Caladan I would like your opinion. My wife and I are moving into our new home on the coast and I want to get something good to see across the bay from the back of our house. There are two spoil islands from a boat canal and the ICW were cut that get a lot of birds and then the bay beyond. The IWC island is about half a mile from our back patio. I don't want a 3' telescope and also don't necessarily want a big pair of binos either. I have a pair of NL Pure 12x42 that I use for hunting, but honestly I have a tough time free handing them to be able to really observe what I am looking at closely. Not opposed to a dual eyepiece on a spotting scope (but do not want to pay Swarovski prices to look at birds and barges going by either). Any ideas?

https://www.swarovskioptik.com/us/en/birding/products/spotting-scopes/atx-stx-btx

Incredible optic. My guide in Nevada used his to video 380-400" elk 2-3 miles away via the phone adapter.

Pricey but worth it.

Good suggestion, I don't think my wife will go for it though and I don't want to constantly be pulling them out of the closet to see something that will most likely be gone by the time I get them setup. I think my wife will let a nice small telescope/spotting scope slide because of aesthetics compared to binos on a tripod.

AnScAggie said:

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Good suggestion, I don't think my wife will go for it though and I don't want to constantly be pulling them out of the closet to see something that will most likely be gone by the time I get them setup. I think my wife will let a nice small telescope/spotting scope slide because of aesthetics compared to binos on a tripod.

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The easiest way to knock out the problem would be to just get a very good tripod and a decent spotting scope. It wouldn't take a huge amount of money to do this. The issue for me however is that I don't really care to view with one eye for long periods of time. A spotting scope with two oculars would be the best solution, however I don't know of any good ones besides the Swarovski mentioned above, and that you have already stated you don't want to buy (I don't blame you - that's a huge chunk of change).

The better way to go would be the large and very high-power astronomic binoculars, but you have stated that your wife wouldn't go for that sort of thing. But another way to get high power and two-eyed (binocular) viewing would be a set of high-power image-stabilized binos. Fujinon and Canon are the most famous of these. A Canon 18x50 would not take up any floorspace such as a tripod, and you can leave it sitting on a shelf in your viewing room, where it would be almost instantly deployable. These would also be good for astronomical viewing too.

TLDR version:
Tripod/spotting scope -- easiest to do, but takes up a fair amount of space, not as comfortable for long periods of use, and you can't scrimp on the tripod.

Tripod/large binos - more comfortable than spotting scope and probably the most bang for the buck in your use case, but wife doesn't want.

Stabilized binos - most space-efficient, easiest to use, quickest to deploy, easiest to transport to other places

hth,
C

Thank you C. I really would want to do what you and TX Cowdoc suggested and get the double ocular Swarovski spotting score but my wife would get the best use of them from checking the spot she dumped me in the water to make sure she weighted my body down enough not to resurface. If you had $2k or less to spend which stabilized binos would you suggest?

AnScAggie said:

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Thank you C. I really would want to do what you and TX Cowdoc suggested and get the double ocular Swarovski spotting score but my wife would get the best use of them from checking the spot she dumped me in the water to make sure she weighted my body down enough not to resurface. If you had $2k or less to spend which stabilized binos would you suggest?

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Canon and Fujinon have been making IS binos the longest, and as I have used a Canon 10x42 L-series for a number of years, I would go with Canon, specifically the 18x50. I just went to the BH Photo website to look at these things and found out that there are a few other makers of these things that I did not know about. It looks like Sig also makes an 18x50 too, so that one might be worth investigating. I've not used an IS Sig so I can't tell you anything about them, but I do have Fujinon and Canon IS binos and they work pretty well. But, regular Sig binos are pretty decent, so I have a feeling their IS products will be pretty good as well.

You might be tempted to get a high-power IS bino with a smaller objective lens, but I would not recommend that. You really want the 50mm's with that high a magnification. 50mm will also be really useful if you decide to do some astronomical viewing as well.

C

Gracias, you truly are a wealth of knowledge in this area (along with others on this board). I'm going with the Canon 18x50, I will report back when I get them and have some experience with them.

AnScAggie said:

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Gracias, you truly are a wealth of knowledge in this area (along with others on this board). I'm going with the Canon 18x50, I will report back when I get them and have some experience with them.

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Thanks, and definitely report back. I've always been interested in the 18x, but since I already have two IS binos, I just never felt great need to pull the trigger on one.

C

Now that that's settled do you have a current rec for 10x50 stand/truck binocs? A couple years ago I got the vortex viper HD for my mom on your recommendation and they're awesome, this will be a Xmas present for my father in law

What about a tripod, spotting scope and phone adapter? I bought a used phone off ebay and just leave it in my adaptor in my scope in the living room to look at stuff from my porch.