Features of High Quality Binoculars

Most people buying binoculars for the first time can easily get confused especially when they encounter two pairs that look almost the same and they wonder whether there could be any differences. When it comes to binoculars, you cannot depend on what you see; you cannot tell whether they are exactly alike in all ways by simply looking. Don’t let any sales person tell you they are the same with what you are looking for based on the way they look alone. You need to know more than just outside appearances for you to be able to tell one pair from another because they are often not the same.

There are several things that are very important features in any binocular that can be done differently during the manufacturing process that could make the whole difference. A good example has to do with coatings. One manufacturer produces a binocular that is fully multi coated while another one will not; you cannot tell the difference between the two by just looking at the lenses. While some will produce lenses using fast machine polishes another one will use slow precision polishing that is supposed to produce higher quality lenses of correct thickness. These are small differences that you cannot tell by just looking but when it comes to performance, the difference will be as clear as the difference between day and night.

Shortcuts: Binoculars are high quality optical instruments where shortcuts during manufacturing will definitely result in a product of dubious quality that will definitely be cheaper. There are manufacturers who are sometimes in a hurry to deliver an order; they can take prisms from the shelf and install them directly without necessarily taking them through processes such as coating machines and quality inspection. While they could have saved time; such a process will result in what may look like an affordable product but it will fall short when it comes to performance.

Coatings: There are always between 12 and 18 glass surfaces on any binocular; this include 2 or 3 lenses for the objective, 2 prisms and 3 or 4 lenses in the eye pieces. There are manufacturers who multi coat only one lens and they will tell you that you are buying a multi coated lens binocular. If you ever bought what looked like a multi coated lens binocular but whose performance was clearly below par, there are chances that it came from an unscrupulous manufacturer.

Uncoated or single coated prisms or lenses will have an effect on the total transmission and allow too much light to get reflected right inside the binocular; this is what normally causes reduced image contrast or ghost images. Fully multi coated binoculars have multi coatings on all lenses. What this means therefore is that you must always buy your binoculars from reputable sources if you are to get a guarantee that no short cuts were used by the manufacturer.

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