Helios Naturesport-Plus 10x50 WA worth the price?

[BinocularSky]

The tech details are useful in deciding what to buy; once you have them, all you can do is observe. If you like what you see through them, they are good enough for you. If you don't, they aren't. The end .

[ollypenrice]

Mine don't say "Plus" on them - it's just a word after all, like XLS on cars. They work well, which is what matters

TURBO!!!!

Olly

PS You want new kit and clear skies? Hark at you! :grin:

[J0athan]

I will, if the skies clear some day.

The lack of "Plus" on the box just bothers me. Non "Plus" shouldn't be advertised as "Plus"! I can't find pictures of the boxes online, and the binoculars themselves look identical in the pictures.

I bought the Helios 10x50 WA Naturesport Plus just recently from a telescope shop in Dorking near me. If it helps the box doesn't say "Plus" on it, nor does any of the documentation I got with it, but as i understand this is just how it is.

[J0athan]

Oh and to add I have had 4 good cloud free nights with them in my back garden and been amazed by the views. So many stars, crisp clear sharp points of light everywhere! I am sort of having to learn the constellations all over again. Star clusters look fantastic, I am pretty sure I saw at least one of Jupiters moons, and the views of the moon just this last week have been fantastic so much detail.

I did try looking through the opticron imagic 10x50 and a larger 8x56 celestron at the shop but to my untrained eye I couldn't really see the extra £80 and £150 pounds so went with the Helios.

For anyone else new though I would add that almost immediately I wished I had a tripod, not only to hold them really steady, but also to keep them trained on an object when I had found it. That way you can take a really good look at your precious hard earned object! I did use the technique of hooking my arm through the neck strap and that did improve things greatly.

A friend lent me his posh manfrotto trpiod, I bought a bracket, set it up, pointed them at orions sword and wow, complete stable fixed view of my object. I just stood there and stared at it for about 5 minutes soaking in all the stars and the two bright points of the nebula, no arm tiedness, zero shake. Then I pretty much went straight back in the house to buy my own tripod.

So I bought the horizon 8115 and although it's obviously not of the same quality as the manfrotto but the video style head is so much better that the ball joint camera head.

One final thing to add is that in the tripod over a monpod pod debate I had with myself, I opted for a tripod because once I find something it stays in view; this is more important to me as a newbie because its hard to find things! and also my wife and daughter are interested so it's easy to show them what I have found.

[BinocularSky]

For anyone else new though I would add that almost immediately I wished I had a tripod, not only to hold them really steady

Difficult to overstate the value of mounting: with my 10x42, Alberto and delta Cephei (for example) are impossible to split handheld, but relatively easy mounted.

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[Starwhite]

I have also recently purchased a pair of Naturesport plus 10 x 50. They arrived on Thursday and my suspicions were immediately aroused by the lack of 'plus' on the box and binoculars and also the absence of a serial number. The box says Naturesport 10 x 50 ZWCF Wide Angle - Premier. Having rung the seller he assures me they are the correct pair, but l still wasn't satisfied so I weighed them as the website specs say they are 790g - mine weighed in at 940g!!! So now I am totally confused! Today I have emailed another stockist in the hope they will be able to clear up this issue, I shall let you know if they reply.

Does anybody know who actually makes Helios binoculars? I can't find anything on the internet.

[BinocularSky]

Does anybody know who actually makes Helios binoculars?

I know that some are made by United Optics, but there is almost certainly more than one manufacturer. I don't know who makes the Nature sport, but I wouldn't be surprised if more than one manufacturer has been involved over the years.

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[uname]

There was a few somewhat clear nights earlier this week, which means that I finally got to test the binoculars for stargazing. As expected, the improvement from my broken 7x50s is huge. I can actually see something with both of my eyes open! The Moon was already quite bright, so I didn't bother trying to find a darker place for better viewing conditions.

