Eagle Optics 8x42 Ranger ED Binoculars Review

Awards: Winner Best Birding Binocular 2011

Not long ago I wrote a review on the "standard" 8x42 Eagle Optics Ranger, which I rated very highly, so when I was asked if I wanted to test the ED version of the Ranger, I jumped at the opportunity. The ED version should in theory be even better and as I still have the standard version with me, it makes for a very interesting comparison. Below is my full Eagle Optics Ranger 8x42 review:

Eagle Optics Binoculars?
If you are from the States, you may have heard about the excellent on-line Eagle Optics Store that sells a huge range of binoculars and spotting scopes from a wide choice of manufacturers, but did you know they also produce their own brand of binoculars and Eagle Optics binoculars that have over time gained dedicated following especially amongst the birding community. The flagship range are these Ranger ED binoculars which consists of 2 different models: a 10x42 and these 8x42's).

The Body

Apart from ED glass, the most obvious difference between this and the standard Ranger is the design of the body. The ranger ED has an open-hinge design which I really love. Not only does this help to keep the weight down, but it is very comfortable to hold and more secure in your hands. For example, when walking through thick bush I often hold my binoculars in one hand, rather than hanging them around my neck where the neck strap can easily get caught up. The open-hinge design means that you can hold onto the binocular much more firmly by wrapping your hand completely around one barrel.

They are also really comfortable to hold, I like the well place thumb indents and their weight is distributed evenly making them very well balanced - all important qualities when using binoculars over long periods.

Weight
At 27.4 ounces (777g), these are not the lightest pair of 8x42 binoculars on the market and are a lot heavier than the standard Ranger (21.8ozs (618g)). Although I must point out that weight can sometimes be a little misleading as some of the lightest binoculars are also amongst the cheapest (and worst) - this is because some very light binoculars are only light because they use sub-standard materials in their construction that may be lighter, but are definitely not as durable. So if we take a look at the weights of other high end 8x42 binoculars, you will see that their weight is in the right ball park:

• Leica 8x42 Ultravid HD: 27.9ozs (791g)
• Swarovski 8.5x42 EL: 28.9ozs (819g)
• Vanguard 8x42 Spirit ED: 22.6ozs (641g)
• Vortex 8x42 Viper HD: 24.2ozs (686g)
• Zeiss 8x42 Victory FL: 27.33ozs (775g)

Dimensions
The dimensions of these 8x42 Ranger ED binoculars are 6.7in (17cm) x 5.0in (12.7cm), which makes them about average for a full sized binocular. In my hands they felt very comfortable and for me the large thumb indents were well placed. Although my wife who does have pretty small hands did mention that for her, the indents were not perfectly located. More importantly when you held up to your eyes, the focussing wheel was easy to get to as well as easy to adjust for both of us.

BBR Rating for Body Stats: 8/10

Build Quality
The Eagle Optics Ranger ED binoculars have a polycarbonate body that feels very solid and robust. Over this they have been covered with a tough rubber armoring on the parts of the binocular which your hands come into contact with the most. This armouring should help you with a more secure grip and protect your bins from scratches and small bumps although the inner faces of the barrels and the two bridges between them are not covered in the armour.

I must also say that I really like the way that Eagle Optics have only covered certain parts of the binocular with the rubber coating and the way that it has raised ridges on the edges of it, really helps in the looks department and they have a nice quality finish to them.

Waterproof & Fogproof
These Ranger ED binoculars are sealed with O-rings making them 100% waterproof, which not only prevents moisture from getting into them, but also any other small debris and dust.

They have also been filled with argon gas which will protect them against internal fogging. This can often occur when you get rapid temperature changes or in places that have a high humidity level. A secondary benefit of this is that it protects the inner workings from corrosion.

The Eye Cups
As with most binoculars, the twist-up eyecups seem to be made from metal or a very hard plastic and have a thin soft rubber coating on top of them that makes them feel fairly comfortable even when pushed quite firmly against your face.

The maximum of 18mm of eye-relief is excellent and they easily make it onto my list of long eye relief binoculars and so this should be more than enough for most people who wear glasses to be able use these without having to remove their glasses and still get the full field of view without any without any vignetting.

The twist-up mechanism on the eyecups works very well and they have one fixed intermediate stop which will help people who do wear glasses to get the right amount of eye relief for them. Non-eyeglass wearers will just use the eyecups in the fully extended position.

Focusing
I really like the large focussing wheel on these 8x42 Ranger ED's, they look to be made of something like aluminium and have been deeply etched for extra grip. On the pair that I reviewed it was easily reachable and turned very smoothly.

It takes just over 1 and ¾ turns to go from infinity to it's minimum focusing distance of 6.0 feet. What this means is that focusing from near to far (or vise versa) is not as quick as a binocular that takes less amount of turning (some take as little as half a turn), but it does have the advantage of making fine tuning your focus to get it exactly right, much easier.

