There are many different ways that you can carry your binoculars. A lot of people assume that carrying them by hand is the only option, but they are mistaken. There are tons of binocular accessories that can help you carry them around far more comfortably than you can by hand. Here is a quick list of the most popular methods of carrying binoculars.

The Best and Worst Ways to Carry Your Binoculars

1. By Hand: You can always carry your binoculars in your hand. While popular, this probably isn’t the best way. When carrying them in your hand, you run the chance of dropping them or scratching the lenses. This is never a good thing. If you are carrying them in your hand, maybe consider putting some lens caps over the lenses. This will cut down on the chances of having your lenses scratched, although it will do nothing about dropping them.

2. Neck Strap: The trusted neck strap is one of the most popular ways to carry binoculars. A neck strap is cheap, but if you are carrying around your binoculars for long stretches of time, you run the risk of your neck becoming tired. While the neck strap is probably not the best way to carry around binoculars, it’s way better than carrying them by hand.

3. Harness: The harness is a good way to carry your binoculars. This handy device straps to your chest and your binoculars are then strapped to it. This means that the binoculars are always in easy reach, and your neck won’t get tired, like it would with the neck strap.

4. In A Case: They make several different types of cases. There are soft cases made of leather and other materials and there are hard cases made out of things like metal or wood. It’s far better to carry your binoculars in a hard case, because it limits the chances of damaging your binoculars. If all you have is a soft case, it’s better than carrying them by hand.

5. Binocular Strap: Binocular straps looks similar to a purse. The straps go around your waist and over one shoulder. The binoculars themselves are held in a pouch that sits near the small of your back. Women like this type of harness, as well as bow hunters because it keeps your chest free of obstructions.

6. On A Helmet: Some military and hunting binoculars are small enough that they can be strapped to a helmet making them popular because they can be stored out of the way.

7. Floater Carrying Strap: They now make a neck strap that is equipped with a floatation device. This accessory is very useful with marine binoculars, boaters or people out on the water. But, like the neck strap, your neck may get tired and the added weight of the floatation device doesn’t help this much.

8. Mount: You can mount your binoculars in your car, boat or anywhere else you may use them. That way, you don’t have to really carry them at all, but instead let the inanimate object do the carrying for you. They even make car window mounts!

9. Back Pack: Many people put their binoculars in their backpack. This isn’t a good way to carry them. If they aren’t in a case, they may get damaged. If they are in a case, they aren’t in easy reach. By the time you get them out of your backpack, whatever it is that piqued your interest may have moved or is gone.

Well, we’ve covered the question of how to carry your binoculars. We’ve listed some of the best and worst ways of doing it. How to carry your binoculars is totally up to you, but how you do it could affect how successful you are with your binoculars.

As I scan the hillside roughly 3 miles away I notice movement to the right of the spotting scope.
After returning from my Eastern Oregon Elk hunts I reflect back to the reasons we had success? I can honestly say that the use of quality optics was the number one reason for the number of elk we had the oppurtunity to hunt.
I just recently purchased the new Leupold gold ring spotting scope and also the 10×42 gold ring bino’s, I can honestly say that 4-5 hours a day were spent peering though those fine optics. I know it is hard to keep looking through optics when you have not seen anything, On one day I spent 4 hours glassing the same distant slope that I saw elk on the previous day, after that time if you had not known the Elk were there the night before it would be hard to keep at it.
Some of the tricks that helped me were not looking for whole bodies of Elk but little bits of them. Legs,horns or just a flash of hide to give away there presence.
Have faith in your ability and keep the glasses to your eyes.

Binoculars are wonderful pieces of equipment that can enhance many of our daily activities including, birding, action sports, hunting, and even astronomy. Essentially binoculars take a distant image, enlarge it through the use of lenses for viewing, all while remaining small and light enough to be mobile.

The actual makeup of most binoculars is fairly straightforward and simple. You have the lenses at the end of the barrel called the objective lens that gathers the light from the distant image and focuses it on the lens closest to your eyes for viewing. Binoculars are really two small telescopes put side by side so that you can view the desired image with both eyes instead of just one. This imparts some measure of depth of field, much more so than with a single scope.

When selecting a pair of binoculars you will immediately find that two numbers are used to describe their capability. These numbers are often expressed as “6 X 30″ or something similar. Let’s break the code so you will know what these numbers mean.

The first number refers to the magnification power of the binoculars, or in other words how many times the image is magnified. So if the number is 6, that means that the image that you view through the lens is magnified 6 times it’s normal siZe.

The second number has to do with the size of the objective lens at the end of the binoculars.It’s good to know this number because the larger the diameter of the objective lens, usually the more light will be let in for viewing the distant image.

