Hunting Binoculars - Choosing the BEST pair

all right folks this week's field tip is all about binoculars we're gonna talk about how to choose the best pair for your application we're going to talk about a couple of different ways to use your binoculars and then we're gonna talk about the big question what's the difference between a cheap pair and an expensive pair so stick around alright so here's what we're gonna do hunting season is just around the corner and in recognition of that we're gonna be giving away some really high end gear over the next couple of weeks yeah pinecones falling out of the tree so over the next couple of weeks I'm gonna be doing a series of videos that goes over some of the gear that I use on my hunts and I hunt all over the country and so if you want to be entered for to win some of this really nice gear stick around towards the end of the video for details on how you can do that alright so we're gonna start at the very basics so if you already have binoculars you're already familiar with binoculars some of this stuff might be a little bit elemental for you but if you stick around there's gonna be some things that we talk about later that you might not have thought about when it comes to using your binoculars in various ways and so the numbers what does this stuff mean when you're looking to buy a pair of binoculars you're gonna see things like 8 by 42 10 by 42 10 by 50 s different things like that and so the first number is your magnification so when an 8 by 42 you get an 8 times magnification a 10 by 42 you get a 10 time magnification and so when you're looking at an animal or something through a 10 power binocular that image appears to be 10 times larger than it would through your neck and eye the second number the 42 in this case these are 10 by 40 2's that is the size of your objective lens the big lens up front and you can think of an objective lens kind of like a window a bigger window is going to allow more light into the binocular and so if everything else has held constant a larger objective lens is gonna perform better in low light but that's not the only thing that's going to count when it comes to low-light and we're going to talk more about this in detail because that the low light performance that's really what will make or break a good pair of binoculars so those two numbers are always listed on binoculars but there's another number that is just as important but not listed and that's the exit pupil size and if you're into photography you can think of the exit pupil kind of like an aperture obviously if you have a larger aperture you're going to get more light coming through the camera and hitting a sensor and when it comes to binoculars a larger exit people is going to help that light come through the monocular and hit your eye and that's going to translate again into better low-light performance the way you find that number is to divide the objective lens size by the power of your binocular and so over in the case of a 10 by 42 you have a 4.2 millimeter exit pupil alright so now that we've got some of the technical stuff out of the way let's talk about magnification and why you might want to choose one magnification over another and more is not always better so there are two very different ways to use binoculars one is to make small things big and that might be an animal on a far hillside or a small bird and a tree just a few yards away the second and less obvious way is to use your binoculars to look through brush and pick out details that are relatively close by by using your binoculars you can selectively focus through brush and see things that you would never be able to see with your naked eye so when you're picking out a pair of binoculars you need to consider which one of these ways you're going to be using your binoculars most of the time because with binoculars like many other things there's always going to be trade-offs one of those trade-offs is magnification versus field of view and so if you are using your binoculars in the second way that I mentioned picking out details out of clothes brush magnification sometimes can be a hindrance to you what you really want is a broad depth of field and so that you can see a lot of the brush but then also use the selective focus on your binoculars to push through that brush and see details on the other side of vegetation that you wouldn't be able to see with your naked eye now if you are sitting on a hillside glassing a hillside that's a mile away obviously higher magnification is going to come in very handy but again with that higher magnification your field of view shrinks down another one of those trade-offs is low-light performance if we hold all else constant a lower power binocular is going to perform better in low light than a higher power binocular and that goes back to that exit pupil calculation that we did earlier for a 10 by 40 to your exit pupil is four point two millimeter and for an 8 by 40 to the exit pupil is five point two millimeter and so when you look at an image through an 8 by 42 and a 10 by 42 and low light the image is going to appear brighter with the 8 by 42 versus the 10 by 42 so when it comes to magnification stability is another thing that you're going to need to take into consideration because as you move up in power your ability to hold those binoculars steady is going to go way down most people can hold an 8 by 40 to pretty steady just hand-held a 10 by 42 is a little bit more difficult but is still manageable a 12 by 42 or 12 by 50 that gets very very difficult to hold steady by hand if you're going to be using a 12 power binocular you really need to have them on a tripod and having them on a tripod comes in very handy if you're doing a lot of sitting and glass and far-off hillsides that's a great option one thing that I do