Binoculars for Sports

>> Skip the blurb, show me the best sports binoculars

Football, soccer, baseball, athletics, cricket, golf, rugby, tennis, horse racing, motor racing, basketball, icehockey, beach vollyball and even surfing: All of these sports have one thing in common, if you are lucky enough to be going to watch them live, your view and thus your enjoyment can be improved with a good pair of binoculars. So here is my guide to buying the best binoculars for sporting events.

When choosing any binocular for a specific purpose, first establish what the most important features are for their intended use and then you can find binoculars that match all or as many features that you are looking for.

Important Features: Sports Binoculars

So what features are most important in a pair of binoculars for sports?

Magnification

The whole point of a pair of sporting binoculars is to get closer to the action, so you may be forgiven for thinking that the more powerful the magnification the better. Not True, any magnification over 7x will be more than adequate for most sporting events and in my opinion a magnification of between 8x and 12x is fine. The problem magnification is that the bigger the zoom, the harder it gets to view a steady image through them as any tiny movement is magnified. Without a tripod or Image Stabilization any magnification over 12x becomes really difficult to keep still. The next issue with magnification, is the bigger it is, the smaller the field of view tends to be:

Wide Field of View

This is in basic terms the width of the image that you can see through the binoculars and so enables you to catch as much of the action at once and is thus far more important that a really powerful magnification. You can read more on field of view here.

Type of Binocular

There are two main styles of binocular available, the Roof Prism and the Porro Prism designs, that refer to the type of prism used in their construction with both having their own unique advantages over each other, so which is best for sports optics binoculars? The answer to this will be down to your personal preference:

Roof Prism Advantages: Compact Design and less moving internal parts, so tend to be longer lasting.
Roof Prism Disadvantages: In cheap roof prism binoculars, the image quality suffers when compared to cheap porro prism's, this is because it is harder to align the prisms. This is not a problem in mid, to expensive models, but if you are going to get very cheap binoculars which I would advise against as they are little more than toys, rather go for a porro prism design.

Porro Prism Advantages: Because the objective lenses are wider apart, they tend to have a better stereoscopic image and thus a wider field of view than porro prisms. They are also cheaper to make quality porro prisms than roof prisms and so are often cheaper to buy.
Porro Prism Disadvantages: Bulky in comparison to porro prisms. More moving parts and so it is harder to make them dust and waterproof.

For more information read my article on the differences between roof and porro prism binoculars.

Size of Binoculars

This is more of a personal preference as some people like a pair of compact sport binoculars that they can easily pack away and take with them to the event. Others feel that the benefits that full size binoculars have over compacts outweigh and weight and size issues.

What advantages to full size binoculars have over compacts? There are two main ones, at the same magnification full size binoculars tend to have a wider field of view, which we have already established as being an important feature in our quest for the best sport binoculars. The second advantage they have are because of their larger objective lens, they are able to take in more light, meaning that the image that you view through them is usually brighter (other factors like lens coatings and quality of lenses and prisms also affect this). On a bright day this should not be a problem and is only really important in poor light conditions.

Another option for you to consider would be a pair of mid size binoculars, easier to carry and pack away, yet still have many of the benefits of full size versions.

Below are some of the best compact binoculars for sports, sorted by size, that I have so far reviewed:

Compact Sport Binoculars

Below are some of the best Mid Size binoculars for sports, sorted by size, that I have so far reviewed:

Mid size sporting binoculars

Below are some of the best Full Size binoculars for sports, sorted by size, that I have so far reviewed:

Full size sports binoculars

View >> All Binoculars for Sporting Events