Diopter Adjustment
Like the focussing wheel, the diopter adjustment ring looks to be made from something like aluminium and has been etched for grip. It is located on the right barrel, between the eyecup and the barrel and is used to correctly set up and focus the binoculars to your particular eyesight. This process really only needs to be done once when you first use the binoculars, or if you share them with others. On my pair, it was just tight enough to prevent it from easily being moved accidentally and there are markings on both the barrel and diopter ring so you can easily see where the neutral point is. But if the setting for your eyesight is not neutral, you may want to make a small mark on the barrel to help you should it move accidentally.

Best Binoculars Rating for Body Construction Quality: 8/10

The Optics

The quality of the glass as well as their coatings is a real highlight on these Ranger 8x42 ED binoculars, as you will see below:

As their name suggests, these Ranger ED binoculars use extra-low dispersion glass (ED) in the lenses. This helps by giving the designers of the multi-element objective lens a wider range of options to better direct and concentrate the wavelength of light. ED glass should therefore improve the quality of the image by helping to minimise chromatic aberration (color fringing). Generally speaking, the better the aberrations are controlled the cleaner and brighter the image will appear. Because of the costs involved and precision needed to make them, they are only found on high end cameras, telescopes, microscopes and binoculars.

Lens & Prism Coatings
These roof prism Eagle Optics binoculars use BaK-4 glass on the prisms as opposed to the cheaper and inferior BK-7 prisms. On these prisms they have used dielectric coatings that causes the prism surfaces to act as a dielectric mirror and has the effect of increasing the reflectivity to more than 99% across the visible light spectrum meaning that you get better light transmission (brighter images) and excellent color fidelity. This is really impressive when you compare them to cheaper optics that will often use an aluminum mirror coating that has a reflectivity of between 87% to 93%, whilst slightly more expensive binoculars may use a silver mirror coating that increases reflectivity to about 95% to 98%.

On top of this these Ranger ED's also have phase correction coatings on the prism glass. They are used because when light waves are reflected at the opposite faces of a roof prism, phase shift occurs resulting in marginal deterioration in sharpness. These coatings keep the light in the correct color phases and therefore produce images that have better contrast, a higher resolution and have a better color reproduction. These coatings are only really found on high end optics.

Fully multi-coated lenses are also used, which means all air-to-glass surfaces have received multiple layers of anti-reflective coatings which also increases light transmission, for a brighter image and therefore better low light performance.

Eagle Optics have also added their own SeeClear® coating to the lenses that is said to repel oils on outer glass surfaces. A few other top of the range manufacturers have similar coatings, for example Swarovski have their Swaroclean coatings. These coatings have a number of benefits, the most important being that because it is harder to mark them with your fingers for example, it means that you have to clean them less often and less vigorously. This means that your lenses will remain free of markings for far longer than ones without this or similar coatings.

Best Binoculars Rating for Optical Components Quality: 10/10

Optical Stats

Field Of View

At 425 feet@1000 yards (142m @ 1000m) or 8°, the field of view for these Eagle Optics 8x42 binoculars is really very impressive and easily beats some of the very best. For example the top of the range and many peoples ideal birding binocular, the Swarovski 8.5x42 EL Binoculars has a field of view of 399ft at 1,000 yards. These binoculars therefore also easily make it onto my list of wide angle binoculars.

Close Focusing Distance
The minimum distance that you can focus on an object is also an impressive 6 feet (1.83m) away. So if you are looking for a full size binocular that is also good for viewing objects close up, things like butterflies for example then these Eagle Optic Ranger ED's would make an excellent choice.

Eye-Relief:
Their maximum eye-relief of 18mm is very good and they easily make it onto my list of long eye relief binoculars and so this should be more than enough for most people who wear glasses.

Best Binoculars Rating for Optical Stats: 9/10

Image Quality

As I do for all my reviews, I compared the view through these Eagle Optics 8x42 Ranger ED binoculars with that of my control binoculars and as I still had them with me, I also compared them to the standard 8x42 Rangers:

Brightness
Testing them on very dull and rainy day, I could immediately notice the improvement in brightness of these when compared to my benchmark binoculars and so rate them very highly in this area. The difference between these ED glasses and the standard Ranger was far more difficult to make out and would almost say that in this area, to my eyes they are even.

More about brightness & Low Light Performance
Like all 8x42 binoculars, these Ranger ED's have an Exit Pupil of 5.25 and a Twilight Factor of 18.3, both of which indicate that they are fine for most low light conditions, just like what you find early in the morning and early evening when most birds and other wildlife is most active.

