Today’s question comes from someone who is lucky enough to live where they have views over a marina and out onto the sea and they are looking for a good all-rounder, a pair of binoculars for the house:

Question
I want a pair of binoculars for the house, we have a lovely view overlooking a marina, peninsula and small island all out to sea where we can see the yachts going by. My hands shake a bit – can you please recommend a pair of binoculars under US$500.

Answer
I will try and answer your question as best I can:

It sounds like you live in a great place and that you have some great wide open views and generally when people are looking for a pair of binoculars to use round the house, they need some good all rounders. Something to use for birding in the garden and perhaps take to a sporting event or on holiday.

Magnification
Something with an 8x or 10x is usually fine as a good all rounder, but you said that you have a view out onto the water and so have plenty of wide open spaces, you could opt for a stronger magnification (12x). You also mentioned that your hands shake a bit and as you may know, increasing the magnification also makes the image that you are looking at through the binoculars harder to keep steady, so I would probably stick to 10x or go for binoculars with image stabilization. The down side of image stabilization binoculars is increased size, weight and usually cost.

Size of Binoculars
If they are for keeping around the house, size should not be too much of a factor, so standard binoculars with about 42mm objective lenses sound right as they perform well in most light conditions.

Cost
Your maximum budget is US$500, which is a fair amount for general purpose binoculars and you can get a really good pair of binoculars at that price.

A few Suggestions:

Minox 10×42 BV Binoculars

Great all purpose binoculars from a quality brand and on sale at Amazon and Eagle Optics (links on the review page on my site) for under $300, so way under budget. Tough enough to take anywhere, but may be a bit “Outdoors” looking for around the house?

Canon 10×30 IS Image Stabilized Binoculars

If you are worried about image shake, then these will really help and they are currently on sale at around $350 – $390 (see links on my site). You could even go for the 12×30 IS, that are available at slightly over budget at $550. The down side to these is the smaller objective lenses (30mm) will probably mean they probably wont work quite as well as 42mm binoculars in low light conditions.

Olympus 10×42 Magellan Binoculars

Now available for around $200, you get plenty of binocular for your buck – you could even get two pairs! I would however say that if you are looking to spend around $500, I would go for the Minox 10×42′s, still way under budget and a superior pair of optics.

I hope that these suggestions help.

Photo Credit: Sunrise at the Marina taken by Indy Kethdy

The main advantage is obviously the Image Stabilization (or image stabilisation depending on which side of the pond you live on) that allows you to use a larger magnification than you would with a normal pair of binoculars, without the need of a tripod to stop image judder.

The 10×30 and 12×36 models that I reviewed were superb and that has got me thinking, just how much magnification can you get before even image stabilization binoculars need a tripod?

15×50 Canon Image Stabilizer Binoculars
At 15x magnification, believe it or not these are not even the most powerful in the range (Canon also make a 18×50 IS binocular), but is still way more power than you could seriously use on a binocular without IS without the need for a tripod.

Interestingly they do come with a built-in tripod adapter and you could use them without the image stabilization feature. But it is the convenience of being able to take these wherever you go and to quickly raise them up to your eyes, press the magic button and get a fairly stable image that makes these binoculars so special. If you are very unsteady however, the resolution looks to become reduced slightly as the prisms try to correct for the motion and I did notice a very slight yellow tinge to the image as well as a faint yellow edge to dark objects.

Image Stabilization does have it’s drawbacks however, mainly you need batteries to make it work and the binoculars can be a little on the heavy side.

Magnification Is Not Everything
It is a mistake that many people new to binoculars make and I feel that it is important to point out that the greater the magnification does not mean the better the binoculars. Far from it, apart from image shake, there are other drawbacks to large magnifications, your field of view is often also reduced and this can often be a really important factor in being able to quickly locate what ever it is you are looking at, especially if it is a fast moving object:

The Canon 15×50 IS Binoculars have a field of view of 237ft at 1000 yards (you get about 310 – 340ft from most good 10x roof prism binoculars)

So I would not recommend them as your first choice birding binoculars, but they are ideal Binoculars for Astronomy and because of the IS feature that negates the need for a tripod can also be convenient enough to use anywhere and for many other purposes.

US Shoppers
Canon Image Stabilizer Binoculars on Amazon.com

UK Shoppers
Canon IS Binoculars on Amazon.co.uk