In Search of A Good Value For Money Binocular

If you ask a birder what stuffs does he bring with him along on a birding trip, two things stand out the most which are either a dslr camera combined with a long telephoto lens and a flash gun, and a pair of binoculars or either one of them. Other stuffs are secondary. A pair of binoculars to scan the forest, open fields, coasts or sky for birds and a good dslr camera to record his sightings. Usually that is the case, however you will find a lot of birders just carry a pair of binoculars as they are just interested in sighting the birds and identifying them. The opposite is also true with some birders who just carry a camera to shoot photos of birds.

Anyway, i am one of those who carry both. A few months ago my son dropped my Tasco 20x50 porro binoculars on a trip because the strap came loose. It was a cheap Tasco binoculars which i bought so many years ago when i was not even interested in birding, it was for a general purpose, so a Tasco 20x50 was sufficient. As a result of the drop the lens became misaligned and i saw double images every time i used them. It did not make any sense to send for repair as the cost would be the same if not more than the original price, so i started searching for a good pair of binoculars which will give me a good value for money. I still have two compact binoculars as back up but the Bushnell 8x21 and Tasco 8x25 are too small to be used for birding.

So i started doing a research on the internet and read a lot of reviews about binoculars as i had absolutely no idea what are the good brands out there and the latest development in the technology involved in making good binoculars or the features that a good pair of binoculars should have. I started reading reviews on the website like 'bestbinocularsreview.com','binoculars.com' and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology on various brands and aspects of binoculars good for birding.

So here what i found out what i should look for before i buy a new pair of binoculars for my birding activity:

1. Power:

The power or magnification of all binoculars is indicated by the first number like 8x42, 10x42 or 20x50 which is what my Tasco binoculars is having. The bigger the number the bigger the image is magnified thus the more detail you will see. The second number indicates the diameter size of the lens directed toward the objects which are called 'objective lens'. The bigger the size the more light is let in thus giving brighter image to our eyes. However, the bigger magnification will present other problems as it will magnify any hand or body shakes while holding the binoculars towards the objects. An 8 times power thus will have less shakes versus a 12 times power or a 20 times power that i have in my Tasco binoculars. Anything above 10 times power will require the use of a tripod which is cumbersome if you like to do birding on foot. For birding purposes, an 8 times magnification is recommended by most websites i visited. It is recommended for a few reasons: firstly for birding at the edge of a forest or along the trail in the forest an 8 time magnification is sufficient as the birds appear quite close, secondly the 8 times power binoculars have a wider field of view foe easy scanning, and thirdly they are also brighter as the exit pupil mostly are wider above 5.00mm if you use an 8x42. The exit pupil is the column of light that comes out to your eyes through the ocular lens, it is calculated by dividing 42 by 8 = 5.25mm. Since our pupil dilates up to 7mm the bigger the exit pupil is better to match our pupils. Anything bigger than 7mm is unnecessary as the extra light will fall outside our pupil therefore cannot be seen.During the day our pupil contract to around 3mm because it is bright. So we may choose a 10x42 if we require more magnification to see more details as the exit pupil is still around 4.2mm. However, we will have to sacrifice the field of view which is smaller than 8x42 binoculars. There are 8.5 x56 binoculars or 10x50 which are good to collect light during dim hours of early morning and late evening however they are heavier to carry.

The power of a binocular is indicated on the central focusing knob

2. Type of Lens and Prisms

There are so many types of lens and prisms used in the binoculars in the market. Some used BAK 7 type prism and some BAK4 prism. BAK4 prism is the better of the two and used in most of very good to high end binoculars as they let in more light which gives brighter image. On top of that there are normal lenses, EF lenses and ED lenses which are found in the top range of binoculars. The ED lenses stands for extra-low dispersion lens which manage to focus all the different wavelengths of colors onto the same spot thus reduce or eliminates color fringing in high contrast image. If you could afford it, you should go for binoculars that come with ED lens for bright,sharp images and vivid colors.

3. Coatings

Coatings are very important as they help reduce the reflection of the light as it hit the surfaces of various lenses and prism in the binocular. Some cheap binoculars only have single coating only on some lenses while the better ones are multicoated on some lenses only. The very good and high end binoculars are fully multicoated for all surfaces of the lenses in contact with air. Nikon added dialectric coating for their high end models like Monarch 5 & 7,while Bushnell added extra Ultra-wide Custom Band anti-reflective and Rainguard coatings on top of fully multicoating on the lens for their Legend Ultra HD binoculars models. These coatings will increase the light transmission that helps make the image very sharp, bright and vivid. The Rainguard help disperse the rain drops as to allow normal viewing even when your binoculars are wet.