I must stress however that these figures should be just used as a guide as they do not take into account the quality of the lenses, prisms and their coatings. I have seen many cases where this can make all the difference and where a high quality binocular with small objective lenses outperforms a poor quality binocular in low light that has larger objective lenses. But as we have already mentioned these Rangers use good quality coatings that will produce a brighter image than inferior binoculars of the same configuration.

Color Fringing
The amount of color fringing (chromatic aberration) is where the ED glass should really make a difference and these do. Focusing on light coloured and white objects that contrast greatly with dark backgrounds, I look for any signs of color fringing (chromatic aberration) on their edges. If there was any on these, it was very, very minimal and I struggled to see any even when looking very hard for it.

The standard Ranger also performs very well in this area, even without ED lenses, but by comparing them both and looking at the same object, you can see the difference. It is very minor but you can notice the improvement of the ED version on the edges of light coloured objects sitting in front of a dark background. For example I looked at a white coffee mug sitting on a dark green garden table about 10 meters away. On the standard version the was a very faint red/orange glow on the top edge of the mug. This was almost non existent on this ED Ranger.

The amount of softening of the image right on the edges (periphery) of the view was as far as I could see almost zero with the image being sharp right to the edge of the view. Once again, even though the standard version was good in this area, these improve on them. They were also much better than my control optics and so once again I rate them very highly in this area.

The colour reproduction felt natural, unlike the tints you sometimes find on cheaper binoculars. I also thought that contrast of the image was also very good and once you have correctly focussed on an object the image is very sharp.

Best Binoculars Rating for Image Quality: 9/10

8x42 Eagle Optics Ranger ED Comparisons

Below is a table comparing this Eagle Optics Ranger ED with a selection of other full size roof prism binoculars with magnifications of around 8x, including the Standard version of the 8x42 Ranger from Eagle Optics. Also included is the very top of the range Swarovski 8.5x42 EL binoculars, the mid to high value Minox 8x43 HG Binoculars, Kowa 8x42 BD and the Vortex Viper HD 8x42.

	Eagle Optics Ranger ED 8x42	Eagle Optics Ranger 8x42	Vortex Viper 8x42 HD	Swarovski 8.5x42 EL	Minox 8x43 HG	Kowa 8x42 BD
Price (approx):	$440	$300	$450	$2300 (£1600)	$1100 (£640)	$550 (£590)
Weight:	27.4oz (777g)	21.8oz (618g)	24.2oz (686g)	28.9ozs (819g)	22.9ozs (649g)	25.7ozs (729g)
Length:	6.7in (17cm)	5.8in (14.7cm)	5.8in (14.7cm)	6.5in (16.5cm)	6.0in (15.2cm)	5.7in (14.5cm)
Width:	5.0in (12.7cm)	5.1in (13cm)	5.3in (13.5cm)	4.8in (12.2cm)	5.1in (13cm)	5.0in (12.7cm)
Eye Relief:	18mm	19.5mm	20mm	18mm	19.5mm	18.3mm
Close Focusing Distance:	6.0ft	5.2ft	5.1ft	8.0ft	8.2ft	6.5ft
Field of View at 1000yds:	425ft	341ft	347ft	399ft	379ft	330ft
ED Glass	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
Phase Correction	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lens Coatings	Fully Multi-Coated	Fully Multi-Coated	Fully Multi-Coated	Fully Multi-Coated	Fully Multi-Coated	Fully Multi-Coated
Waterproof	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fogproof	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

What the table above does highlight is just how impressive their field of view is and that they more than hold their own in most other departments. Compared to the standard Ranger, you can immediatly see how these have a much wider field of view, yet are quite a bit larger and heavier. So if size and weight are really important to you, I would save the extra $140 or so and go for the standard Ranger. If however you are really looking for the best possible view (see image quality above), combined with a very wide field of view, I think the extra $140 it is well worth it and would get these Ranger ED's.

Included Extras & Attention to Detail:

Neck Strap
The next strap is for the 8x42 Ranger ED looks to be well made and is of fairly good quality and better than the standard Ranger, but is not quite as deluxe as the very best. It has a reasonable amount of padding and is comfortable enough. I like the attention to detail: The padded section that hangs around your neck is curved to ensure that it fits more comfortably. There are also rings that allow movement between that padded part that goes around your neck and the straps that attach to the binoculars. This is just a small thing, but it does mean that when you lift the binoculars up to your eyes, the padded section does not move with the rest of the strap.

Carry Case
The soft nylon carry case is functional and is reasonably well padded, but not as much as some of the very best. There is a netted pocket on the inside that can be used to store a few small items and would be a good place to keep a lens cleaning cloth, some money or your car keys for example. The bag has two sets of loops on the rear which you can thread your belt through. The carry case strap works well and has a nice sliding shoulder pad, but is possibly not quite as well padded as some of the better ones I have used.

