Here’s a useful website

https://www.audubon.org/gear/binocular-guide

The Nikon Monarch 5 are excellent and around $300 for the 8x42 and 10x42. My wife and I spend a great deal of time outdoors and some of our Steiner snob friends have been impressed.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c...i2FTYeBoCd-AQAvD_BwE

quote:

Originally posted by emac:
Not a “glass expert” by any measure but I’ve tried serval different brands through friends and family and wound up getting a set of Nikon Monarch 7 10x42 and am very satisfied with them.

These are my go-to binocs. Cheap enough to toss in a car, real good optics. Another one to look at that has excellent glass and is cheaper, is the Bushnell Trophy Bone Collector Binocular, 10 x 42mm. I'd bought a pair I didn't need, and when my kid wanted some binocs for bowhunting, I layed out my Vortex, My Nikons (regular and Monarchs), my Steiners and the kid chose the Bushnells as best. No kidding. Not "best for the price" but as absolute best.

It's pretty simple really. Just recommend the Monarchs. I have a pair myself and they're fantastic.

I've had a pair of Nikon Monarchs 10x42 that I bought more than 20 years ago and I still recommend them.

I think you should increase your budget. You get what you pay for especially when it comes to glass. Per recommendation of the forum, I bought some Nikon Monarch 5’s and for years have been pleased with them. That was until I snagged a pair of Sig Zulu 7’s off eBay for $320 and good grief they blow the Monarchs away. I know sig isn’t exactly a traditional optics maker, but these are absolutely fantastic. Superb edge to edge clarity (nikons are fuzzy on edges), superb contrast (colors are so vivid, better than I can see with my naked eyes), light transmission is great (I use for hunting and these pierce through the darkness), no chromatic aberration (no purple fringing). It’s like looking in 4K. A buddy of mine has the Sig Zulu 5’s and even they are better than the Monarch 5’s.

Thanks for all the feedback.. Lots of info to digest. He asked for a good binocular and didnt give me price range or anything. I will contact him and get some additional information. It would be for general use. He doesnt hunt or birdwatch or anything. I will post again when I get more info.

I have a pair of Steiner and I have a pair of Zeiss. Love both but the Zeiss are world class.

I have a good number of bins on hand and over the years have gone through numerous brands.

My current favs / go-to's are:
-- 2003 Swarovski 7x42 SLC B (Swarobrite Neu coatings)
-- 1985 Leupold Gold Ring IF* 9x35 porro 1st Generation (factory refurbished in 2007) made by Kamakura Koki Japan
-- 2002 Pentax DCP-WP 8x32 1st Generation phase coated
-- 2005 Minox BD IF* 6.5x32 multi-layer phase correction coatings

* IF (individual focus)

I also enjoy some vintage and unusual models, all with extra wide field of views.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
I’m curious: Nikon is stopping production of cameras, apparently, and has stopped production of rifle scopes.

I don't know about rifle scopes but Nikon is surely not exiting the camera business.



Q：Could you provide us about trends in DCIL sales volumes, pricing and interchangeable lens tie ratio against camera for the current fiscal year?

A：Although, we expect to increase sales volumes in the overall DCIL market, we forecast to decrease sales volumes of Nikon. Instead of chasing share in the overall market, which includes entry level models where price competition is fierce, we are focused on selling mirrorless cameras for pro/ hobbyists. The Z 6II and Z 7II models launched at the end of last year are selling well, and within the year we aim to launch the Z 9, our first flagship mirrorless camera. Even declining sales volume by further shifting to high-end and mid-range models, we will aim to grow revenue by increasing in ASP. As for lenses, we plan to expand our current lineup of 18 mirrorless lenses to about 30 by the end of this fiscal year. We will aim to enhance profitability by increasing interchangeable lens tie ratio against camera.

https://www.nikon.com/about/ir...ary/result/index.htm

When I retired last year, I decided to spend the coin for a nice set. Midway had the Sig Zulu 9 11x45 bino’s on sale for significantly less than msrp.
After thinking about a telescope, and reading the thread about how much they cost, I decided these would suffice for a while. They are quite a step up from my 2 moderately priced Leupolds. We have a lot of hawks and critters around here, and I can mount them to a tripod for star gazing. I would recommend them.

Back in 1978, we lived in Rheindahlen, West Germany, as it was called then. With the NATO.2 ATAF/NORTHAG JHQ right there around the corner, we had every facility you could think of, except US. The Dutch PX was renowned for having great stuff from all the major brands of everything, including Pentax and Seiko, at prices at least 25% less than the neighbouring NAAFI - the UK Armed forces version of AAFES.

We were down near Ahrweiler one week end on a birdwatching trip - they had European Condors nesting - a very unusual sight for most anybody. My pal Dick W had a pair of Pentax 8x40s with the strangest-looking eyepieces I'd ever seen - they were gold, like an astronaut's sun visor, and looking though them the world suddenly lit up.

The very next day, I walked out of the store with two pairs each of x7 and x8 wide-angle bincoculars - a set for me and Mrs tac, and a set for my bird-watching BIL and his wife.

They were, back then, DM78 each - around $40, I recall.

Since then, I've owned others, including glass from Leitz, Zeiss, and Steiner, but I've NEVER found anything to beat these, or, TBH, even come near them in day or dusk. They look cared for, but seriously used, and never fail to elicit a resounding 'what the!!!' from anybody looking through them for the first time.

I might just make a little Youtube video of them of I can figure out how to get a good view down the eyepieces.

I guess you might opine that all the money I've spent since 1978 has been wasted, and you would not be wrong.

Truly nothing like Euro glass and quality. $ for $ the MeoStar binos are top of the heap. You can pay a lot more but you aren't getting a lot more. There's a reason Zeiss chose to buy Meopta glass. I did a quick review and pulled this off another site.

Finally, I found Swarovski quality for a fraction of the price, best binoculars I have ever owned. The light gathering capabilities and clarity of these optics are unreal! I never thought I could find this kind of quality for this price. You never really know the difference in good optics from great optics until you have them in the field, now I know what I've been missing all these years and wish I would have known about Meopta 20 years ago!

There are longstanding SF binocular informations.

If you can afford real glass, buy it.

If you can only spend a few hundred, buy Nikon Monarch and Vortex.

If you can find Meopta or related, you are finding the Goldilocks of quality and price.

Steiner have a cachet, but with there automagic everything is in focus design tend to reduce the available light so everything is in focus. So, Steiner has some benefits, such as price, but limitations wth their design philosophy.

www.swfa.com and www.samplelist.com are sites to check.

mikeyspizza:
Yes, I misspoke. There have been rumors about Nikon exiting the camera business, that's all.