4. The Body

As we take our binoculars along with us in a birding trip, it will be exposed to some abuse from the environment i.e rain, dirt, heat and occasional knocks and drops as we walk through the forest, or climb the mountains. So we want the binoculars to have a tough body that can withstand the abuse and yet is not very heavy to carry all day long. The types of material used as chassis range from fiberglass for cheap binoculars, polycarbonate, aluminum for mid-range up to magnesium for high end binoculars. Some binoculars have hybrid chassis of fiberglass plus polycarbonate like the Nikons, or magnesium and fiberglass like the Bushnell Ultra Legend HD. Magnesium is the best as it is very tough but very light in weight. Most of the binoculars nowadays are protected with a layer of rubber armor to protect the main chassis against scratches and knocks. It is also good for grip and reduce the knocking sound of the body against hard objects which can be detected by birds.

5. Field of View (FOV)

The field of view refers to how much you end up seeing through the binoculars at a certain distance and usually is rated in degrees or ft/1000yards or m/1000m. Now, for my birding purposes i would be more concerned at how much i can see at up to one or two hundred meters the most as the forest is very thick. Most of the trees in a tropical forest grow up to maximum 30-50meters. I would not worry at the field of view at 1000yards or 1000m unless i am looking down a huge open field or looking over the horizon along the coast or scanning for an eagle high up the sky. However the wider the angle (above 7degrees) the more you can see at 1000yard/1000m against binoculars that have smaller FOV, and also respectively at 30-50m. The more magnification that you have the less FOV you get, meaning a 10x binocular usually have a 5-6 degree FOV while an 8x binocular usually have 6-8degree FOV. A big FOV is very useful to quickly scan a wooded area for birds as you get to see more through the lens. There are some birds which are very active and move around so fast it is almost impossible to follow with a binocular if the FOV is very narrow.

6. Close Focus

Now, most of the times the reason we buy a pair of binoculars is to make far objects seem nearer from a distance. Why should we worry about the close focus distance you might ask as we can see them with our own naked eyes? Well, there are times when the birds or butterflies do the unexpected thing by coming close to us and we would like to zoom up and see details of them. A lot of the birding i did on the Fraser's Hill occurred within less than 4 meters as the birds came to the edge of the roadsides looking for insects or nectar in the flowers. For tiny birds like the Sunbirds having a pair of binoculars than can focus as close as 2.0meters/6 feet to see details of their feathers is quite awesome. The minimum distance of focus vary from 4.5ft in some brands, up to 6.5ft in some others, up to 8ft, 12ft and even 20ft plus in some models. It seems that the higher the magnification the higher the minimum focus distance. A minimum focus around 6ft is considered very good for birding and butterfly observation.

7. Eye Relief

The eye relief refers to the distance of the ocular lens to your retina when viewing through the binoculars. If the distance is too close you will see shadows or dark spots. If they are too far you will get a tunnel vision. Since the users of binoculars consist of spectacled and non-spectacled, the binoculars needed to be designed with the eye relief that can be adjusted to accommodate both types. For the spectacled users they need to look for binoculars that have more than 15mm eye relief which is more common in 8x binoculars than the 10x binoculars. Some models come up with long eye relief up to 19mm or 21mm. The eye relief can be adjusted by adjusting the rubber eye cups either by pushing or twisting them up to the required distance. The twisting type is better as they remain in place firmly even when accidently pushed.

adjustable eye cup of Nikon Monarch 5

8. Diopter 

Now everyone of us has a set of eyes with different power for the left and right eyes. Most of us have right-eye dominant, meaning the right eye is dominantly used to determine distance and depth therefore  will have more power even when we are not using glasses. So, in order to solve this problem most binoculars come with a diopter which is a ring around one of the ocular lenses usually the right one which can be adjusted to increase(+) or decrease(-) the power so the right eye is focused. Usually this is done by turning the ring to the left or right after focusing for the left eye is done first. The diopter adjustment will make sure we will have a perfectly focused combined image from the objective lenses. Some binoculars come with diopters that can be locked with marked settings to ensure it is not accidently changed or so that you can easily adjust it back to your setting after somebody else borrowed your binoculars. It is a good feature to look for when you decide to buy a pair of binoculars.
 