Lens Covers
The eye-piece covers are made from a very flexible plastic and they fit very well to the eye-pieces and should not accidentally fall off. I like the fact that they have a flexible bridge between the two cups that allow for the different distances between the two eyepieces depending on your inter-pupillary adjustment. This is something that is often overlooked by manufacturers meaning that the eyepiece covers wont fit, unless you store your binoculars fully open, which can be a real pain as you have to adjust them every time you use and replace your binoculars.

The objective lens covers are also made from a soft rubber and also fit very well to the barrels of the binocular and should not accidentally fall off. A feature that I really like is that they have a rubber loop that attaches them to the barrels of the binocular which saves you from having to put them somewhere safe every time you use your binoculars. If like some people, you don't like to have the lens caps hanging down from your binos when you are using them, you can just take them off and put them away.

These Eagle Optics binoculars also come with a lens cleaning cloth as well as a fairly comprehensive instruction booklet that includes details on adjusting the eyecups, how to properly attach the neck strap, the inter-pupillary adjustment, how to properly focus your binoculars, lens care and cleaning, and details on the very impressive Eagle Optics Platinum Protection warranty:

Eagle Optics will repair or replace the Ranger ED binoculars if they require service, even if it was your fault absolutely FREE, which I am sure you will agree is excellent.

Tripod Adaptable
There is a small cover or cap on the front hinge that can screw off to allow you to then screw on a binocular tripod adapter (not included) that uses the standard ¼-inch threading, which you can then attach to your tripod.

Best Binoculars Rating for Extras & Attention to Detail: 7/10

Conclusion

Strong Points: The quality of the optical components used and their coatings as well as their very wide field of view and close minimum focusing distance are real highlights. I also really like the open bridge design and the overall look of the binocular.

Weak points? To make the actual binoculars better would be tough and only really small things like a lockable diopter ring is missing when you compare these to much more expensive brands. The extras like the neck strap and the carry bag are adequate, but possibly not quite as luxurious as the very best.

Ideal Uses: Like most 8x42 binoculars and especially considering their impressively wide field of view, these make perfect birding binoculars. This is because they strike a good balance between their field of view and magnification with lenses that are large enough to make them nice and bright even at dawn or dusk, yet not so large that they are too big and heavy to carry about with you. I would also say that these would be great for general wildlife observation optics and good for hunting. Because of their good close focus, I would also recommend them to anyone looking for a full size binocular that can also be used to view things like flowers, butterflies, dragonflies and other insects really close up.

Whilst you could take these Eagle Optics Ranger ED binoculars on a camping trip, on safari or to an outdoor sporting event, if it is going to be your main use for them, I would suggest getting some compact or mid-sized pair of binoculars that will be easier to put in your bag or luggage. Something like the Eagle Optics Ranger 8x32 would be ideal for these uses.

Overall the 8x42 Eagle Optics Ranger ED is a fantastic binocular and if you consider what you pay for them, it makes them even more impressive. In my opinion they should make it onto the shortlist of anyone looking to get a top quality pair of optics at a great price.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Eagle Optics for sending this binocular to me to review. I would also like to point out that all the reviews on this site, including this one are my opinion and are not influenced in any way by manufacturers, distributors or suppliers.

 

Best Binocular Reviews Ratings:

Body Construction Quality: 8/10 85% Outstanding Body Stats: 8/10 Optical Components Quality: 10/10 Optical Stats: 9/10 Image Quality 9/10 Extras & Attention to Detail: 7/10

Awards:

Winner Best Birding Binocular 2011

Main Specifications & Features:

• Magnification: 8x
• [explain objective lens]Objective Lens Diameter: 42mm
• [explain exit pupil]Exit Pupil: 5.3
• [explain twilight factor]Twilight Factor: 18.33
• [explain eye relief]Eye Relief: 18mm
• Size: Full Size Binoculars
• Weight: 27.4ozs (777g)
• Length: 6.7in (17cm)
• Width: 5.0in (12.7cm)
• [explain prism types]Prism Type: Roof Prism Binoculars
• [explain real field of view]Real field of view: 8.0°
• [explain apparent field of view]Apparent field of view: 64.0°
• [explain field of view]Field of View: 142m at 1,000 meters
• [explain field of view]Field of View: 425ft at 1,000 yards
• Close Focus Distance: 6.0ft
• [explain waterproofing]Waterproof: Yes
• [about fogproofing]Fogproof: Yes
• Image Stabilization: No
• [about Lens Coatings]Lens Coatings: Fully Multi-Coated
• [about Phase Correction]Phase Correction Coatings: Yes
• [about ED Glass]Extra Low Dispersion Glass: Yes
• [about tripod adapters]Tripod Adaptable: Yes
• Auto Focus: No

Video Review of the Eagle Optics 8x42 Ranger ED Binoculars