Focusing your pair of Binoculars

I have taken may people out on safari and many who have a great pair of binoculars and most of them do not know how to focs their binoculars. Focusing binoculars to suit your eyes is easy and only takes a few seconds, but can turn using your binoculars from a frustration experience into the eurica moment of "wow I wish I had known this before!"

So to focus your binoculars, it first depends on which type of binoculars you have. If you have the most common type, The "center focus" type binoculars, and yours have a knob in the center to focus on your subject.

You need to first calibrate them for your vision (your eyes) and once and from then on it is only a matter of focusing on the subject when you want to view it.

So here's how you focus centre focus binoculars:

• Start by shutting your right eye and leaving your left eye open
• Use the center knob to focus on an object about 8 - 10 meters away
• Open your right eye
• Next, shut your left eye and leave your right eye open
• Using the focus ring (Dioptic / Diopter Adjuster) on the right ocular lens (the one nearest your eye) focus on the same object until you can see clearly (this is in the center of the binoculars on Swarovski binoculars.
• Look through the binoculars with both eyes open, and you should have a clear, crisp view of the object. Done! The binoculars are now calibrated for your vision.

You see easy peasy and honestly it will make a huge difference to the enjoyment of your binoculars. If that all still seems a little complicated, and a demonstration amy help, check out the videos below showing you just how easy it is focusing binoculars:

Video Demonstrating How to Focus Binoculars

If you are still not clear on how to focus your binoculars, or want to see it performed on a pair of binoculars that don't have a center dioptic adjustmet (Diopter) like the Swarovski binoculars which is a fairly uncommon feature, you can take a look that this video below (sound quality is not great sorry!):

So far we have talked about how to focus The "center focus" type of binoculars, but what other types of binoculars are there?

Self Focusing Binoculars
If you don't want to have to focus your binoculars at all, you could try a pair of so called self focusing binoculars, and sometimes known as focus free binoculars, but what ever the case to be honest, they are not really self focusing at all, more of a permanent focus system.

They can have their uses, so to learn more check out my article on: Self Focusing Binoculars.