Opticron 7x50 Imagic wp

[Trikeflyer]

Just decided to take advantage of these Opticron 7x50 Imagic as FLO have them on offer.  Hopefully they’ll do an ok job, I’m not expecting miracles for that money but thought I’d take a punt. Anybody have any feedback on them - good or bad? I’m hoping to get some nice Nikon’s for Xmas but couldn’t turn these down at that price.

Steve 

[Alfian]

14 hours ago, Trikeflyer said:

Just decided to take advantage of these Opticron 7x50 Imagic as FLO have them on offer.  Hopefully they’ll do an ok job, I’m not expecting miracles for that money but thought I’d take a punt. Anybody have any feedback on them - good or bad? I’m hoping to get some nice Nikon’s for Xmas but couldn’t turn these down at that price.

Steve 

I've had the Opticron iMagic 7x50s for a while and also have the iMagic 10x42s. I've never had the steadiest of hands but  with age I've found hand holding binoculars more frustrating and with the 10x42s I've needed to have arms well braced to get a satisfying image. With the imagic 7x50s at such a bargain price it was too much to resist and I was hoping they would work better for me.  I was aware that with my eyes the 7x50s would function closer to 7x40s.

The 10x42s and 7x50s are virtually identical in build apart from the scale and size of the optics. The build quality is excellent, eg no rocking movement in the bridge. Optics are very nice with good coatings, and ergonomically  they feel nice in the hands although of course the 7x50s are larger. They come with a good strong carrying case and the usual adequate lens caps and rain guard eyepiece covers. The 7x50s have a stiffer focuser action than the 10x42s but this is not an issue, indeed once focused it stays put!  A  feature of both binos is that for their given optics (like Pentax PCFs) they have a narrower field of view than many other binoculars such as Nikon Action Ex series. This means that the eyepiece afov is narrower but  I for  one would prefer a better quality narrow field eyepiece than a poorer wide field item  at this price point. In practice this works out that much (but not quite all) of the field of view in these two binoculars is very nice in terms of  being usably sharp.  I found the 7x50s very slightly better in this respect , only the very edge is the image falling off. Focusing also has more of that snap-to quality about it too. In both binoculars there is some and I mean just a suggestion of stray light when viewing objects near to  a bright moon but apart from that there is nothing to grumble about and certainly not at this price. I've found the 7x50s, for me, are easier to use but do lament the loss of the higher power but as I can't  justify to myself the cost of buying a Canon IS binocular its a compromise I'll have to live with. I should point out that I have some 15x70s which I tripod mount so I'm in no way badly off!  Its worth adding that 7x50s make for an excellent terrestrial bino too and they come with a 30 years warranty.

Edited September 28, 2019 by Alfian

[Trikeflyer]

Thanks Ian for taking time to provide such a detailed review. I also have some 15x70’s which I use on a parallelogram mount. Sounds like you are happy with them and now I’m looking forward to giving them a go. 

I’ll post an update once I’ve given them a good workout.

Steve