Considering some decent cabin-bag friendly 10x50s

[Chinapig]

A quick update.

Having decided on the APM 10x50EDs, I placed the order with Astrograph, and within 24 hours they were in my hands.  First class service.  They arrived well-packaged, double-boxed, and it felt like Christmas...

First impressions were good.  They felt well built, solidly engineered, and everything worked positively - dust caps were a nice tight fit, and won't fall off by accident.  Tough Cordura case, in a dirty green colour, with a neck strap for the case, and for the bins.  Metal tripod adapter, which screwed in tightly.  Had time for a quick look across the rooftops, and they came to focus easily for each eye, with the images merging into a neat circle.  A much better experience than with a few centre-focus 10x50s that I managed to try over the last week or so.  Couldn't get on with any of them.  

Ok, next up was a walk down to the seafront at dusk, and while the wall-to-wall cloud didn't allow for any celestial targets, the view of a pier along the coast pulled out a good level of detail.  Horrible bright streetlights just outside the field of view didn't create any nasty reflections.  All good so far.

But last night was a revelation.  The patchy cloud cleared by late evening and, with the bins mounted on a monopod, atop a trigger grip, I was able to try them out for real.  Field of view was lovely - for example, all three stars in Orion's belt fitted easily, or keeping Alnitak just within the top of the field, I could also see the whole of the sword area.  Stars were sharp pin-points, M42 had some nice swirly nebulosity, M45 sat beautifully within the frame.  Everything clear and sharp, with no nasties.  Wow.  I'm happy.  They even fit comfortably within the top compartment of my rucksack camera bag, and the trigger grip and monopod will go in the suitcase.  Sorted.

Now having fantasies about selling telescopes and saving up for the APM 100ED binocular!

Cheers everyone, and thanks again for all your input.

[Damo636]

Congrats on what sounds like a very fine addition, enjoy! 

 

[Alfian]

Great stuff, looks like the APM's suit you well. When you spend a goodly amount of cash on something you rightly have certain expectations, so its lovely when you get that reassuring wow factor that tells you that you've made a good choice. Enjoy your new binos.