Recently I went shopping with my cousin for a pair of binoculars for my upcoming bird watching trip. My cousin being an avid bird watcher ever since he was little pestered me to tag along for almost 3 years. He is always talking animatedly, eyes brightly lit when he explains about the beautiful Californian Condor or the rare Philippine eagle that he saw during one of his many bird watching trips. Mind you, I have no prior experience to bird hunting so it sounded all gibberish to me (just like how RAM and GPU sound gibberish to him).
Imagine my expression as I walked into the shop, seeing the myriad binoculars in the local store. Little did I know that variety of sizes was used for various outdoor pursuits. My cousin gave me some pointers for choosing the right binoculars.
He told me that a good bird watching binocular should have these features:
1) Magnification and aperture of 8x42. 8 is the magic magnification power number that makes objects appear 8 times closer, while 42 represents the diameter of the lenses in milimeters.
2) Waterproof and fog proof. You want your precious binoculars to be durable.
3) Wide Field of View. A wide FOV is necessary to spot birds.
4) Longer eye relief. If you wear glasses like I do, you will need an eye relief of at least 14 millimeters.
5) Close focus. Birds can be small, you’d want to be able to focus on them.
After spending 2 hours looking at binoculars, I eventually settled for Eagle Optics Ranger ED 8x42 Binocular as a beginner bird watcher. Why did I pick this? Not only did it feel great in my hands (and eyes) because of its light weight, I was equally impressed by the ED (extra-low dispersion) glass that made everything look clearer compared to the other Celestron Granite that I tried. I even got a free tripod for my purchase. Woohoo!!
Here’s a video I found on choosing the right binoculars that will help newbies like you and I.