Today’s question comes from a very lucky person who is about to go on safari in Rwanda and Uganda, is looking for some safari binoculars and can’t decide between the Steiner Wildlife Pro 10.5x28 binoculars and the Steiner Wildlife Pro CF 8x30’s:
In September I’m going to Rwanda. From there we will visit Uganda to go on safari. Your site has been a great help for me to find out what to take with me! While searching for binoculars on your site I bumped into the Steiner Wildlife Pro 10.5X28. So I went looking for it on the internet. Now I have seen that there is another (newer?) Wildlife Pro CF 8X30. Is there any chance you have information about this one and about the differences between these two binoculars?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Answer
The Steiner Wildlife Pro CF 8x30’s are quite different to the Wildlife Pro 10.5x28’s, with both having their advantages and dis-advantages over each other, yet both would work well as a safari binocular, especially in harsher environments like Rwanda and Uganda.
So to choose between them you just have to decide which of their main features and advantages are most important to you and to help with this I have listed their advantages over the other below:
- More Compact – easy to pack into your luggage and carry with you whilst on safari – could be especially important on walking safaris especially if you want to carry other equipment with you like a camera
- Lighter – also helps with carrying
- 10.5x magnification – gets you closer to the action
Steiner Wildlife Pro CF 8x30
These have what Steiner call their “Sports-Auto-Focus Plus” focusing mechanism – which basically combines fixed focusing with a standard central focusing wheel – meaning that they have a very good depth of field as all objects from “20 metres away can be seen in sharp contrast and with sharp margins without any additional adjustments” – yet you can still use the central focusing wheel to focus on nearby objects.
- 8x magnification – slightly easier to keep image staeady
- No focusing needed from 20m means less chance of missing something
- Wider Field of View (120m @ 1000m) – see more in your view without having to move the binoculars – find and follow birds and wildlife easier
- Larger objective lenses – means that have the potential to produce a brighter image and therefore work better in low or poor light conditions like early morning, just before sunset or in thickly forested areas. The actual brightness obviously depends on the quality of the glass and their coatings (transmittance) – I have not reviewed these so cannot comment, but in generl of the Steiner’s that I have used they tend to be pretty good
Other than that they are fairly close in that they are both waterproof and cost pretty much the same amount:
Cost & Where to Steiner Binoculars
Alternatives
Mid Sized Binocular
The excellent Minox 8x33 BL Binoculars, that won the award for the Best Safari & Travel Binocular in 2010
Compact Binocular
Eschenbach 10x28 Farlux B Silver Binoculars
More Information
If you have a binocular or optics related question that I have not already answered or written about on this site, please feel free to get hols of me as I would love to try and answer it for you:
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