Now, let’s put this information in use in the real world. You may think that it’s best to just get the highest magnification that you can get for binoculars, but this is not true. At some point, hand holding the binoculars will affect the clarity of a highly magnified image and the resulting shake will render the magnification benefits useless. Generally speaking, anything above ten times magnification should be mounted on a tripod instead of handheld. So if you are planning to use binoculars for activities that do not allow you to be able to bring along a sturdy tripod, you probably want to stay with a pair of binoculars with 4 -7 times magnification.

As far as light gathering properties are concerned, if you plan on using your binoculars in any kind of low light situation whether indoors, or at times of day when there is low available light outdoors, then you need to have a large objective lens, usually 30 or above, to make as much use of available light as possible.

Finally, consider the weight of the binoculars before buying them. If weight will be a consideration for activities such as hiking, then perhaps plastic lenses will be best that are specially coated to produce a high quality, sharp image. These can be more costly than glass lenses, but they are considerably lighter. Glass lenses usually make for much better optics and clearer images at a lower overall cost, but they can also be more fragile.

Generally speaking, more expensive pairs of binoculars have more atention paid to fit and finish and will stand up to more vigorous use, but if you only plan to occasionally use your binoculars, then a less expensive pair will no doubt work fine. Also, remember that after the purchase you should be sure to protect your investment with a suitable binoculars case.

Outdoor enthusiasts love to guess about all sorts of things. We guess how many stars are in the Milky Way, we guess how fast a deer runs or we might even guess about how long it will be until that big, dark cloud dumps rain us. But there are times when guessing in the backcountry just doesn’t get the job done. Specialty gear is available to help us determine how far we’ve hiked — and in what direction — and other tools are available to help take the guesswork out of purifying water. But there is a another useful tool overlooked by many avid backcountry visitors — the rangefinder.

Rangefinders are used in a number of commercial applications — surveying, mapping, mining, etc. — however for our purposes we will be discussing the portable laser rangefinder used by outdoor sportsmen and sportswomen.

Laser rangefinders calculate the distance to an object by bouncing a laser beam off of the object and measuring the lapsed time until the beam returns. Since the calculation is based upon the return of the beam, it stands to reason that a more reflective object can be measured at a greater distance than a less reflective object. Readily available models are accurate to within one yard and have the ability to measure distances to reflective targets up to 1500 yards away — that’s nearly a mile — and they’re accurate under nearly any condition.

The past few years have seen a number of technology advances across all rangefinder price ranges. Many models are lightweight, are easily operated with one hand, can measure through rain or snow, can see through nearby clutter, function well in low light, contain integrated optical magnification and are 100% waterproof. Additionally there have been vast improvements lately to lens coatings, battery life and information display.

If distances are important to your activity, you need a rangefinder. Backcountry features — rocks, trees, lakes, mountains, ravines, cliffs — have a tendency to distort one’s depth perception. It is easy to misjudge even short distances. The most widely used application of rangefinders is in measuring shot distances by hunters. Whether you are hunting waterfowl or elk, distance to your game is the most critical factor in placing an effective shot. Bow hunters would never hunt without their rangefinder, the difference between 45 yards and 50 yards for a bow hunter is the difference between success and failure. Rangefinders are also used by golfers for determining club selection, by hikers to determine the best route to travel and by campers, boaters and wildlife observers for a wide variety of distance measuring purposes.

The next time you plan to spend time in our wondrous backcountry consider taking a rangefinder along with you. If you’ve never looked through a rangefinder, you don’t know what you’re missing. With a quality rangefinder, guessing distances just became old news. Use this information and you’ll Get It Right The First Time.

Get Outdoors!

Many nights in the backcountry are far from dark. A bright moon and a sky full of stars can throw off enough light to allow for reading a book, but add cloud cover, mountains or trees and it gets dark awfully fast. When you need to see in the dark, you have two choices — you either turn on a light, or use one of the many available night vision devices (NVD). The NVD could be the ultimate backcountry toy.

Like choosing many other types of technology, choosing the correct NVD is all about how you are going to use it. When most people think of night vision capabilities, they think about spy movies, the military or law enforcement — applications where it is vital for the good guys to see without being seen by the bad guys. A drop in pricing over the past few years has made a NVD affordable for campers, hunters, hikers and a wide variety of other outdoor enthusiasts. However, high-end devices used for specialized purposes remain quite expensive.

There are two broad categories of NVD. Image Enhancement devices collect small amounts of light and amplify them to the point where the human eye can observe the object. Thermal Imaging devices capture the high end of the infrared light spectrum which is emitted as heat by objects. Image Enhancement devices will provide a much crisper image with detail while Thermal Imaging devices show regions of heat. Currently, five Generations of NVD exist. Generations 0 and 1 are less expensive and typically produce a poor image quality. Generations 2, 3 and 4 have increasingly better image quality and an equally increasing price to match.

