Good afternoon, all.

I'm looking for advice on some short-range binoculars. Why short-range? Our maintenance guys have a tough time following conduit runs across our plant ceiling, and are thinking binoculars would be a good thing. [Obviously] we can't go super high-dollar, and we aren't looking for something super high-tech.

Who's got some suggestions? Thanks, all.

Seems to me a camera with a telephoto lens, taking a picture, and tracing the cables at your desk might be a better way to do this rather than trying to trace cables by eye.

Perhaps a pair of Vortex Raptors 8.5x32 only $129 MSRP and can focus to 15 feet. Guess it depends on how high your shop ceiling is. Other than that I would look for a lower magnification, perhaps 4X with a bigger objective to let more light in, but typically you don't get those to together.

For a little better clarity the Vortex Diamondback HD 8x32 would be my choice.

https://vortexoptics.com/vorte...8x32-binoculars.html

Jim

What you need is these
Pentax Papilio II short-range binoculars

I bought a pair for my wife to use looking at flowers and butterflies, and they work great for that.
They focus as close as 50 cm (about 1.5 ft.)

Agree, Pentax Papilio II 6.5x21 would be good to buy for a trial run.

I opted for Leupold Mesa's 10x32. Armored and 100% waterproof!

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
Seems to me a camera with a telephoto lens, taking a picture, and tracing the cables at your desk might be a better way to do this rather than trying to trace cables by eye.

Photos are great, until you get back to your desk and find out that you needed to move just a little bit to the left to get the best angle for viewing that particular conduit. (Ask me how I know....) Sometimes there's no replacement for just getting out there and tracing it down.

Laser pointers also help with this task.

quote:

What you need is these
Pentax Papilio II short-range binoculars

Second these. Bought Pentax Papilio II 6.5x21 for my mom when she went hospice. They focus down real close and have superb imaging. You can see the individual feathers of a hummingbird 8 feet away. Impressive beasts. (I have craploads of binocs, but these would likely be the best for your application)

Thank you, guys. At $125 or so, I can easily make that purchase for my crew no-questions-asked.

Depending on the problem and type of cabling there is test equipment available.

Cable test equipment

^^^ Thank you for that link.

Our trouble right now is that there's so much stuff hanging up there after 22 years or so of company growth.

I'd love to have a lot of time and a fat budget for pulling it all down and reinstalling it more neatly....

How far do you need to look? Would a 6x rangefinder work? Those can be had for $150 bucks