Rich wilmer
Veteran Member
Maybe they have ,"2 pair"
7 X 50, nothing stronger. I have a pair of "Steiners" which I LOVE, they are great. I also have a pair with a compass , I think they are West Marine. Nice but quite heavy.
Save your pennies, get stabilized with a compass from Steiner. The price is slowly dropping.
DON'T BUY CHEAP BINOCULARS!!
pete
You said, "...After all, any binocular is better than none, ..." Not in boating, no way. There are several vendors of 7 X 50 binoculars under $50. Not for boating. Under the conditions where the function of a good pair of binoculars is most valuable and critical in boating, one may barely be able to hold steady while holding the binoculars with one hand. In such a situation, rocking and motion of the boat render useless any non-stabilized binoculars.
Naval binoculars are not instruments for bird watching. They are for reading floating navaid markings, man overboard situations and coastal features that are critical for navigation while possibly under very unstable and moving conditions.
In my experience, using non-stabilized binoculars ended up being more dangerous than none at all as they demanded a level of concentration that compromised the attention required by other aspects of the watch while navigating and piloting the vessel.
Allow me to insist that given the amounts of money spent for safety in boating, not spending a few hundred dollars more for a set of stabilized binoculars is foolish.
I invite you to imagine one of my experiences, 15 mph cross winds, choppy seas when returning trying to identify the legend of a navaid to remain in the channel while fighting the wind. With the stabilized binoculars you get a chance to pose your eyesight for the 2 or 3 seconds necessary to read and interpret the markings. With non-stabilized binoculars, forget it.
In a nutshell, non-stabilized binoculars in the marine environment are effective only under the kind of benign conditions that render them unnecessary in the first place. Why bother then. Get the real stuff. Get stabilized binoculars. One time you use them under realistic boating conditions and you will agree with me.
You said, "...After all, any binocular is better than none, ..." Not in boating, no way. There are several vendors of 7 X 50 binoculars under $50. Not for boating. Under the conditions where the function of a good pair of binoculars is most valuable and critical in boating, one may barely be able to hold steady while holding the binoculars with one hand. In such a situation, rocking and motion of the boat render useless any non-stabilized binoculars.
In a nutshell, non-stabilized binoculars in the marine environment are effective only under the kind of benign conditions that render them unnecessary in the first place. Why bother then. Get the real stuff. Get stabilized binoculars. One time you use them under realistic boating conditions and you will agree with me.
Now here is a strong opinion. Here is another. I had both, Fujinon 7x50 and Techno-Stabi 14 power. Sold the Techno's. Never found them of much use. Field of view far too narrow.
I often wonder..... when strong opinions countering very experienced boaters/professional mariners are expressed so matter of factly with no room for debate......hmmmmmm.
That's a good point. With high magnification binoculars, I'd want a set of lower magnification in reach as well. You can see an object better with the higher magnification, but that doesn't apply if you can't find the object. And for that, a bigger field of view is helpful, especially when you can't see the object with the naked eye yet.
Common usage doesn't mean it isn't redundant. Plenty of things in use everyday that are incorrect. Example, "I could care less". That's just dumb, it should be I couldn't care less, obviously. Another more recent one is "on accident", instead of by accident. These things are pet peeves of mine. And Pair of binoculars is still redundant. Just like a pair of bicycles would be. Or a pair of anything that starts with BI.
Yup!...or a hot water heater.
Or a "cold water heater". They heat cold water so it becomes become warmer water....or a hot water heater.