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8x44 Bins ?


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Have been looking around at lightweight bins and settled on something around 8x42 or 44. Budget around the £100.00 mark.

Used to have a pair of Swift UltraLite 8x42 which I really liked but can’t find a pair of the old ones anywhere so am considering the Swift Audubon 8.5x44. Lot of tatty examples for around £50.00 but mint ones go for over £100.00. 

They may be old but have excellent Japanese optics that still perform better than anything modern in their price range.

Looking at a pair on eBay and trying to make up my mind. Do look mint in the pics.

           John

 

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they do look mint but if you do go for them use paypal but not paypal gift ( ithink its gift anyway . if you use gift it takes away a lot of your rights under paypal ) at least if they arn't as described you have some comeback 

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8x56 is a bit bigger than I want and the old Celestron ones aren’t very common but thanks for the suggestion.

If I won the lottery it’d be simple. Just get a pair of Leica Noctivid 8x42. Only 1800 quid or so. ?

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Quite weighty, but very well respected. I picked up some Nikon 8x30 recently, there are other similar older Porros  that you can pick up cheaply. Quite wide and light. If you get a bit tatty and out of collimation you can get them cleaned and adjusted quite reasonably. Old Japanese Porros are very plentiful and can be quite good too.

PEter

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I found the Swift Autubon 8.5x44 to be pretty good at the centre of the field, but the "extra wide" angle ones (Mk II?) had abysmal edge performance. Also pretty heavy. I would be more inclined to go for a modern bino like the Opticron Adventurer T WP 8x42, which is both lighter and waterproof. I recently acquired a dozen of them for an outreach project, and the quality is consistent, despite widely varying serial numbers (but they have a decent guarantee and returns policy in case you do get unlucky). I'll do a proper review of them at some stage, but my review of the 10x50 version is here if you want to get an idea.

HTH

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While I’d love to get the Audubons just couldn’t click on the buy button this weekend. Bit more thinking to do and just found out it’ll be 200 quid for the tube refurb on the Carton 100 so there goes the bino budget for a little while.  ?

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Hi - I have a pair of Audubon 8.5 x44 - was worried about reports of misalignment and mine were a bit out but they are beautifully made so aligning with a star was really quite easy and improved them a lot -I love the bright big field views- recommended - Tony.

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On 07/07/2018 at 01:27, johninderby said:

8x56 is a bit bigger than I want and the old Celestron ones aren’t very common but thanks for the suggestion.

If I won the lottery it’d be simple. Just get a pair of Leica Noctivid 8x42. Only 1800 quid or so. ?

My second hand 12 year old Leicas were a third of that and we did a back to back yesterday with a new pair of Noctivids. Really not much in it in a casual test. Still a bit minty though!

Olly

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  • 1 month later...
On 09/07/2018 at 12:32, BinocularSky said:

I found the Swift Autubon 8.5x44 to be pretty good at the centre of the field, but the "extra wide" angle ones (Mk II?) had abysmal edge performance. Also pretty heavy. I would be more inclined to go for a modern bino like the Opticron Adventurer T WP 8x42, which is both lighter and waterproof. I recently acquired a dozen of them for an outreach project, and the quality is consistent, despite widely varying serial numbers (but they have a decent guarantee and returns policy in case you do get unlucky). I'll do a proper review of them at some stage, but my review of the 10x50 version is here if you want to get an idea.

HTH

Steve, is there anything between the 8x42 and 10x50 performance wise for astronomy only?  (above and beyond the obvious exit pupil, aperture and weight differences).   I'm thinking of getting a x10 pair of one or the other model but still undecided.  No probs waiting for the review though..?

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The 10x50 is slightly brighter on most stuff, and I prefer the 25% greater magnification, but I'm really glad I got the 8x42 for the outreach project. Kids in particular seem to take to it like ducks to water: easy to hold steady, wider field of view. Review is in the pipeline, honest! ?

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I have a pair of Helios Fieldmaster 7 x 50 binoculars which whilst not high end, seem to have decent optics, ( better than my Revelation ones anyway, ) to me anyway. You can get them new from FLO and are light enough to use easily. I find the 7x mag do be enough too. Only £49 too, so not ones to show off with I guess. ? 

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