9.Accessories  

The accessories that come with the binoculars like a shoulder harness to take the weight off your neck when birding all day long, a well padded strap and a good quality case are considered a bonus. Not all brands give you the shouldered harness or good quality case, even the well known brands. Carson and Bushnell give shoulder harness for some of their models, Carson even gives a case than can strap around your binoculars fulltime while using it. Hawke gives a very good leather case which is quite elegant. Lens guards are very important to protect your lenses against scratches and dust, some brands give flimsy lens guard which can come loose quite easily.

Bushnell Legend Ultra HD comes with a harness, a solid case and a padded strap

The Nikon Monarch 5 set did not come with a harness, the case is softer

 
10. Price 

When it comes to pricing each one of us has a different red line depending on our budget. There is a saying that you get what you paid for, and in this case you should buy the best pair of binoculars that you can afford at the time. I put a limit of not more than RM1200(USD360) as a budget for my new binoculars which i think can get me a quite decent pair of binoculars for my birding. Bear in mind they are not my main gear for birding, they are just for scanning and spotting birds after which i use my dslr camera and telephoto lens to shoot photo of the birds. I would rather save my money and invest in better telephoto lens like the Canon 500mm f4 or 600mm f4 which cost equivalent to a small car! Some reviews on the net said that some mid-range priced binoculars produce bright and sharp image equivalent if not better than the highly priced ones. So it is just a matter of looking and comparing several models so you just get the best bang for your buck.

My search and comparison of several models available here in Malaysia resulted in the following table, where i put all the features of the binoculars important to me as the criteria for comparison. The yellow shaded boxes mean a plus, white boxes mean normal while the red ones are not so good. I put the price indication in either USD or RM or both, some obtained from online shops overseas, some from a local online store like Shashinki.com and some from camera shops in a local shopping centers. The green shade shows the winner which has all the features that i want in a binocular.

As you can see i have included seven of the top mid-range models from reputable brands which fall within my budget of not more than RM1200/USD360. Some of them like the Bushnell Legend Ultra HD , Pentax DCF ED, Hawke Sapphire ED and Nikon Monarch 5 come with ED glasses which will give very sharp image. Nikon Monarch 5 and Hawke Sapphire ED come with dialectric coating, fully multicoated and anti-scratch coating while the Bushnell Legend Ultra HD come with Ultra Wide Band anti-reflection, fully multicoated and Rainguard coating. They have magnesium chassis which is strong, durable and light just like the Pentax and Hawke. However, the Pentax and Hawke prices are way above my budget therefore are eliminated from the final selection. All in all after careful consideration i decided on the 8x42 Bushnell Legend Ultra HD eventhough initially i wanted a 10x42 for more power, but common sense prevailed as an 8x42 is enough for my use. The only sad thing is that the 8x42 does not come in Realtree camouflage like the 10x42 so i have to settle for a black finish.The Bushnell Legend Ultra HD binoculars has been awarded the Best Binoculars for 2013 by the Binoculars.com and is highly rated, so for the price i am paying and the various reviews i read i cannot go wrong.

What make me decided to choose the Bushnell Legend Ultra HD 8x42 (highlighted in green) is that it has all the right features i was looking for i.e ED glass, BAK4 prism, fully multicoated, Ultra Wide Band anti-reflection, Rainguard coating, magnesium chassis and light at just 635gram in weight, a very wide FOV at 420ft/1000yards or 8.0degree, a bright exit pupil of 5.3, good eye relief of 17.0mm since i wear glasses, a short minimum focus of 6.5ft for the birds that come close to me, rubber armor and only costs RM1028 from Shashinki.com.which is well within my budget. I must thank Shashinki.com for bringing a lot of binocular models to Malaysia as a lot of online store in the UK or US refuse to ship their binoculars to Malaysia i do not know why. There are even fewer shops in Kuala Lumpur that offer many branded binoculars and when they do the number and models are limited.

The high end Swarovski binocular which is out of my league at USD2579(RM8510)!

I will receive my new 8x42 Bushnell Legend Ultra HD binocular from Shashinki.com within two weeks if everything goes well and post my experience using it in my next post. I just cannot wait to take it with me in my next birding trip. I hope this post can give you some guideline on what to look for the next time you are in the market for a new pair of good binoculars, till then happy birding.