Applications for NVD are actually quite diverse. They include but are not limited to: military, law enforcement, hunting, wildlife observation, surveillance, security, navigation, hidden-object detection, spelunking and entertainment. NVD can be found on helicopters, rifles, camcorders, cameras, boats…just about anywhere. A new craze found at up-scale gatherings is called “A Dinner in the Dark Party” where guests wear an NVD throughout their dining experience.

Many outdoor enthusiasts are beginning to discover the wonderful world that can be found after darkness falls in the backcountry. If you like to camp, hike or hunt, chances are good an NVD will be perfect for you. Use this information and you’ll Get It Right The First Time.

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We are asked nearly every day: “What are your best binoculars?” And every day we answer: “How do you plan on using them?” We are not trying to be evasive with our answer, but the truth of the matter is — the best binoculars for one purpose may be the worse binoculars for another. We want you to Get It Right The First Time.

Understanding your application is paramount in determining the best fit — for you. Although there are many other specifications and qualities which determine the usefulness of binoculars, we will discuss in this article the primary characteristics for determining the best fit for your application. But before we show you the list, we should go over some basic terminology.

What do the numbers on binoculars mean? All sporting optics (binoculars, spotting scopes, night vision goggles, etc.) use the same nomenclature to describe important features. As an example, a pair of binoculars may have 10×42mm listed as a technical specification. But what does this mean? The “10″ refers to the magnification power of the binoculars — that is — objects viewed will appear to be 10 times closer than when they are viewed by the naked eye. The second number in our example is “42mm.” This refers to the diameter, in millimeters, of the objective lenses on the binoculars. The objective lenses are located on the end of the binoculars furthest away from your eye when viewing. As with the aperture of a camera lens, the size of objective lens determines the amount of light that can enter your binoculars. If your binoculars are going to be used during low light (hunting and astronomy are good examples) you had better have large objective lenses.

Another important number describing binoculars is called field-of-view. A field-of-view of 390′ indicates that the width of the sight picture is 390 feet at a distance of 1000 yards. Field-of-view is determined by magnification and the focal lengths of the objective and eyepiece lenses. More magnification always means less field-of-view. This specification is sometimes expressed in degrees. A field-of-view of 6.5 degrees equates to 341′ (6.5 times 52.5 equals 341).

How well your binoculars will serve you in low light conditions is described as Twilight Performance. Although many things, such as overall design and quality of glass impact this specification, magnification and objective lens diameter are the chief components. A quick way to determine the Twilight Performance of binoculars is to multiply the magnification power (first number) times the objective lens diameter (second number). The higher the result, the better the Twilight Performance. As an example, 10×42mm binoculars will have better Twilight Performance than 8×50mm binoculars (420 versus 400).

Now that we understand some basic terminology, here is “What to Know When Buying Binoculars.”

While compact binoculars weigh as little as a pound, by using them you will undoubtedly sacrifice performance. If performance is your main consideration, full sized binoculars are preferred. Anything weighing over about 1.5 pounds will get heavy fairly fast. Use a binocular support system to evenly distribute the weight across your shoulders instead of using a strap around your neck.

The amount of light available while using your binoculars will determine -more than any other consideration — which binoculars are best for you. Low light uses such as hunting, birding and astronomy require larger objective lenses.

The distance you will be from the object you view will determine the magnification power required in a pair of binoculars. If your application is bird watching, theater or sporting events, a low powered binocular will suffice in most cases. But if you’re into astronomy, you’ll need a high powered pair.

The minimum focal point in binocular terminology refers to how near an object can be to you and be still be viewed in focus. This tends to be important for birding but not so important for most other uses.

Binoculars with a magnification power greater than 10x (and without a stability feature) will be difficult to hold steady. This becomes important when viewing the night sky or distant mountains. A tripod may be a good thing to have if you’re using binoculars with high magnification.

Using your binoculars outdoors will usually subject them to moisture. Waterproof binoculars are preferred for all marine, hunting, birding and other nature related activities.

The greater the magnification, the narrower the field-of-view. If field-of-view is important to you, don’t purchase the most powerful binoculars you can find. This becomes very important when viewing objects that move quickly such as antelope, race horses, shooting stars or race cars.

As with almost everything else in life, with binoculars you get what you pay for. There are binoculars that cost under $10 and others which cost in excess of $2,500. My experience says you will need to spend at least $250 for a pair of binoculars worth having.

There is no such thing as “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to sporting optics. If you have multiple uses for binoculars, you will most likely end up with multiple pairs of them — and that’s O.K.

Your understanding of these few simple tips will not only help you in acquiring the correct binoculars for your application, but they will also help you with successful viewing — no matter what you’re looking at. Use this information and you’ll Get It Right The First Time.

Get Outdoors!