Excellent inexpensive binocular,
"These binoculars perform very well during daytime and are good for the occasional birdwatcher or for viewing any outdoor event. The light weight and the insta-focus make them very easy to use. I bought them for stargazing (very tight budget!) and I am very satisfied with them giving what I paid. I have been able to locate and clearly see many Messier objects (ie. M22, M13, M11, M3, M5 and the great Andromeda Galaxy M31, and many star clusters such as M39 and the coathanger) and double stars with the Falcons, and they give a nice view of the summer milky way although the view is not very bright since the Falcons are not multicoated, but for [money] you really can't ask much. Overall, excellent value. Buy the Falcons and Terence Dickinsons Nightwatch (Turn Left at Orion is another good one) and you can get into backyard astronomy ..."
-Emilio J. Del Toro
Bargain Binocs Get the Job Done,
"I bought a pair of these on sale (from my "gold box" -- 10x50 is supposed to be the ideal for stargazing. I figured that this might come at the price of some chromatic distortion (tolerable) or difficulty focusing (intolerable). Last night was a "clear" night here in the South Bay. I live about a mile inland, on the coastal edge of Los Angeles' vast light pollution. No marine layer, and I quickly pulled the full moon into focus, then adjusted the other eye-piece. They work for me, but if my eyes get much worse ... I'll have to pass them on to somebody younger.
Enough of the moon, already. I wanna see something I don't see on a regular basis. A quick scan of Orion showed some nebulosity visible, even above city lights. They feel steady. I'm looking forward to more star time.
"These binoculars perform very well during daytime and are good for the occasional birdwatcher or for viewing any outdoor event. The light weight and the insta-focus make them very easy to use. I bought them for stargazing (very tight budget!) and I am very satisfied with them giving what I paid. I have been able to locate and clearly see many Messier objects (ie. M22, M13, M11, M3, M5 and the great Andromeda Galaxy M31, and many star clusters such as M39 and the coathanger) and double stars with the Falcons, and they give a nice view of the summer milky way although the view is not very bright since the Falcons are not multicoated, but for [money] you really can't ask much. Overall, excellent value. Buy the Falcons and Terence Dickinsons Nightwatch (Turn Left at Orion is another good one) and you can get into backyard astronomy ..."
-Emilio J. Del Toro
Bargain Binocs Get the Job Done,
"I bought a pair of these on sale (from my "gold box" -- 10x50 is supposed to be the ideal for stargazing. I figured that this might come at the price of some chromatic distortion (tolerable) or difficulty focusing (intolerable). Last night was a "clear" night here in the South Bay. I live about a mile inland, on the coastal edge of Los Angeles' vast light pollution. No marine layer, and I quickly pulled the full moon into focus, then adjusted the other eye-piece. They work for me, but if my eyes get much worse ... I'll have to pass them on to somebody younger.
Enough of the moon, already. I wanna see something I don't see on a regular basis. A quick scan of Orion showed some nebulosity visible, even above city lights. They feel steady. I'm looking forward to more star time.
I didn't notice any chromatic aberation. I have only three minor complaints:
- No tripod socket for making sure that kids can see what you want them too see. No socket was promised ... so this is not a really fair complaint.
- Lens caps are cheap and tend to fall off. Watch out for them. It wouldn't have cost that much more to manufacture better lens caps--Bushnell ought to fix this one.
- I would have designed the adjustable lens with a broader range of diopters for those of us who don't quite see as well as we used to.
All in all, a great pear of binocs for searching the night sky."
-Loma Linda
Cheaply constructed to barely do the job,
"These binoculars cost a hair over twenty five bucks on amazon right now - you're not going to beat that deal in terms of value for money anywhere. They have decent optics.
However, don't think you're getting high-quality construction for that money. These literally disintegrated on me on a recent international trip where they were subjected to neglible abuse (they were mostly carried around in a small backpack on long hikes and sometimes tightly packed in my suitcase). The shaft that couples the two eyepieces to the focusing mechanism is held together with flimsy plastic on both ends, and one of the ends simply snapped off, leaving me with an unusable set of binoculars.
The warranty on these is laughable (you have to pay to ship these - at a cost that's well over half the cost of buying a new pair - to Bushnell where they determine whether it's a manufacturer defect and, if so, send you a repaired item in a few weeks), so my options were to buy a new pair or to try to repair these on my own. I opted for the latter.
In so doing, I took a look inside. It looks like Bushnell cut every corner possible when throwing these together. Most metal edges have been poorly milled, resulting in uneven surfaces. A white adhesive substance has unevenly and sloppily been applied inside to hold the optics assembly together. Not encouraging.
That said, I'd buy these again. Even if I burn through one of these every year due to the shoddy construction, I'd have to go a decade of doing so before I'd have spent enough to equal the cost of a well constructed pair of binoculars that gave me 10x50 magnification."
-Mustafa Jamil
Well Worth the cost,
"I am a rookie bird-watcher and I would recommend this pair of binoculars for bird-watching/binocular astronomy. It can be used to track birds in flight with comparitive ease, and this is a big plus. The insta-focus is a nice concept, especially in winter when the standard knob that binoculars usually have, is a nuisance. The weight, too, is quite manageable.
-Loma Linda
Cheaply constructed to barely do the job,
"These binoculars cost a hair over twenty five bucks on amazon right now - you're not going to beat that deal in terms of value for money anywhere. They have decent optics.
However, don't think you're getting high-quality construction for that money. These literally disintegrated on me on a recent international trip where they were subjected to neglible abuse (they were mostly carried around in a small backpack on long hikes and sometimes tightly packed in my suitcase). The shaft that couples the two eyepieces to the focusing mechanism is held together with flimsy plastic on both ends, and one of the ends simply snapped off, leaving me with an unusable set of binoculars.
The warranty on these is laughable (you have to pay to ship these - at a cost that's well over half the cost of buying a new pair - to Bushnell where they determine whether it's a manufacturer defect and, if so, send you a repaired item in a few weeks), so my options were to buy a new pair or to try to repair these on my own. I opted for the latter.
In so doing, I took a look inside. It looks like Bushnell cut every corner possible when throwing these together. Most metal edges have been poorly milled, resulting in uneven surfaces. A white adhesive substance has unevenly and sloppily been applied inside to hold the optics assembly together. Not encouraging.
That said, I'd buy these again. Even if I burn through one of these every year due to the shoddy construction, I'd have to go a decade of doing so before I'd have spent enough to equal the cost of a well constructed pair of binoculars that gave me 10x50 magnification."
-Mustafa Jamil
Well Worth the cost,
"I am a rookie bird-watcher and I would recommend this pair of binoculars for bird-watching/binocular astronomy. It can be used to track birds in flight with comparitive ease, and this is a big plus. The insta-focus is a nice concept, especially in winter when the standard knob that binoculars usually have, is a nuisance. The weight, too, is quite manageable.
I found this adequate for most birding, except for things like identifing small birds in dim light. For this, a 7x binoculars is what is usually recommended. But, this binoculars is a happy middle-path if you are also considering some binocular astronomy, since the aperture size is good.
However, there was a great deal of misting over of the lens, in damp conditions (in my case, on the Applachian trail in Tennessee). This might be a detriment in wet weather birding (waders?). Also, the shoulder strap is quite thin.
Overall, a good buy considering the low cost."
-Satyadev Nandakumar
Overall, a good buy considering the low cost."
-Satyadev Nandakumar
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