The Moon looked good. I could easily see 3 of Jupiter's moons, even though I had hard time getting the binoculars steady enough. I couldn't see Io, which according to Stellarium was quite close to Jupiter at the time. The Orion Nebula and the Pleiades were there, but they looked a lot fainter than on darker nights (with naked eye). I also did some random sweeping and was able to see a lot of stars and a few satellites that weren't visible to the naked eye.

For some reason the big eyecups felt a bit annoying at first, but I got used to them rather quickly. At least the hand-held views looked pretty sharp to me, but since I wasn't able to get the binoculars completely steady, it's kind of hard to tell how sharp the views really were. At some angles sunlight causes minor greenish lens flares, but nothing too bad. Moonlight didn't cause visible lens flares, but you could still notice the moonlight "getting inside" the binoculars when looking at objects close to the Moon. Overall I'm satisfied with the purchase.

...

I noticed that the cold weather causes heavy condensation on the lenses when I bring the binoculars back inside. So far I've let them dry naturally for a few hours before putting the caps on. However, I'm not sure if this is good for the lenses in the long run. Should I try to somehow prevent the condensation from happening?

[uname]

Oh, and thanks for the comments about the lack of 'Plus'.

Having rung the seller he assures me they are the correct pair, but l still wasn't satisfied so I weighed them as the website specs say they are 790g - mine weighed in at 940g!!!

I also had suspicions about the weight, but since they felt lighter than my old Telemax 5 7x50 I didn't feel the need to actually weigh them. After reading your post I decided to weigh my pair with a kitchen scale (25g resolution). Turns out that my pair weighs about 900g with the neck strap attached and the caps removed. Given that the scale isn't that great, it could easily be +-50g. Anyway, it's still lighter than the Telemax, so I don't feel too bad about it. Unless someone can confirm that this isn't the 'Plus' version, and that the 'Plus' version really weighs only 790g.

[Starwhite]

First of all thank you for the replies to my earlier post. I contacted RVO who directed me to Optical Vision Ltd who are the distributor for the Helios brand. Their reply - if they have twist up eyecups they are the 'plus' version, if they have fold down rubber eyecups they are the 'non plus' version. This puts me at ease with my purchase, all I need now is some clear skies to enjoy them.

[uname]

I contacted RVO who directed me to Optical Vision Ltd who are the distributor for the Helios brand. Their reply - if they have twist up eyecups they are the 'plus' version, if they have fold down rubber eyecups they are the 'non plus' version.

Just what I wanted to hear. Thank you for sharing the information.

[Starwhite]

Just what I wanted to hear. Thank you for sharing the information.

No problem, glad to put yours and probably countless others minds at rest. Just makes you wonder why they don't just put 'plus' on the packaging.

On the plus side (no pun intended) the binoculars are far superior to my old pair of zenith 10 x 50's and are well worth the price, now I can see what I have been missing for all these years. Hopefully l will get to try them on the night sky this evening.

[bigpeteant]

Been reading through this old thread as I found myself in the same situation agonising between different brands of 10x50 eventually plumping for Opticron. Another interesting thing to come out of this discussion was to learn of the existence of the Dunning- Kruger syndrome. 

[rockystar]

Which Opticrons did you go for @bigpeteant? I've been looking at the Opticron Oregon 4 LE WP 10x50 Binoculars, as an addition to my telescope; so for taking away on holiday or having a quick 20-30 min session when I don't want to get the scope out. 

I was comparing them to these: Opticron Oregon Observation 70mm; which are cheaper but bigger,so to my mind that should mean that the Oregon 4s have a better manufacturing/quality control process to justify the extra cost for less apperture ratio.

 

[rockystar]

I also had to look up Dunning-Kruger syndrome - very interesting

[John]

Quite a lot of these binoculars seem to be the same item re-branded. I'm sure I've seen an Opticron version of the Helios Naturesports

[Fraunhoffer]

nice to find this old thread - very helpful.