Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics 18x Binos review

Broke my spotter about 10 days before my NZ hunt. Cabelas rebranded Athlon (junk service from both)


Long story short my oldest bro gifted me Vortex Razor UHD 18x56 the day before I flew out.

Try to keep this short and concise. Some of it relating to 18x vs a spotter and some to the UHD in particular.

Straight away im a fan for a diy backpack hunt into unknow country..

Good: you can see through and into trees/brush that you’d not be able to with 10x Binos

The uhd are bright and sharp and I can sit behind them for hours. This allowed me to glass scrubby guys and pull out animals that pards just weren’t seeing until they moved.
18x allowed us to accurately field judge a chamois buck at an estimated 1400 yards.. it effectively replaced a spotter for this trip.
The lack of bulk and weight compared to a medium size 60mm spotter was handy, and not very often was I switching off the 18x once we got setup for those 2-3 hour glassing sessions. Which is really nice. Swapping from 10x Binos to spotter is problematic at times and can be annoying to see if that blob of matagari is a bush or a scrub bull.
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The bad: for me they are unsteady offhand enough to make them tripod only.
Related to above but they need to be in the pack and you need a smaller 8 or 10x to compliment.
Truthfully, I won’t use them much for my sodak/Wyoming hunts.. 10x Binos on tripod are good enough for everything I’ll need em for.
Eyebox Wasn’t the best.. I found that interpupillary distance was critical and so was head position.
They weren’t that helpful for chamois spotting.. pulled in too tight even at that 1500 yard distance means the mind wasn’t able to accurately discern what I was seeing. I preferred 10x Binos for this. Black and white animals in a black and white landscape the mind is what is seeing animals and not so much our “eyes” picking them out

The UHD have a lot of chromatic aberration or color fringing. Not that great in a contrast ridden and snowy landscape. Whereas my meopta meostars and unreal. Not as bright but man they are top of the heap for tahr and chamois hunting.

18x doesn’t get you off the mountain.. meaning The valley across the river was too far. Not a big deal in huge mountains.. but I could see how in the abarokas or big horns I’d want a spotter.



Not the best write up. Thought I’d share considering I wasn’t able to find much on guys using 18x vs a spotter when researching the idea.

Quite a few friends and I have gone to the Razor for moose, caribou, and bear hunting. They positively changed the way we did things.

No one has mentioned fringing, CA, nor eyebox issues. We have 3 seasons on them in use against a lot of alpha glass.

We still rely heavily on 10x and I cannot imagine anyone trying to use the 18x56 without a tripod.

Oh, we are often glassing 10 miles for moose.

i Maybe you should consider looking into a set of Kowa Highlanders.

We already have at least two tripods each set up... adding anything else at this point is not going to happen. After finding them in the glasses we swap to spotters.

I spent a solid month with the 18s. I thought they were really clear, did not notice much CA. Eyebox isn't as good as my 15x56 Swarovski but very usable. I did not use them in snow.

I would not call it "Bad" that they need a tripod. I think even 10 power benefits greatly from a tripod.
I typically carry my 15s and a smaller range finding binocular.
As to the Highlanders. They are indeed excellent but very big and heavy.

Art, I assume when you say they “positively changed” the way you did things that you mean you’re now glassing with binos off a tripod. Did I get that right?

For me, as a general rule, I wouldn’t put less that a 15 power on a tripod, but that is a personal thing. But I think we all know that the coues deer hunters such as Dwane Adams have been using big eyes off a tripod for, well, decades now.

That said, I grabbed a pair of Tract 12 power binos for glassing from the truck or UTV. You can bet I’ll have my Swaro 10 x 40s with until the Tracts can be proven.

A little bit of a tangential comment, I had a Razor 20-60 x 80 spotter and thought it stacked up well. I would have kept it for vehicle use, but for the cost, I sold it to help fund a Swaro 20-60 x 65 since at the time, I could only afford one or the other.

Interested to hear more of how you use the Razors, or binos in general.

For those who think spotting at 10 miles is an exaggeration, it’s not. Antlers on big moose will look like two 4x8 sheets of plywood! But if you can’t see antlers, they can disappear from view as well as any game animal!

Thx,
Bob

Duane Adams. That's a name i haven't heard for years. He did not invent glassing off tripods. I think it became mainstream in Arizona back in the 80s.
I know that back then, more Zeiss 15×60s were sold in AZ than in the entire rest of the country. I think the same was true with Swarovski 15x56 but i don't know that for sure.
When i first started using a tripod i used 7x50s like many other Arizona hunters. Then 10x50s...
There is much value in using a tripod with 10X binoculars.

I had heard that stat about the big Zeiss as well and don't doubt it at all. I used 10x50SLs on a tripod with good success for years before moving up to the 15x60 B/GATs, and found the tripod very worthwhile with the 10s.
Took a few looks through a set of the 18s on a sheep hunt a few years ago and they were very clear, but it was mid day in the bright Arizona sun which certainly helps.

Yes, but glassing with this particular bino was the big change. We have all been glassing with 10 and 12x bins for a long, long time.

At least 2 of the regulars in our group have gone from Swaro to Razors and when others buy new they go Razor.

We sit on the end of a ridge above a large swamp. The benches ringing the swamp are heavily wooded up to timberline. A lot of bulls are there or pass through. We interrupt a lot of them. Handheld 10x was the standard followed by spotters when the bull is located. Now we set up the big bins and focus/adjust to the area we want to watch. Due to the huge FOV they stay there for long periods.

If someone spots something it is generally the 10x that comes out to locate it before moving the big bin or spotter.

We also have platforms on the buggy cabs and do a lot of glassing from there.

Thank you for the response Art (and Dennis).

I agree Dennis. I find using a tripod is the best singular glassing help. More beneficial than power or using alpha glass. Those things help to be sure but you can’t hold those binoculars steady for hours and hours without a tripod.

Must be an area thing, I don’t know anyone that stayed with the UHD 18’s over Swarovski/Meopta 15’s around here.

The light quality is very different between NM and AK... our very low-angle light is softer and far more subtle. The harsh light of NM leaves minutes of "golden" light at dusk and dawn. We get that special stuff for hours... I have been gifted a number of Swaro optics and have given them away after using them.

Sometime look at your watch when you start glassing without a tripod.
When your arms get heavy enough to lower the glasses, look at it again.
As for the Highlanders, they weigh less than 15 pounds.
Eyepieces can be changed in seconds, and yes they would require a backpack.

The flat light thing is real in the northern latitudes (and southern too, as the OP was in New Zealand). It has good and bad things to it.

I have gone back to just bracing my elbows on my knees for glassing with my 15xs and my main hunting buddy never veered away from that to begin with. Tripods definitely help with steadiness but they tweak the hell out of my back when pivoting the bino around. Even for deer and elk in the lower 48 I have largely quit carrying anything other than Meopta 15xs and don’t bother with a spotter/tripod unless after bear or something that needs legally judged like sheep or deer in a point restriction area. I just haven’t found them useful enough to justify the weight. Different areas/eyes/preferences, I guess.

I swore off Vortex due to their quality (on several fronts) but may try these 18Xs sometime.

Do you or any in your group receive discounts from Vortex?

Yes, but one is a dealer with discounts on everything.

As to steadiness, has anyone tried the Kestrel glassing systems monopods?

Will likely bring one to Colorado this coming season for use with 10X Binos reserving the tripod for bigger glass.