Binoculars Brightness, Magnification, Stability, Field of View & How they are all connected.
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Video Transcript
today i'm going to talk about magnification and how a binoculars power (magnification) will impact your experience whilst using it.
Please note: For the purpose of this video I’ll be using the terms power and magnification interchangeably.
The Binocular
Before I get started let's take a quick tour of a binocular:
Objective Lens
At the front of the binocular you have the objective lens and that's the lens that collects light to be sent through the binocular and out through the ocular lens:
Ocular Lens
This is the lens that actually magnifies the image and thus will be the main focus of my attention today.
Size
When considering a binocular and thinking about magnification it's important to note that the physical dimensions of the binocular have nothing to do with its magnification.
Here are two binoculars of different sizes but they both have
the same magnification in this case 8x power.
How to know what the Binoculars Magnification is
A binocular will almost always have the magnification (the number that precedes an x) displayed somewhere on the binocular. This is often but not always indicated on the rear face of the focus wheel
This example is an 8 x 42 with that first number referring to the binoculars magnification this means you're seeing
the object 8 times closer than you would with the unaided eye
The second number, 42 refers to the size of the objective lens
What the Magnification Does
By increasing the magnification, you get more image detail, or to put it another way, high powered binoculars potentially offer you a more detailed view of your subject than lower powered ones.
However there are a number of tradeoffs associated with this increase in power:
Field of View
This is how you'd see a bird at zero magnification (how you'd see it with the naked eye)
You can see a wide field of view and a lot of things around it like that tree to the right and that birdhouse the left
8x Power
Let's now look at the same bird with 8x power binoculars
Notice the field of view is narrower and because of this you can no longer see the tree to the right, but at 8 power you can
still see the birdhouse
10x Power
Let's see what it would look like if we increase the
magnification again, here we are at 10x
Magnification:
Although you can see the bird even closer and with potentially more detail, you can no longer see the
tree or the birdhouse
So remember that when you increase the power of a pair of
binoculars your field of view is going to decrease.
So although you can see the object closer with more detail, a higher power binocular will have a more restrictive field of view which you may want to keep that in mind when you're looking for binoculars for activities like bird-watching or spectator sports where a wider field of view is really helpful
Image Stability
Another thing to consider as you increase magnification
is how it impacts image stability as you increase the binoculars power
Any movement of your upper body is going to
be magnified
For example with a lower magnification like 7x or even 8x, if the binocular isn't perfectly steady you may see some movement or bounciness of the image
But's see what happens if we add more power:
At a higher powers that same instability of the image is magnified
along with the rest of the image and so produces a more pronounced movement
This is something to consider as you look at binoculars with higher magnification you're going to need to hold them steady and you may even want to consider some sort of onboard image stability or tripod mounting them when you start heading towards 15x and over.
A good general rule of thumb is that lower power binoculars are more user-friendly for people like bird watchers and sports spectators who like a wide field-of-view as it helps them to more quickly locate the bird or on field action and then follow it.
Whereas observers of larger and usually more slowly moving wildlife and hunters prefer to get closer to their game and thus will often use 10 power binoculars or even more.
Obviously for long range observation even higher powered binoculars will be preferable - Guide to Long Distance High Powered Binoculars.
I hope this helped you understand a little bit more about how
magnification works and choosing binoculars that work best for you.
If you have any more questions about anything to do with binoculars please visit the BBR website or please feel free to subscribe to my channel for more advice, tips and reviews.
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