constantly and if you've watched any of my hunting videos you will have seen me doing this but I used my long bow as but basically a monopod and just glass like this a lot it really helps with the stability of these Tim Power binoculars all right so now let's talk a little bit about the big question that everybody wants to know and that's what's the difference between a low end pair of binoculars and a high-end pair so earlier we mentioned the objective lens and the size of the exit pupil and how those things can play into how much light comes into the binoculars and how much light can exit the binocular to your pupil there are other things that come into play and that is the quality of the glass and the lens coatings because light not only has to get into the binocular it has to be transmitted through the monocular to your eye and that is where those two things come in and that is what makes the big difference between a $300 pair and a $1500 pair every time light hits a glass or a mirrored surface some of its going to be reflected and the less reflection that you get means more light can be transmitted through the binocular and to your eye and that's gonna mean better low-light performance it's gonna mean that you are gonna be able to see animals that you wouldn't be able to see with a lower-end binoculars so the time we're talking about here might only be maybe an hour or so in the morning and late in the evening where there's going to be a big difference between a low-end pair and a high-end pair of binoculars but the thing you got to consider is that our that is the hour when you're going to see most of the animal movement if you have a low-end pair of binoculars and it's kind of that Twilight when most animals are going to be moving around you could be talking about the difference between you know looking out in that field and saying is that a stump or is that a deer I don't know a low-end pair of binoculars you're still not going to be able to tell but a high-end pair of binoculars is going to gather that light transmitted the light through the binocular to your eye and it's gonna make the difference between finding out if that's a stump or a deer or just having no idea and no game plan now you can actually see this if you take a low-end pair of binoculars and a high-end pair and put them side-by-side and look at the lenses at kind of an angle on a high-end pair of binoculars with good glass and good lens coatings you're going to be able to see a lot of the internal structure of the binoculars whereas with a low-end pair you're gonna see reflection of the trees or whatever is around you so if you get a chance grab a pair of low-end binoculars and a pair of high-end you can even do this in a store just look at them side by side and with the low-end pair you're gonna be getting a lot of reflection of the stuff around you again with the high-end pair you're gonna be able to see right through that glass in the internal components of the binoculars and so when you're in the store looking at binoculars trying to figure out which pair you're gonna get you know everybody's going to get those things out of the case and look down to the end of the the big-box store wherever you're at and in conditions like that you might see a little bit difference in the image clarity but really you're not going to tell you're not going to be able to tell a lot of difference between you know those low-end binoculars and the high-end binoculars because the lighting is super good in those stores but if you were to take those two pair of binoculars out into those in the woods and the crepuscular hours dawn and dusk when those animals are moving around that guys that is where you can really really see a huge difference between the the low-end or the less expensive binoculars and the high-end pair of binoculars and so you've got to ask yourself is it worth it because you're talking about the difference between maybe $300 and $1200 so that's a that's a lot of money difference between those two pair and so from my experience I would say if you can afford good quality glass get it absolutely get it if you can't afford it then no I mean nothing's worth it if you can't afford it but if you can absolutely get them because it will make the difference in those time periods when the animals are going to be moving all right guys so I hope that clears up some stuff with binoculars how to use on how to select them now that we've got all that stuff out of the way let's give some stuff away I've got a brand new pair of Diamondback HDS from vortex they're 10 by 40 twos and we're gonna give these things away to some lucky person all right so YouTube has some pretty strict rules on giveaway so we're gonna do this over at Instagram so to be eligible to win these binoculars you're gonna need to go over to Instagram follow clay haze hunter find this post once you find that you can tag a buddy that needs a good pair of binoculars that'll put you in the running for the binoculars and we will announce the winner after the September elk season so sometime in October I'm gonna be uploading some elk hunting videos so you won't want to that and stay tuned to both YouTube and Instagram for the results of the giveaway with that good luck this September and we'll see you next time

Channel: Clay Hayes

Views: 16,846

Rating: 4.9277654 out of 5

Keywords: hunting binoculars, best hunting binoculars, hunting, vortex, vortex optics, clay hayes, field of view, magnification, low light, budget, binoculars, glassing, deer, elk, elk hunting, performance, low light performance, 8x, 10x, 12x, razor hd binoculars, bowhunting, archer, best binoculars, best binoculars for hunting, bow hunting, deer hunting, hunting (interest)

Id: cul3a7bzgb4

Length: 11min 19sec (679 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019