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Old 06-13-2020, 11:57 AM   #61
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Maybe they have ,"2 pair"
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Old 06-13-2020, 06:23 PM   #62
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I ordered a fuginion 14x40 last night. Thanks for all the input.
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Old 06-14-2020, 12:18 AM   #63
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I have a monocular. Difficult to hold steady. I do not use it on the boat. I use 7x50’s I have had them for thirty years. I cannot recall the brand, but they have been all over land and sea. I think that I got them from B&H.
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Old 06-14-2020, 04:29 AM   #64
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Does anyone use night vision binoculars. I have only come into marinas in the dark a few times, but it was very dark. We did ok, but I was thinking that it might be easier with night vision goggles. Hard to find your way through mooring fields in the dark. I prefer to come in daylight, but it does not always work our that way.
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Old 06-14-2020, 11:02 PM   #65
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Originally Posted by Pete Meisinger View Post
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!!

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Agree 100%. I have the techno-stabi from Fijinon. They are stabilized 14x40 and are much better than 7x50. Since the image is completely fixed, the eye can accumulate the image in low light conditions. I have been able to read navaid info even in low light conditions.
After four binoculars, I decided to get stabilized binoculars. It is the only kind that works for boating. Any binocular not stabilized is not useful in boating.
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Old 06-14-2020, 11:13 PM   #66
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"Any binocular not stabilized is not useful in boating",


I cant go along with this at all. Everyone got along just fine without the newest and greatest for many years. Not saying they might not be a good option, but your statement is just not logical. After all, any binocular is better than none, at least for short periods. Lousy binos will surely give one a headache pretty quick though. My 35 year old Nikon 7x50's work just fine now as they did when I was sailing professionally. No plans to upgrade.
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Old 06-14-2020, 11:35 PM   #67
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Whatever you buy, buy something good. My 25+ year old 7x50 Fuji’s still make me happy and are still the binocular I often reach for. It’s a great balance of magnification, depth of view with little focusing and wide vision. I long ago stopped caring about the money I parted with to buy them. Never once had buyers remorse.

Last year I treated myself to some stabilized Fuji 14x40’s. They are a joy and I can actually read boat names and vhf channels and other things. But for a quick and immediate scan around the vessel, the 7x50’s are still quicker and I’m at a loss for how anyone would say they are now obsolete.

I use both and each is a great tool in its own rite and each has its place. I feel very spoiled to now have both.
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Old 06-14-2020, 11:35 PM   #68
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Since unstabilized binoculars were the standard 50 years ago that doesn’t mean that something better has not come along and the old standard isn’t anymore. Do you still buy unsliced bread? Do you still watch B&W TV? Probably not, so please stop saying that 7x50s are the standard or stabilized is not the way to go. Stabilized binoculars do perform better on the water. My wife was a prime example of someone that didn’t want to use stabilized binoculars since they are too heavy and too complicated, until I sorta forced her to use mine. Now she never picks up her 7x50s. Most of the people who argue against stabilized binoculars have not used them, or used them enough to be good with them.
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Old 06-15-2020, 05:24 AM   #69
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I have used stabilized, heck I helped field test stabilized Fujinons when they loaned them to the USCG in the 1980s. And have used all kinds of cool optics since then, even made a presentation to senior officers on the direction they should put research and development money.

They ARE great, cool, expensive....but NOT necessary. Even 7X50s are barely necessary. But they do meet the minimum requirements well enough.

Does that mean if you can afford a set of stabilized you should pass? Heck no if you will use them worthy of their price tag.

But it's an interesting arguement for people who could and should beef up their safety equipment first, or take docking lessons and what they save in dock crashes they can afford any binocs, or buy boating items that they really need more than something that is great, cool, expensive ( unless you have lots of discretionary cash).

Many times I have raised my unstabilized binocs and have been unable to clearly see something .....but did that really alter what I was doing or affect safety? Well if it did, I cant remember one instance boating...maybe on a rescue mission it changed things....but we rarely flew with them as they never became standard equipment on helos....but maybe cutters.

After a 2 professional careers of looking for things on the water, if I felt they were NECESSARY, I would have them. Even my employers never felt that way....but yes they work and if you really want a pair...go for it.
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Old 06-15-2020, 02:40 PM   #70
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Very well stated!
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Old 06-15-2020, 03:07 PM   #71
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I have 2 Flir cameras. The aft camera is fixed. The fwd camera can swing right, left, up and down. They can go X2 which along with the night vision make night travel pretty nice when searching unlighted nav aids.
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Old 06-17-2020, 01:44 AM   #72
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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.
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Old 06-17-2020, 03:18 AM   #73
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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.
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Originally Posted by rolomart3 View Post
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.
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Old 06-17-2020, 05:21 AM   #74
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Originally Posted by rolomart3 View Post
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.

I now wonder, how I managed to safely sail the seven seas for the last decades with only my Zeiss 7 x 50 at hand ...
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Old 06-17-2020, 05:56 AM   #75
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I often wonder..... when strong opinions countering very experienced boaters/professional mariners are expressed so matter of factly with no room for debate......hmmmmmm.
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Old 06-17-2020, 06:54 AM   #76
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I've always got by with 10 x 50 Steiners.

That said, we had some of the stabilized binoculars at work, and they were pretty cool to use out on the water.

Funny thing was, I took a pair of the stabilized binoculars up in a plane one day, looked through them for 45 minutes, and got air sick for the first and only time my life!
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Old 06-17-2020, 07:10 AM   #77
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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.

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.
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Old 06-17-2020, 07:14 AM   #78
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I often wonder..... when strong opinions countering very experienced boaters/professional mariners are expressed so matter of factly with no room for debate......hmmmmmm.

Yeah, I don't do all that well with "dogma" either... I'm much better with "different strokes" and "it depends"...

OTOH, I also think it's great when somebody knows and is willing to say what works for them.

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Old 06-17-2020, 08:09 AM   #79
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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.
This is why the optics makers developed zoom binoculars. Now the next frontier is to incorporate the zoom feature into a stabilized platform. This would be the holy grail of handheld optics: high and low power in the same device with the steadiness to use both under all conditions!
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Old 06-17-2020, 08:19 AM   #80
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Something I leaned in the Navy. When searching for something, dont concentrate on the center but rely on your peripheral vision. Once found, then look more closely.
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