Binoculars for seawatching (1 Viewer)

[scodger]

I'm very fortunate to have access to an elevated indoor viewpoint for seawatching. It looks north east at a good location on the north east coast about 80m-ish from the seawall so not quite as close as I can get nearby but by jiminy it's a lot more comfortable and I can stick it out for a lot longer, which will be good when there is some movement on which lets face it is when the weather is often a bit challenging!

I use some new Zeiss Victory 8x42 ( OMG they are good ) for picking stuff up and an old but very serviceable 30x Kowa telescope on a tripod for detail. But for comforts sake and when counting seabirds moving I was thinking of getting some 20x or 25x binos, obviously for use on a tripod. I know I can spend silly money but I hear some very reasonable kit can be had for sub £150.

Anyone have any experience using larger binos with a reasonable price bracket?

Any help appreciated.

David

 

[SteveTS]

Hello David,

I'm quite a keen seabird & seal watcher, given the time, although I am not a higher magnification user.

There are some very good new polarised binoculars that are ideally suited to closer marine applications (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Byfield-Optics/425144990856852) but these would not meet your immediate requirements.

I am sure that you would get a some good advice if you posted your interest in the bino forum : http://www.birdforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=112.

Best wishes,

 

[Dave Ball]

Hi David

There was a thread on observation bins for seawatching last year, started by Jane Turner who does a lot of seawatching on the Wirral:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=282638&highlight=Observation+binoculars

There's a site for the Helios bins here:

http://www.wexphotographic.com/observational-binoculars-helios/b3008-m99

One possible drawback with the Helios bins is that they're really intended for astronomy and have individually focusing eyepieces, which might be OK if birds are passing at a reasonably consistent distance, as they often tend to at eg. Portgwarra, but not so much at Pendeen.