Lester Evans wrote:
For my little old sailboat. Coastal cruising along the New England coast.
I took a look on ebay. Wow,, there were binoculars and there were
binoculars. Many brands, so many I gave up looking.

What do you experienced cruisers use?

Thanks,,


Hi:

I made my living as an "observer" on most kinds of vessels both
domestic and foriegn through the 80s. My job was to look for 8 + hours
a day. got to use just about every type of opticals around. Even had
soem of thoes $650 mil armored marine jobs hand polished by Carl Ziese
himself (joke) What do I use know?

I always buy two pairs of Bushnell 10x50 Insta Focus. Way cheep at
maybe 30 bucks last I got a pair. They resonable optics. The best thing
is that if I drop them overboard, get them ripped off its no big deal.
I usually get about 5-8 years service per pair. Might even get longer
life if I used their case.

Some folks say never get biger than 7x35 or 8x50 at the most.
Personally afer 1000s of hours staring through a pair i perfer 10x50. I
can just see so much more. Movement was never a problem for me.

Go cheep.
Go 10x50.
Get two.

Bino Bob

On 2006-06-07 18:21:14 -0400, "Bob" said:

Some folks say never get biger than 7x35 or 8x50 at the most.
Personally afer 1000s of hours staring through a pair i perfer 10x50. I
can just see so much more. Movement was never a problem for me.

10x50's are fine for daytime use, but are a bit hard to stabilize on a
small sailboat. 7x50's have a much larger aperture, 7mm vs. 5mm and
much more low-light capability, and are easier to hold stable. For
daytime use, I do carry a pair of Steiner 8x30s, which are considerably
smaller than the 7x50s I use at night. Also, the 7x50s have an
integrated compass, which is nice for taking bearings.