Note: All photos are from Binoculars.com website.

PINK-NECKED GREEN PIGEONS ( Treron vernans/Punai Kerichau)

I have shot photos of  a lot of pigeons so far which include Mountain Imperial Pigeons and varieties of Rock Pigeons, but i have never seen such a colorful pigeon like the Pink-necked Green-pigeon ( Treron vernans or Punai Kericau in local name).

My last trip to the Fraser's Hill during the 2014 Chinese New Year only resulted in shots of the Mountain Imperial Pigeons as shown in my previous post, as i did not come across any Pink-necked Green-pigeons.  I am very sure they are there somewhere on the hill but i just did not have any luck. 

Luck plays a crucial role in a successful birding session apart from skills to search, detect and photographing the birds. If you are not there at the right spot and time you will just miss the action. Talking about luck, my luck was great yesterday as the Pink-necked Green-pigeon which i could not find up on the Fraser's Hill showed up just outside my window nesting in the Palm trees and another tree near the swimming pool, i just could not believe my eyes! There were four of them(two couples) nesting and resting in the trees. These wild pigeons are usually found near and in the forest, and as my condominium is in the middle of Kuala Lumpur it is considered rare, and since they appeared right outside my window i considered Lady Luck finally is smiling down on me. I suspected the new construction of three blocks of condominium in the neighboring land right across my condominium has something to do with their appearance as the big piece of land was a secondary jungle before the construction and the pigeons could have made the jungle their home. Poor them that they have now lost their habitat and have to move, but they are welcome to make the trees in front of my window their nests, now i can do birding right from my bedroom and living room without driving my car. I hope the other residents do not scare them away.

So i grabbed my 5Dmk3 and took a few shots of both couples, surprisingly they were not scarred at all as i was using my flash as the light was not great in the late afternoon around 6.30pm. One of the birds seemed to be half blind which is a pity. Below are the shots taken for your viewing:

This male Pink-necked Green-pigeon is blind in the right eye

Female Green-pigeon with pink eye-ring

Male above, female below

The male has pink-neck and orange breast

Female nesting in the palm tree

Another couple in a different tree

Hope you like the photos, till next time happy birding. 

2014 CNY BIRDING IN FRASER'S HILL

Last 31st January 2014 was the start of the Chinese New Year celebration and a public holiday for Malaysia and i took the opportunity to do some birding while taking my family for a five days holiday on Fraser's Hill. As expected the place was crowded with people celebrating the new year  with most hotels fully booked. There were also a few groups of local and foreign birders seen walking around with their branded binoculars, not surprisingly as Fraser's Hill is top on the list for recommended birding site with around 255 species recorded so far.

The weather was very sunny and warm which was a stark contrast to the one i experienced on the previous trip which recorded a low of 17 degree Celcius. A very warm weather plus a heavy crowd on a small hill made the birding very challenging and at times annoying. It was very difficult to get a shot of a bird when you have cars and motorbikes passed by every few minutes honking around each corner! Some birds are used to human presence but there some which are very shy and jumpy which made it difficult to be photographed.

In order to have some success i had to change tactics by going into areas which are away from the crowds. I did most of my birding along Hemmant Trail(700meters), Girdle Road which is a loop road about 2.5 km long lined with private and corporate bungalows far away from the town center, Mager Road and the area near Jeriau Waterfall. I did most of my birding on foot and i covered almost 10km by walking during my five days there. It was quiet tiring carrying a Manfrotto tripod with a gimbal head which by itself already weighs around 4 kg and a Canon 5D Mk3 coupled with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens plus a flash gun Nissin 622.

My previous photography of birds hardly used a flash gun as i wanted to keep the photo looking natural without the harsh flash exposure,but at times i ended up with under exposed shots which were noisy. The available light in a tropical forest is quite limited due to thick canopy and during overcast day there is no other choice but to use a flash no matter how good your camera ISO performance is. My Canon 5D Mk3 is considered one of the best cameras with great low light performance but when the lighting is bad i still get noisy images without flash. Now i am having a paradigm shift that is it is better to have a sharp shot using a flash than having an underexposed blurry image of birds which can make identification difficult.

