Best marine binoculars? (1 Viewer)

[Elkhornsun]

Any 7x50 is going to be as good as any other for marine use. It comes down to whether you want ones with an internal compass or rangefinder or not. If I was buying ones today it would be the Nikon Ocean Pro with the integrated compass that sell for $315 U.S.

Out on the ocean the internal compass is a lot easier to use than a separate hockey puck style compass to take bearings - been there and done that.

 

[Barbican1987]

Hello all!
Trying to find the best binoculars for a sailing yacht.
Already own Steiner 7x50 commander and I don’t like it at all
I bought EL 10x42 it’s good but FOW sometimes is not enough and 10x is too much on the waves.
What do you recommend and why it is no alpha marine binoculars?
Thank you!

Thread is a bit dated now but I have used Fujinon 7x50 wpc for decades. With compass perfectly reasonable price for knocking around on a boat .

 

[VS007]

I’ve found it! It’s unbelievable

 

[Montereyman]

No "alpha" as people have different priorities. All I needed was to be able to properly identify channel markers at night as a miss was not a recoverable mistake. I used a Bushnell 7x50 binocular for 20 plus years and the first 8 years were when making boat deliveries from the USA to the Caribbean and often in Force 7 storms. If they were lost over the side it was not a great financial loss.

One rapidly hits a point of dimenishing returns in terms of price and performance. And at 7x the imaging issues are much less apparent than with a 12x binocular. But status is also important for many and when doing my sailing I would often see men relying on an analog Rolex watch when a $10 digital Timex was 5 times more accurate, which is very important when one needed to use a sextant and tables to determine the boats location and not even satnav was available.