Cheap Praktica Binoculars thumbs up

BADGER.BRAD

BADGER.BRAD

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Hello all,

I brought some cheapo Practika Binoculars 12x50 ( wanted 10x50 but not in stock) and I have to say they are superb for less than £40 ,Light fairly small ( compared to my old Ziess/boot metal ones) They come with a soft case with shoulder strap, cleaning cloth, strap on the binoculars and lens caps. They are able to focus from 30 foot or so. If any of you are looking for something cheap that you could afford to bash I would recommend them.
 
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What can you see through them?

I could point out that 12x or even 10x are quite a deal to hold steady. And I wouldn't be rough with them, they might not be as well built internally as higher end models.
 
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droj said:
What can you see through them?
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What ever I point them at ;);) I was looking for 10x as a max really but have found I can hold them steady but do a lot of target shooting so have had a fair bit of practice. I live fairly high up in Shropshire so at this point I've been watching various birds/amimals and farmers getting the straw in. They have proved really good up til now. As they are quite light I think this makes them easier to hold still. Obviously not as robust as a very much more expensive set but at less than £40 I'm really impressed.
 
BADGER.BRAD said:
What ever I point them at ;);) I was looking for 10x as a max really but have found I can hold them steady but do a lot of target shooting so have had a fair bit of practice. I live fairly high up in Shropshire so at this point I've been watching various birds/amimals and farmers getting the straw in. They have proved really good up til now. As they are quite light I think this makes them easier to hold still. Obviously not as robust as a very much more expensive set but at less than £40 I'm really impressed.
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I'm quite surprised by that. I've always found lighter firearms (particularly rifles and handguns) easier to carry and more difficult to hold steady, and much the same with binoculars. My Leica 10 x 25 binos are excellent, and remarkably bright for their small exit pupil, but a pain to hold still.
 
I recently purchased a Tamron 28-200 and at the moment they are giving away a pair of Bushnell H2O 8x42 binoculars.
My mate has a pair and they are quite good.
Something else for me to through in the camera bag.
So much for keeping it light :LOL: :LOL:
 
Many many years ago my first holiday job was in a shop selling lots of different binoculars - and cameras!!
The best all rounders (as long as size wasn’t an issue) were 7x50’s. The extra light and lower “shake” meant you could make out stuff that you couldn’t see when hand holding 10 or 12x50’s. 8x30’s were popular for something a bit smaller. This was in the days before the modern prism designs were anything approaching affordable.....
I’ve got a set of Nikon 10x25’s now and realistically you need some way of steadying them to get a really good view.
 
Krisstiffer said:
Many many years ago my first holiday job was in a shop selling lots of different binoculars - and cameras!!
The best all rounders (as long as size wasn’t an issue) were 7x50’s. The extra light and lower “shake” meant you could make out stuff that you couldn’t see when hand holding 10 or 12x50’s. 8x30’s were popular for something a bit smaller. This was in the days before the modern prism designs were anything approaching affordable.....
I’ve got a set of Nikon 10x25’s now and realistically you need some way of steadying them to get a really good view.
Click to expand...

7 x 50 are normally regarded as 'night glasses'. Dividing the diameter of the objective lenses by the mangnification (50/7) gives you the exit pupil, which is for all practical purposes also 7. A pair of 8 x 56 also have an exit pupil of 7, 10 x 50 have an exit pupil of 5, and so on. The pupil of our eyes can normally open to around 7mm in low light/dark conditions, so there's not point in going beyond that, but it's also worth bearing in mind that this tends to descrease as we age.

I have a air of Leica 10 x 25s as I mentioned above. The magnification is really too high for such small binoculars, but I bought them for daytime use in Africa where the light can be intense and I wanted something easy to carry on walks. They work very well for that and the quality of the lenses offers good light transmission for a small exit pupil, but you need steady hands or a rest because there's not enough weight to stabilise them.

A lot of this is about compromises. For all round use, 8 x 40 are a good choice. They offer a reasonable combination of magnification, lower light capability, hand holding steadiness, and aren't too heavy. Most people probably won't notice the difference between x 8 and x10 magnification is actual use.
 
Krisstiffer said:
Many many years ago my first holiday job was in a shop selling lots of different binoculars - and cameras!!
The best all rounders (as long as size wasn’t an issue) were 7x50’s.
Click to expand...
I'm going for a set of 7x50 next !
 
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