by Johan Koolwaaij

My Binoculars

The other day I found some binoculars that I like. They are the 8×42 waterproof, long eye relief, BaK4, multi-coated  binoculars by Alpen. They are easy to handle and carry well.

They are not red, as my wife would like, but their green color goes well with the outdoors. Sometimes I wonder if my wife wants everything in life to be red. Somehow it has become thee color for items in her life and our house. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife and she can have things whatever color she wants. Lately it just happens to be red. But as I said binoculars do not generally come in red.

Somehow I will be able to get over the pressure and live with the green binoculars. The nice thing is that they are waterproof. Sometimes I just can’t resist taking them out in the wet snow or rainy weather. And almost always they get wet or dropped in the snow or water.  Not that I am really clumsy but I just seem to mislay things a lot. Anyway accidents happen.

The other thing I like about them is that they are easy to use. The focus wheel is in the middle and with just a slight turning, things come into focus even if they are nearly 1,000 feet away. Wow, it always amazes me.  Sometimes I am in a hurry and need to focus quickly. They work for that. I love to watch birds and big horn sheep in the area. It is fun to catch animals in their natural habitat doing their thing. We have big horn sheep in the hills up by the Grand Canyon near us. They are fairly shy when it comes to humans around so the magnification of 8x focus helps get them up close.

Even if the animals move around I can still watch them because the 42mm lens is large enough to keep an eye on them. A bigger lens might help more, but they get to be larger and heavy and need a tripod or rock resting place to steady them. So for now I will stick with the one I like. It has multi-coated lens so the picture is not so distorted by the sun light. This helps tremendously.  I always suggest that you get a pair of binoculars that have some good quality lens coating. Thank goodness most of the modern binoculars have quality lens coatings.

I have also found that these 42mm lenses are still good when the Sun starts to go down. They still provide a measure of light for viewing until it really gets dark. Of course I know that the larger the lens the more light gets in and that most night vision binoculars have 50mm or larger lenses. But for my purpose these 42mm lenses do just fine. I am rarely out late at night. Only on an occasion do I want to see the stars.

Thank goodness the 8×42 waterproof, long eye relief, BaK4, multi-coated  binoculars by Alpen, can be operated without batteries. Some more fancy digital models require batteries to have things work. I personally forget to bring extra batteries when I take trips. So these binoculars that don’t require batteries are just fine with me. Heck, I forget batteries for my camera also.  I know, I am a hopeless case, but who cares, it doesn’t bother me. I sometimes even forget the camera.

All in all, the best way to enjoy nature seem to me is to just take a few moments and observe the birds and animals as you pass through life. That is why I so like my binoculars. They help me be a witness without disturbing things so much. By the way, maybe someday I will see you out taking a look also. The best to you and your viewing pleasure with a great pair of binoculars.

Roger Johnson

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