The best $150 binocular I ever bought, is the APM-MS-8x32 IF-ED binocular. I recently tried the APM-MS-6.5x32CF ED and the APM-MS-6.5x32IF ED, and they were very good optically for the price, but they had two problems for me. The eye cups were huge at almost 48mm on both the CF and the IF model and the focuser was very stiff on the CF model, being almost as stiff as the Swarovski Habicht porro. These are waterproof porro's so it is understandable, but it still makes them hard to use for birding. To understand just how big the eye cups are, the Swarovski EL 8x32 eye cups are 38mm in diameter.
The Banner Cloud APO 8x42 roof prism also has 48mm eye cups, so I thought all these MIC porros had big eye cups maybe for the Asian market until by a fluke I tried the APM-MS-8x32 IF-ED because a guy from Romania of all places had one listed on Astromart for $150 NIB when they retail for about $250 with shipping from APM in Germany. Yes, Romania, the land of vampires and the town of Transylvania where Count Dracula is said to reside. Anyway I paid the $150 and to my surprise I received them in less than a week all neatly packaged and no there wasn't any blood on them nor did any bats fly out of the box.
I put them up to my eyes, and I was shocked how good they were! These porros were comparable to a $1000 roof prism and the build quality is exceptional. Maybe better than a Nikon E2 and the optics were actually better than the E2 albeit with a slightly smaller 8.2 degree FOV, but they are BRIGHT and have NO CA even on the edges that I can see due to the Hoya ED glass used. There is less distortion than the E2 also, even though they don't use a conventional field flattener.
The IF solves the problem of the overly stiff focuser of the APM-MS-6.5x32CF ED and these have smaller 40mm eye cups which are close to the EL 8x32 so they are quite comfortable to use. Most of the time birders would avoid an IF focuser, but I find if I set them to 1 on both oculars they are in focus beyond about 30 feet to infinity, and you never have to bother focusing them. Really if you think about it how many birds do you look at closer than 30 feet unless the birds are in a zoo or tame, but these are definitely not good for insect watching unless you use them just for that and have the IF set for close up work. You will not find a better pair of binoculars for the price. These are highly recommended, even at $250 from APM.
www.apm-telescopes.net
The Banner Cloud APO 8x42 roof prism also has 48mm eye cups, so I thought all these MIC porros had big eye cups maybe for the Asian market until by a fluke I tried the APM-MS-8x32 IF-ED because a guy from Romania of all places had one listed on Astromart for $150 NIB when they retail for about $250 with shipping from APM in Germany. Yes, Romania, the land of vampires and the town of Transylvania where Count Dracula is said to reside. Anyway I paid the $150 and to my surprise I received them in less than a week all neatly packaged and no there wasn't any blood on them nor did any bats fly out of the box.
I put them up to my eyes, and I was shocked how good they were! These porros were comparable to a $1000 roof prism and the build quality is exceptional. Maybe better than a Nikon E2 and the optics were actually better than the E2 albeit with a slightly smaller 8.2 degree FOV, but they are BRIGHT and have NO CA even on the edges that I can see due to the Hoya ED glass used. There is less distortion than the E2 also, even though they don't use a conventional field flattener.
The IF solves the problem of the overly stiff focuser of the APM-MS-6.5x32CF ED and these have smaller 40mm eye cups which are close to the EL 8x32 so they are quite comfortable to use. Most of the time birders would avoid an IF focuser, but I find if I set them to 1 on both oculars they are in focus beyond about 30 feet to infinity, and you never have to bother focusing them. Really if you think about it how many birds do you look at closer than 30 feet unless the birds are in a zoo or tame, but these are definitely not good for insect watching unless you use them just for that and have the IF set for close up work. You will not find a better pair of binoculars for the price. These are highly recommended, even at $250 from APM.
APM-MS-8x32 IF-ED binocular
The APM-MS-8x32 IF-ED binoculars is a classic design with BAK4 Poro prisms impress with their excellent price/performance ratio.32mm clear aperture8x magnification8.2° field of viewIndividuell eyepiece@ focusing (IF)FMC multi-coating on all glass-air surfacesWith Hoya ED (FCD1)...
www.apm-telescopes.net
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