|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 2 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Highly Recommended Apr 18, 2008
By Captain Latte
I bought these primarily for some whale watching over on Maui. They are a bit pricey, but the outstanding quality of the optics is worth it. The rubberized casing is excellent for holding onto without loosing your grip. I also wear glasses and had no problem using the Brunton with my glasses because of their twist up eye relief system.
These binocs are very lightweight so no problem holding them steady. I had originally considered going with one of Canon's image stabilization binocs, but chose these instead because the quality of the glass was far superior. I do own a nice Canon DSLR, but it seems the glass in their binocs do not quite match up to quality in their camera lenses.
Great Multi-Use Binos - Price Varies Greatly - Pays to Shop Sep 21, 2011
By Snoopy
"PuppyPaws"
These comments relate to the Brunton Echo Midsize "8x32", not the Brunton Echo Midsize "10x32" binos, which I speculate are very similar. In my opinion, the Brunton Echo Midsize 8x32 binos are ideal for multi-use gereral purpose. My wife and I love these binos for everything from backyard bird watching to music concerts, football games, theater plays, symphony, beach combing / fishing and zoo trips. The BaK-4 multi-coated optics are very crisp and clear, vibrant colors, easy to focus. The diopter ring adjustment is on the right barrel and is fairly stiff so it stays set once properly adjusted to your eyes. The 8x magnification is as high as I can go holding them in my hands with a steady and clear field of view. I have another higher quality / much more expensive pair of Leopold 10x32 military binos that provide noticeably larger images, but for me, they are not worth the added eye strain / blur from hand shake and tripods are too cumbersome for most of my purposes. These Echo's seem very well made with a durable / rugged rubber coated polyurethane exterior.
I especially love their short range focus at 6 ft which is seldom less than 20 ft for most 8x32 binos. I can easily read all the tiny LED settings on my home theatre amp / DVD player from my couch 6 ft away. I can even read cell phone text messages that are 3-5 rows in front of me at a concert (not that I was really looking, just surprised I could easily read them; the optics are that good). I also love that they are Nitrogen filled, fog proof and waterproof with a Brunton 5 yr warranty. Lens caps all fit snug. Very nice neck strap; it widens out to a 2 inch padded width around your neck to more comfortably support their weight, which is fairly light at just over one pound (20 oz). They store nicely in a black canvas carry case with a Velcro cover flap, separate strap and belt loop.
As of this review, these Brunton Echo Midsize 8x32 binos are available on Amazon through different sellers on separate pages as if they are not identical products, but they are. The prices range here on Amazon from $130 to $250. I purchased this identical product new in the box on EBay from Budsgunshop for $50 with free shipping. Once I confirmed their high quality, a week later I bought a second pair from the same Ebay seller, but by then the price went up to $70 (committed pricing, no bidding, free shipping in both cases). No way was my wife ever going to let me share the one pair.. she totally loves them! So, I had to get a second pair.
These binos have all the features I was hoping to find, and then some: above average BaK-4 prism glass, fully multi-coated optics - emerald green, very short 6' close focus (you will love this feature more than you might expect), long 4mm exit pupil with a large sweet spot and ample 16mm eye relief with twist-up shields, virtually no eye strain whatsoever (with or w/out glasses) based on continual use over a two-hour concert, perform well in low light, fairly wide 395' field of view at 1000 yards, light weight at just 20 oz, overall size fairly small at just under 5" long, 5" wide and 2" exterior barrel diameters - just a tad larger than most compact size binos; nitrogen filled - fog proof and water proof, 5 yr warranty from Brunton.
Try to find all these features for under $150.. good luck. I notice some reviewers note trouble with certain compact / midsize binos that they love in all respects except that they don't expand quite wide enough to accommodate a large head / eyes set wide apart. I think my eyes are set at a typical distance for a guy, and I have to collapse these 8x32 Midsize Echo's quite a bit to set the barrel eye width to my sweet spot (which is a rather "large" sweet spot with these binos - both in terms of barrel width and distance of my eyes to the lenses). So, I'm fairly sure these have plenty of barrel width for guys with eyes set unusually far apart.
Bottomline: I feel like I got an absolute steal on EBay at $50 with free shipping on the first pair (and $120 for two pairs). I would say under $150 is still a very good value, but not over $200. There are several venders that sell these well over $200 and a select few listed under $100. It really pays to shop.
|
| | |
