Let me preface this post by saying I am an optics novice and in 30 years of hunting I had never used binoculars the last two years I changed it up and my son and I have been using VERY low end bushnells one insta focus 7x35 and a 42 dollar pair of roof prisms in 10x42 my wife bought me. Last year we did the high hunt and after 4 days of hard glassing my head was going to explode and my eyes were dying.
I decided that this year I was going to upgrade binoculars. Having 5 kids my budget I decided on was no more then 400 dollars. I spent the last three month researching reading reviews checking comparisons looking up prices and looking through binoculars at cabelas. My results left me with a lot of options and I was surprised to find how many nice binoculars couldbe had for under 400 bucks. these include in no particular order vortex diamondbacks 189.00, bushnell legend hd 139.00, carson 3d 191.00, vanguard endeavor hd 149.00, Nikon monarchs in a variety of shapes and sizes from 200 to 400, misc leupolds from 200, zeiss terras 300, and a number of others including the Zen Ray ed3 around 30.00 more then my budget.
Finding the lowest prices I found was almost as much work as researching the decision on which to buy. Prices varied up to 300 dollars on the exact same pair of binoculars. A number of retailers stood out on getting the lowest price on any particular brand. B&H camera online was a good source and best price on the terras. EBAY also had some good deals. Amazon was the winner for retail deals as I found diamondbacks for 189.00 the endeavors for 139.00 for 10x42 and 149 for 8x42 that is a lot off a set that retails for 300-400. Funny enough the deal I took was through cabelas that story in a moment.
In deciding on which binoculars to buy I read scientific reviews and subjective reviews from birding websites hunting websites and retailer reviews. Not surprisingly I found one mans treasure was another mans trash. overwhelmingly vortex won out on hunting websites and most reviews stated the warrenty as reason instead of optically. Birding websites really get into their binoculars and I found them very technical and informative. I really liked the comparative reviews especially head to head though again a lot of that was subjective such as fit and feel and ergonomics. I made several trips to cabelas and looked through most of their glass high and low end including the bushnell legend hd, vortex diamondback, all of the leupolds,and Nikon lines, also Swarovski which made me feel like I do when I see someone driving a hundred thousand dollar car.
On my third visit to the Tulalip cabelas the man working the counter turned out to be an optics expert who does online reviews for a birdwatching site. I had gone back because I decided I was going to choose between the vortex diamondback and the bushnell legend hd. I wanted to put them side by side and spend an hour deciding then order off amazon beacause their prices beat cabelas by 15-40% on these two brands.
After 15 min the guy at the counter tells me between those two he would take the vortex because of their no fault warranty; But if he couldmake a suggestion compare those to this binocular putting it on the counter. He stated that these were on sale and within ten bucks of what I was looking at after five minutes of looking I was convinced that they were indeed clearer brighter and felt more solid. This was the cabelas XTii model for 239.00 regular 409.00.
Well I am not one to just jump on the band wagon so I took my leave and went home and spent another week researching.
Xtii made by Nikon they used the monarch 7 as a baseline and improved on it from there. Great reviews descent field of view great eye relief low chromatic aberration solidly built backed by cabelas. hmmmm.
The kicker was when I found 10x42 camo xtii on sale for 219.00 on their website 20 bucks cheaper then the blacks in store and they came with a free pair of small binoculars.
So I went back to the store ad in hand to get them to honor this deal as it did not say online only.Low and behold where once sat three pairs of what I wanted they were sold out. I asked them about the deal and they were confused no one knew anything about it and the only mini binoculars they have in stock in the store are the Alaskan guide series which are 300.
I decided I would take a day to think about it and then order them online. Well the next day my work took me south as in very close to lacey I just had to stop and see if they had them in stock.
THEY DID!! and after an hours gentle persuasion 6 managers and the store general manager I got my binoculars and my free pair of ala'sskan guide 300 dollar 10x28 though I did not get them for free the boss said I had to pay a penny. I walked away with a big smile on my face.
the xtii cabelas brand is a good deal I cannot say I got the best glass there is but it is a step up and patience will get you what you need while not always being able to afford what you want.
In closing I would like to say I never got to look through the vanguard endeavors the carsons or zen rays but if that deal would not have gone through at cabelas I was leaning towards the vanguards 159.00 for 400 dollar ed glass that gets a ton of good reviews is one heck of a deal and their warrenty on that line is no fault also.
SIDE NOTE I got the cabelas xtii 10 x42's DONT TELL MY WIFE im also going to order the vanguard endeavors in 8x42,s three pairs of good binoculars 400.oo that's within my budget,
So ad in hand I went
