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Minox 8x25 BV roof-prism binoculars

 I bought these for my wife but she cannot get on with them. She found the focussing difficult and the dioptre adjustment stiff. She did not like the eye relief. I did not have these problems but I find the focussing a bit to sharp too and I often use one finger to set the coarse focus whilst holding another finger against the wheel to slow things down for fine focus. Otherwise the binoculars are great, they resolve well have few optical aberrations and the colours are very bright and natural. They are very strong, rugged and waterproof. They have been on a trip to France with us and we used them for bird watching and observing the stars from dark skies. I quite often use them instead of 10 x 52 binoculars if I am carrying a spotting scope as well: they perform almost as well as my main birding binoculars. They transmit light very well and they are brighter than my Minox 8x24 reverse-porro-prism but they do not resolve as well. If you want some good quality light binoculars which are s
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Minox 8x24 bd p reverse-porro-binoculars

 I have had these binoculars since the mid 1990s. They are made of solid aluminium but they are light. They have a life time guarantee.  The optics are superb but modern binoculars have  marginally better light transmission but that is just about all that is better. The resolution,  natural colour and contrast and control of aberrations are brilliant. They compare most favourable to my Minox 8x25 BV roof-prism binoculars as they are easier to focus and have marginally better resolution. These binoculars have been everywhere with me and they are my favourites.  In Canada's Gatineau park I was able to observe a Golden Eagle from a long way off as it was being attacked by a Raven. The ranger, that I reported the observation to, insisted that the bird was a Bald Eagle and that Golden Eagles were not present in the park. He was wrong and an article in a magazine later confirmed that a Golden Eagle had been seen by birders in Gatineau park, and it was the first for many years. In Greece
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Zeiss Jenoptem 8x30 porro prism binoculars

 These binoculars are almost legendary and they were made in East Germany for decades up to the early 1990s. After the second world war it was possible to sell these binoculars for peppercorn prices because of the favourable exchange rate for hard currency buyers. I bought mine in the late 80s for about £35. Equivalent binoculars made in West Germany would have cost you an awful lot more. There were fakes on the market, made in the far east, and Zeiss even licensed producers in Japan to market the binoculars under the Zeiss brand name. Mine are not fakes and are genuinely from the East German factory. All the component parts including the lens were East German made. The lenses are superb. I still use these binoculars for local bird watching as they are strong and fit in the hand nicely, and I particularly like the fast and accurate focusing. They are not so good in low light because of the 30 mm objective lenses. You need 40 mm lenses, at least, for observing at dusk. The lenses are fu
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Sky-Watcher Star travel 80 Optical Tube Assembly - without tripod

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This is a good scope for beginners in astronomy. It is made of aluminium, and is strongly made and tough. It has an 80mm air-spaced doublet objective lens, which helps to reduce but not eliminate Chromatic Aberration (CA). It also comes with a 6x30 finder-scope which produces upside down images in the eyepiece. The scope is supplied with a 1.25 inch erect image diagonal/prism. It is supplied with two eyepieces of 10mm and 25 mm focal length respectively. The eyepieces get you started but really need to be replaced with something better  if you start to get serious about observing. You also get a Barlow lens which is used to double the magnification. The scope is then capable of magnifying astronomical and terrestrial subjects by 16 x, 32, 40x and 80 x. The telescope is designed for astronomy but can be used as a terrestrial spotting scope.   I tested it on the Moon and the planets of Jupiter and Saturn and the Orion nebula. The Moon produced a very bright and clear image of all of its
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Who needs ED and Fluorite Glass in their spotting scope?

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 Many  budget spotting scopes and binoculars do not use extra low dispersion (ED) glass which helps to reduce Chromatic Aberration (CA) to a minimum. Intense CA can ruin the view through your glasses as it causes purple and green fringes around the subjects being viewed. It is caused by the objective lens not being able to focus all the wavelengths of light to a single point. CA is especially apparent when viewing very bright and high contrast subjects, such as the Moon, against a dark sky. With a spotting scope it is apparent when observing a bird sat amongst tree branches in very bright and high contrast situations. The tree branches often form a matrix of branches which are sometimes in focus and sometimes not. CA will appear as purple fringing around the branches or even the bird in focus.  It is possible to reduce or completely eliminate CA  by using triplets, which use three lenses combined to focus blue, green and red to a single focal point, or doublets, which use two lenses co
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Viking ED PRO 65 mm Spotting Scope

I bought this scope because it is much lighter and portable than the Helios Fieldmaster A90R that I also use at the lakes for birdwatching, I no longer have to transport a big heavy scope around. The Viking also balances itself nicely on a lighter tripod. The list price of this scope is £1,000 pounds and the list price of the Fieldmaster A90R is £200 pounds. Is the Viking 5 times better? No, it is not, as the Fieldmaster is exceptional value for money and only loses out to the Viking above 35x magnification for chromatic aberration and resolution. But this is a moot point because the Viking is in a class of its own as far as the optics and usability are concerned. The Viking ED PRO is  almost as good as it can get from an optical point of view. There is no Chromatic or Spherical Aberration to speak of or any other distortions for that matter. The colours are  completely natural and bright and the images are completely flat right across the field of view. It is optically superb and repr
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Down at the Reserve

 My wife and I went to the lakes at the bird reserve, we did not have a spotting scope with us. We met a bird watcher observing a Kestrel perched in a tree 200 metres away. The gentleman kindly gave us a look through his spotting scope. It was a Swarovski and  it was well used, it was obvious the the birder had been taking his scope into some rough country. The view of the Kestrel was almost perfect, the fine features of its feathers were really apparent and the colours were completely natural. What I liked about the scope was the focusing ring on the body of instrument and the fact that you did not really need to re-focus when you zoomed in. Also, there was a distinct lack of chromatic aberration or other distortions. The view was almost perfect across the field of view. My wife took a look through the scope and immediately said I want one.  She was really impressed with the performance. Later we looked through the scope at a Kingfisher at close range. The image was very impressive. O
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