My walk through the 700 meter long Hemmant Jungle Trail only produced the two shots below of a female Large Niltava and a Mountain Fulvetta. I took a shot of a Crimson breasted Oriole but the image was too soft and blurry to post here as my flash could not reach way up to the canopy where the bird was perching. That reminds me to get a flash beamer the next time i go birding. The jungle trail was challenging because there were a few fallen trees across the trail which forced me to go through the branches up and under. 

A female Large Niltava near a fallen tree along the Hemmant Trail

A Mountain Fulvetta shot along the Hemmant Trail

I never tried going birding along the Girdle Road before as i thought it was not passible the last time i drove there as the road was very narrow and there were signs of slope collapse posted along the road. Boy was i wrong, it was very enjoyable and peaceful to do birding along this road as the forest is still thick and pristine with a few bungalows scattered along the road and the most important thing of all is very few vehicles passed through this road. I shot a lone Mountain Imperial Pigeon resting just a few feet from the edge of the road without being scared of my flash, amazing!

A Mountain Imperial Pigeon shot along Girdle Road

At the same time i took these shots of the Imperial Pigeon another bird came to look for food a few meters away and it turned out to be a White-browed Shrike-Babbler as below:

White-browed Shrike-Babbler

I noticed the area along the Girdle Road has a large population of Drongo as i came across them almost at every corner and sometimes in a few bird waves mixed with Warblers, Laughing-thrush and Sibia. One thing about Drongo is that they are hard to photograph being dark blue black and perching deep in the forest makes the autofocus of the camera hunting to lock and the camera metering inaccurate. After a few tries i managed to take a few shots of the Drongo as below:

A Drongo taken along Girdle Road

I also saw a Lesser Yellow-nape Woodpecker looking for insect up and down the trunk of the trees near BNM bungalow, however my shot did not turn up so good. At a corner near the Green Acre bungalow a wave of sultan Tits came looking for insects in the trees along the road and i managed to shoot the photo below:

A Sultan Tit

The rest of the day was spent to look for a species which has eluded me the most - Trogons. I was told by another birder i met that day that the area along the Girdle Road had been visited by Trogons on various occasions, however i did not have much luck that day.

The Mager Road is the first road on the right when you first arrived on the Fraser's Hill and it will lead you to the Singapore Bungalow, Seri Barkat House, Seri Selangor Bungalow, Pulawan Training Centre, Pelangi Palace, Methodist and Richmond Bungalows.I like the area along the road as most of the time it is quiet. The trees along this road are tall with thick canopy so most of the time the lighting is not so good. That day i spotted the White-tail Robin, Silver-eared Mesia, Black-throated Sunbirds and as usual the Drongo. I had seen the Verdicter Flycatcher before in this area and a Partridge but this time none appeared. I am not sure which sub-species of Partridge that i had seen before as the photo taken was quiet poor as shown below:

A species of Partridge along Mager Road taken in previous visit

 The Jeriau Waterfall is located about 4 kilometers below Fraser's Hill. I went down there with a hope of finding the Trogons as one birder reported seeing a Red Trogon the day before. Well, after four hours there the only birds i managed to spot were the Bulbuls and a Blyth's Hawk-eagle high up in the sky, too high to shoot a photo of it.

The crowd had dwindled on Tuesday as most of them had gone home which made the birding along the main roads in Fraser's Hill bearable. There were fewer cars and less honking. So i decided to do birding by walking from my hotel the Shahzan Inn along the golf course up to the Paddock area, through the Lady Maxwell Road all the way to the Jelai Resort next to the Allan's Dam. The Jelai Resort had been abandoned by the owner and left to rot which is a pity because it was one of the main birding spots in Fraser's Hill not to mention the hotel rate was quite cheap. Gone were the days when you could see many birders lined up their tripods and long lenses to shoot the birds that visited the bird feed in front of the resort all day long. Below are the shots i took along the Lady Maxwell Road and the Jelai Resort for your viewing:

A Grey-chinned Minivet taken along Lady Maxwell Road

A Long-tailed Sibia taken at the Jelai Resort

A Striated Spiderhunter taken at the Jelai Resort

All in all it was not a bad birding i had during the Chinese New Year week but it could be better if i had shot a Trogon. Sometimes what we birders need is a bit more luck to get the shot of the species we want, maybe it will need a bit more of effort, a bit more searching, a bit more adventure, a few more trips here and there, a bit more knowledge and research, and information sharing among birders which what makes birding is so much fun.

Until next time, happy birding.