What features do binoculars for hunting need?

Any hunter who has spent much time in a deer stand, climbing the Rockies searching for elk, or even calling turkeys in a spring forest is aware that using binoculars can improve the odds of success as well as simply increase the enjoyment of the outdoor experience. Properly using binoculars will open your eyes to animals and scenery you may have never noticed otherwise. A good pair of binoculars can be a lifetime purchase, and will provide you years of pleasure.

Binocular Price and Value
Some of the best values for today’s hunter exist in the mid-priced roof prism binoculars. These are the binoculars that will do the best job for most hunters. Waterproofing should be a must in hunting binoculars, and most of the mid-priced roof prism binoculars offer this feature.

Note: While you can buy sharper binoculars in a similarly priced Porro prism binocular, their fragility, bulkiness and common lack of waterproofing will most often rule them out.

• Top-of-the-line Binocular Features
  Binoculars with features such as phase correction (coatings that improve brightness, color and resolution), heavy rubber armor, rugged assembly, and nitrogen purging were formerly available only in high priced European optics. Now you can purchase binoculars with these features in the $300-$500 range.
• Roof Prism Binoculars Under $300
  There are a few decent roof prism binoculars under $300, but you may have to sacrifice desirable features like the phase correction coatings, an internal focus mechanism, or the waterproof protection of a nitrogen purged binocular.
• $50-$150 Binoculars
  Buying binoculars in the $50-$150 range will limit you to the Porro prism binoculars. These binoculars will still give you nice sharp optics, but you'll have to accept the fact that the binoculars will probably not be waterproof and will be relatively fragile.

Compact Binoculars
Most hunters will be best served by purchasing full- or mid-size binoculars rather than the small compact binoculars that use 20-25 mm objective lenses. There is nothing wrong with owning a small compact binocular, but it should not be your primary hunting binocular.

Zoom Binoculars
Most hunters will want to stay away from the zoom type binoculars. Although the idea of quickly zooming from near focus to infinity is appealing, in real life this doesn't work all that well. Most zoom binoculars are almost impossible to hold steady at higher magnifications. These binoculars are somewhat fragile and have extremely narrow fields of view (relative to a similarly priced fixed power binoculars).

Individual Focus Binoculars
Some Porro prism binoculars on the market are only available with an individual eyepiece focus mechanism where each eyepiece is focused separately. These binoculars are not as versatile as a center focus binocular (which uses one center knob to quickly focus both eyepieces simultaneously), but will work fine if you do most of your viewing at a single distance.


More about choosing binoculars.




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