Best Hiking Binoculars under 100? ✅ Why I bought the Vortex Vanquish 10x26 Binoculars

In this video, I'm gonna explain just why I bought these Vortex Vanquish 10x26 binoculars for an upcoming camping trip that I'm planning with my family and then after testing them why I now think they're one of the best binoculars you can buy for hiking for under $100 and we're gonna start right now Hello and welcome to Best Binocular Reviews my name is Jason in terms of binoculars and because of what I do I guess I'm in the rather fortunate position and that almost never need to go out and spend my hard-earned cash on a pair of binoculars and this sort of got me thinking well actually change anything if I did have to spend my own money this thought coincided with a camping and hiking holiday that was busy planning with my family and as always an important decision that I have to make is which pair of binoculars I'm going to take along with me now ordinarily I would just take a pair that's come in for review and I would use my holiday as a test for the binocular and then use that when I write the review however this time I decided to go out and spend my own money and buy my own pair of binoculars and so in this video their idea is I just want to go through the thought processes that I have and ultimately why I came to the decision to buy these vortex Vanquish ten by twenty six binoculars and why I do believe they are really great pair of binoculars and definitely one of the best hiking binoculars that you can buy for under $100 before we get started I want to make it clear that as with all my reviews and articles on PBR I am completely independent and I have in no way been compensated for nor do I represent vortex optics in any single way and the same goes for all the other brands featured on my site and videos we will be driving to our campsite and so I could easily transport any size of binocular I want however it made sense for me to choose a compact over a larger side alternative as during the day we would be leaving our camping base and going out hiking now if I was just walking and not carrying any other gear I may have opted for a mid-sized or even a full size binocular instead but as I would be carrying my camera as well as a backpack a compact binocular was definitely the right choice for me note that unless you specifically need a good low-light performance I would say that a compact would probably also be the right choice for most hikers and backpackers I wanted to get a reasonable level of performance so very cheap binoculars would not be considered but at the same time I also knew that I didn't want very expensive binoculars that would make me to pressures about having them laying about the campsite and always worrying about their whereabouts so keeping a mind that I wanted to avoid having to spend my entire holiday budget on my optics I settled on a maximum budget of around $100 in a way I also chose this under $100 budget as a kind of challenge to myself as I know at this level there's a lot of rubbish about but if you are prepared to put in some work and do the research you can unearth some real gems which in my opinion makes the final purchase even more satisfying so now I have chosen the size of binocular I needed and my budget my next decision was to get a little bit more specific in regards to the type and design when money is not a major concern I believe that the best compact binoculars in terms of the all-round function are ones that have the double hinged design as they can fold up into a very small shape and thus this makes them a true pocket-sized binocular however to create a binocular with this twin hinge design it needs to use the more compact roof prisms inside them to rectify the inverted image whilst these prisms are great in many ways and indeed most modern binoculars now use them the problem they have is if you want them to offer the same level of performance as a power prism they require a number of expensive coatings added to them which at the budget price levels I was looking at is simply not possible therefore in general and especially the case with compacts where the smaller lenses are also a limiting factor if you want good quality optical performance with bright high-quality views at the low cost and especially the cheap end of the market a power prism binocular is most often the better option so by opting for this design I did have to accept that while still small my binocular was not going to be quite as compact as an equivalent of roof prism model especially when folded up and not in use I was happy with my choice as for me it was important to get the best optical performance I could from a low-cost compact and so whilst it would have been nice I did not necessarily need to have a true pocket-sized binocular however having said that if my maximum budget was higher I would have certainly looked for twin hinged roof prism compacts to include on my short list if you are unsure of the differences between a power prism and a roof prism binocular I've added a link down in the description below that will take you through to a page on the BPR website that'll explain everything speaking of which if at any time I mentioned a feature or a technical term or just something that you don't understand feel free to fire off a question in the comment section and I will get back to you six by 21 seven by 28 8 by 25 9 by 28 10 by 26 12 by 25 compacts come in a wide range of configurations so