Galileo Binoculars?

Zooms are generally a problem. Lots of refocusing.
Galileo's are pretty good binoculars, but I would stay away from any brand zooms for birding.

Don't get these. Any 10-30x zoom binocular would be a disaster for
birdwatching. A friend recently bought a pair like this (made by Tasco)
and had to return them. At 10x they would only focus as close as about
40 feet and they were dim and optically poor. When zoomed to higher
power they were even worse.

You don't get something for nothing, and zoom binoculars have many
drawbacks. They require an additional lens which will reduce the amount
of illumination. This is particularly important when considering higher
power binoculars.

I bought a car tape player with a suggested retail price of $165 for
$25. What I got was worth about $15. These prices are really
meaningless. You are better off going with a brand name such as
Bushnell, Swift or Nikon (but not Tasco).


Joe Morlan
Albany, CA

I'm not familiar with the "Galileo" brand zooms (in fact, I've never
heard of them before). But you can expect to find a number of drawbacks
with them:

- Narrow field of vision. Typically a 10x-30x zoom will be signifcantly
narrower at 10x than a straight 10x binocular.

- Poor Depth of Field. That is the area that is in focus is likely to
be very shallow, thus requiring much more refocusing when moving from
object to object as compared to better binoculars.

- Poor close focus. Most zooms aren't designed to allow you to focus
on close objects. Some 10x models can focus as close as 11-12 feet.
But some zooms can't focus any closer than 40' or so. This can make
a BIG difference if you plan to use them in wooded or brushy areas.

- Less sharp optics. It's difficult to make a variable power, dual
optical tube system for $150.

- Weight. They will typically weigh more than a 10x.

- Eye Relief. Usually quite short in a zoom, particularly a cheaper
zoom (and don't be misled by the list price of $329. Most
binoculars sell for half or less of list. The Damark price of
$150 or so is likely the typically discounted price.) Not much of
an issue if you don't wear eyeglasses or sunglasses.

Zooms give you a lot of flexibility when it comes to magnification, but
almost always at a considerable tradeoff in optics and at above 10X, you
will likely need a tripod to be able to use them. Also at 25-30x, you'll
find that objects can be pretty dim through a cheaper 50mm lense.

If you are inclined toward a zoom then I would consider the Nikon 7-15x/35mm
or Celestron Pro 8-24x/50mm models instead of an off-brand like Galileo.
The Celestron Pro's sell for about $40 or so more, but are likely to be
much better optically (although still having all the weaknesses detailed
above, just to lesser degrees).

Dana

I was recently in the market for binocs and fooled around with some Nikon
zooms (I don't remember anything about the model number or even the
magnification range or price). It seemed like an interesting idea, and I
sort of looked at them because the salesman asked me to. Anyway, I was
pretty non-plussed by them. The biggest problem was that the different
magnifications were not co-focal (had to focus while zooming or refocus
after zooming). The unfocussing after zooming was non-trivial: they were
way out of focus both after zooming in and after zooming out.

Like camera lenses, I suppose that with enough money you can get a really
good zoom binocular, but my experience while shopping around was that you
get a superior fixed magnification binocular for the same price as a
pretty lousy zoom binocular. It's quite possible that the field levels at
the high end, but I have never seen a high end zoom binocular.

I guess my input is, don't buy them (or any binocular) sight-unseen.

db