light and the view from them is far superior.
I've since bought a cheaper pair of 8x25 binoculars to keep in my rucksack, and even they out performed the more expensive zoom binoculars.
Well I can safely say the ruby coating is out of the window.
Why zoom binoculars?
Just becuase I was pleasantly surprised how good the pair I bought my wife were when I borrowed them last. I couldn't be bothered to pack the telescope so took the zoom bino's along and was happy with them.
I guess the image quality wouldn't be as good at any of the given magnifications when compared for an equivalent fixed zoom pair but I remember thinking it was good enough for what I wanted.
Obviously good enough is very subjective, and I'm not after really good optics. Lets be honest with a budget fo £50 max I'd probably be lucky to find some. This is more a pair of bino's I can chuck in my bag for a just in case moment rather than a planned use.
However, I will borrow a set of 10x50's and compare them to the zooms to see how much worse the image is. Its been years since I've just any type of binoculars so my assessment of 'good enough' could be way off the mark. I can probably borrow a pair of 8x25's as well to see how they compare. Especially as the lens diameters will be closer.
R_Mac - I'll look into the Barksa's - its a name I haven't come across before.
An outlet I deal with for binoculars and the like, very respected in the local and County bird watching fraternity is [b]Focus Optics[/b], Chorley Moor near Coventry.
I bought some Bushnells some time back for my son, which have proved very good, light and handy.
Myself, I bought a nice small pair of Nikon Travelite EX 8x25, which pack away nicely and provbide a more than adequate clear view.
Not only that, virtually all his secondhand stock is from people he knows and trusts.
If you are able to visit the shop, there is a small nature reserve where you can try out the binoculars before you buy, with very reasonable view points.
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