I have those 10x30 Canon image stabilized binoculars and love them. Everybody who borrows them is surprised at how great they are. That is, for daytime viewing. I haven’t really liked them for astronomy (what I bought them for) but it turns out I don’t do much of that, opting instead to go hiking and look at things from on high.
My experience says that hand-held binocs should be a maximum of 8x. Many people go with 10x, but I think that this combines with normal hand shake to yield lower performance as compared to 8x.
The best test of any optics is to view stars on a dark night: they should show as a tiny, unfuzzy, white point.
Zoom sounds like a nice thing, but it tends to add weight & cost, and to detract from optical quality. Few serious users stick with zoom.
If you can afford it, image stabilization (Canon; Fujinon) is wonderful. These binocs tend to be heavy, bulky & expensive, but they let you see things better than any others. You can use 15x hand held. Biggest drawback: once you’ve used them, you won’t be happy with unstabilized optics.
That is absolutely true. I have the old Canon 8x25 IS binoculars, and I can hardly use my Orion 8x56 Mini Giants anymore, which while optically excellent, aren’t stabilized.
Another vote for a spotting scope, a lot of them come with tripod, and the prices are OK, many have mounts for iPhone picture taking.
If it was my money I’d pick up a pair of these in a heartbeat. I live near the Pacific ocean and I know several fishermen and boat operators that swear by these and scour ebay for good deals on them. More modern versions exist, but for the for the quality the prices are usually hard to beat.
Maybe it has good mechanical build quality and durability, but there have been a lot of advances in optical design & lens fabrication since those were built. E.g. you can tell from the shiny white reflections that the lens has no anti-reflection coating.
Reported.