my next decision and the final one before looking at Pacific models was to choose which magnification and size of lenses to go for if you're uncertain as to what these numbers on a binocular actually mean I've already created a video that goes over it in great detail and I'll post a link either somewhere up there above or down in the description below here I just needed to have an overall idea of what I was looking for and not be too specific as I wanted to give myself a good range of options when it came to choosing the actual binocular to start with I decided against the extremes be that with a very high and low magnification and with the sizes of lenses as these types of binoculars tend to work best for only a few very small niches and I was looking for a good all-rounder that I could use for general wildlife and birding observation as well as getting a better view of the terrain in front of us here common and usually the ideal choice for a general use compact would be to have an 8 x or possibly a 10 x power with a 25 or 26 millimeter lens so whilst most models come with both 8 and 10 x options I eventually chose a 10 x power as I know that we will be hiking in wide open terrain in the hills where I just want that little bit more reach I also know that I'll mostly be using my binoculars during the day and in good light and thus the smaller exit people and the resultant drop in low-light performance that you get with a higher part binocular is not going to be an issue for me note if I knew that I was going to be hiking in a thickly forested area where light levels are not ideal and where the observation does distances tend to be lower or if I was going to be hiking before dawn or after dark I would have opted for an 8 x compact instead this is where having a basic understanding of the kinds of places and times you will mostly be using your binoculars is important if in doubt my advice here is to go with the 8 x option as they generally tend to suit a wider range of uses so there you have it I now knew I was looking for a power prism compact with a 10 times magnification and with roughly 25 or 26 millimeter lenses on sale for under $100 or pounds but also definitely more than about $60 or pounds so what I did next was to perform a couple of searches on a few of my favorite online binocular retailers once again I'll include the links to these searches in the description below note whilst you can still buy from them and definitely do use them for the final price comparisons my advice here is not to use Amazon for this type of research as the internal search engine is pretty rubbish and almost always brings back all sorts of irrelevant results which is not only annoying but is distracting and I find just waste my time after filtering the results to take my budget and all other requirements into account the vortex vanquished ten by twenty six binoculars kept on jumping out to me in fact even Amazon returned them in my searches whilst they have a recommended price of one hundred and twenty nine ninety nine they currently retail for around $99 or 96 pounds and thus were perfect in terms of my budget I also knew that vortex has a really good reputation for producing great value for money binoculars and even though many other do as well I was drawn to them because I've had very good experiences with their products especially in terms of their optical performance in the past so after looking very closely at their main features specifications and then comparing them against a few others on my short list I decided to take the plunge and buy them as you can see they have arrived and whilst I have not yet gone on my hiking on a day that's next month I have already used and fully tested them and on the whole I am very pleased with my choice and I'm looking forward to using them more on holiday and hope to provide you with an update on my return but until then be sure to read my full in-depth hands-on and 100% honest review of these vortex binoculars that also includes comparisons to the other similar binoculars that I considered you'll find the link in the description below so there you have it there's how and why I ended up with these vortex vanquish monikers for my next camping and hiking trip I do hope that these insights have been of interest to you and that you can use the process the next time you need to go out and buy yourself a pair of binoculars if this video has been of interest and indeed of use to you I would really appreciate if you could like share and subscribe this is something that helps both myself and my channel and it's something that I really do appreciate also if you can remember just hit that little Bell button on the side just that you'll be notified as soon as my next video becomes available so once again thank you very much for watching and I'll see you again next time cheers for now

Channel: Best Binocular Reviews

Views: 12,209

Rating: 4.9069767 out of 5

Keywords: best hiking binoculars, hiking binoculars, best binoculars for hiking, under 100, budget binoculars, cheap binoculars, compact binoculars, camping binoculars, binoculars for backpacking, backpacking binoculars, best binoculars under 100, Vortex Vanquish 10x26 Binoculars, vortex vanquish binoculars, vortex vanquish 10x26 review, vortex vanquish 10x26 binoculars review, binoculars for hiking, hiking gear, best hiking gear, best hiking gear 2019

Id: RaCqtmD7MKM

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 02 2019