Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics leupold katmai bino's

I had a pair of leupold katmai bino's and somehow lost them when I recently moved. Should I get another pair or is there something comparable in that price range that would be better?

I'm going to jump in on this with a minor thread derail-

Now that the design has been around for quite a while, is there an off-brand katmai available? The price of really quite good optics has been coming down yet Katmais are relatively expensive.

Any other micro sized 6x32's out there?

Also, is it true the katmais are Bak7 glass and not Bak4?

Actually, I am not sure the Yosemite 6x30's aren't just about as good at much cheaper pricing.

Big fan of the yo's but they are a little bigger. Not a ton, but I cant fit the Yo's in a jacket pocket. MAYBE the katmai's could?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v111/blackbear11784/fourbinos.jpg

My Minox 8x32 BL's are much better than the Katmai 8x32's I had.

I own both Katmai 8X32 and Yosemite 6X30's. The Katmai are only 1 oz lighter, but are much more compact. I've found the Yosemite to be ever so slightly better optically and in low light. Close enough for all practical purposes to call a tie. Not bad for $80 binoculars. The Yosemite in 8X30 would be a more fair comparison and I'd bet the Katmai would be slightly better.

When I bought my Katmai I felt they were the best compromise between size, price and quality at that time. Anything smaller just did not work unless it was much more expensive. Only time will tell but the Katmai feel more ruggedly constructed than the Yosemite and I feel they may hold up better to long term rough field use. But if you want to get a good pair of binoculars for under $100 the Yosemite can't be beat.

I own both the Leupold Yosemite 6X30 and the Katmai 6X32. You really don't even have to stack them, as we do with the expensive binoculars, to see the difference. The Katmai is sharper.
They are amazingly compact. I have yet to see anything of like size with their performance. They work alot better at the longer ranges than the Zeiss 8X20, for instance, when used standing.
All that said, the Yosemite 6X30 rides flatter on the chest and works alot better than anything I've ever used in that price range. They aren't very far apart. The only place I see a practical difference is at the longer ranges like a 1/2 mile or more. But, at that distance, you really ought to be using an 8x32. E

My sentiments pretty much exactly. I wanted a 6x30 to go with a selection of several others ranging from big eyes to truly compact - I wanted something for deep woods to play with the planes - maybe looking for animals at the edges; something with low power and close focus for extra duty in urban arboretums and gardens. Maybe to hand to a novice by Campfire standards user to see the rabbit ears of a bedded deer. Walking around with money in my pocket I found no big box stocking dealers with a selection of lower power binoculars for a stacked comparison. I formed the opinion that I could beat the optical quality of the Katmai 6x30 by a little for a little more money but not enough to matter either way for my purposes. It's not going to be deep sky photography or glassing for details as far as I could see from the top of the mountain. When I ran into a deal as good as it gets on the Katmai I bought them - wouldn't have been too much lost if I rented them for a few weeks and turned them over but I kept them.

Just as buying computers it's always possible to get a little better for the same money or the same quality for a little less money but the Katmai are plenty good enough and cheap enough and small enough to ride and hide under the center armrest in the truck.

Mine go everwhere with me, it will be very hard to go back to a larger bino...perhaps someday I will own a nice Leica or Swaro in 8 or 10x if I feel the need for more X's and better glass.

Are we talking about the 6x30 or 8x30 version of the Katmai?

If it is the 6x30 then I would agree that there aren't any competitors that are as compact with similar optical performance. There are other 6x30 roofs available now but they are physically larger and heavier. The Yosemites are comparable optically but at an expense to compactness because of the porro design.

On a related note, I did recently try the Meopta Meostar 6.5x32 and was impressed with the level of contrast and the size of the sweet spot.

They were the 10X model.

On that note may I suggest the Sightron SII Blue Sky 32 mm model? I have the 8x32 and have posted a review of it here....

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=211793

It has garnered quite a bit of interest. For the price, and notably more, I have not found a binocular that betters it optically nor as a "total package".

Frank, how does that Sightron compare to the Nikon SE in low light situations?

Very well. The SE is a shade better as I am sure the light transmission number for the porro is slightly better than that of the roof. I am guessing the Sightron utilizes either a dielectric or silver coating on the prism though I cannot find confirmation one way or the other anywhere.

The beauty of the Sightron in low light is its color representation. It is slightly warm (red) so therefore I tend to be able to see greater color detail in that area of the spectrum (red, brown, purple). From a hunting perspective I think the benefits would be fairly obvious. I used them recently to observe both whitetails and a red fox. Because of the slightly warm bias and excellent contrast the animals seemed to "pop out" of their surroundings.