Chris and Doug at Pelagic Outfitters told me these were worth looking at for a dedicated boat binocular and I had to agree. I have had them now for almost two months and used them on a boat-based caribou hunt, several vehicle-based black bear hunts, several weeks on saltwater trips from Kodiak and Prince William Sound, and a bunch of just kicking around and looking.



My experience with Minox goes back about 6 years as I bought Riley a HG 8.5x43 as his first good glass. It has performed flawlessly for him. Miss T got a HG 10x43 shortly after and both are completely happy with them for their uses. Riley continues to prefer the 8x, BTW.

For comparison glass I used my '80 vintage 10x40 Zeiss ClassiC, a Minox German BL 15x56 I got from Doug about 18 months ago, the aforementioned Minox bins and an assortment of other stuff that pretty much became meaningless after the first few peeks.

There have been other Minox binoculars and scopes that have come and some are gone, so I was not surprised at the "WOW!" factor in the glass. I have been a little surprised at how universal the WOW continues to be when folks look through them for the first time. Adding the bearing and tilt functions while they are looking through them is usually good for a dropped jaw.

They are big glass and they are really steady on a bobbing boat... That is a very good thing in a boat bin! These will never see a goat hunt, though! Except, of course, from the water side.

Even compared to the German BL 15x56 these are a serious handful.





While glassing near the Sterling/Seward Hiway Y there were a number of goats in the rocks at the cloud line and friends from North Dakota could not make them out. Handing them the big glass and telling them the bearing and tilt allowed them to concentrate in exactly the right spot and make out the goats easily.

I laminated a small chart of Sines, cosines, and tangents and hope to remember enough basic algebra to use it if presented with a need to calculate a rough distance on a hillside.

As noted earlier the ability to give a heading is handy. While pulling shrimp pots in Prince William Sound I was able to give the helm a heading once the buoy was spotted without having to use points on the beach, or waiting for a flock of birds to cross the spot.

One evening in the Kodiak harbor I set up several targets in the open, close in, and a bottle well up under a dock. The plan was to use the 15x56, 10x40 Zeiss, and the Minox 7x50 to see which held up the longest as it grew dark. Of course dark is a long time coming in July... The bottle under the dock very clearly showed the superiority of the 7x50 for low light, but the other glass performed equally well on the open and shadowed targets.

Little things like the extra set of roll-down eyecups in case you prefer them to the detented twist-ups is a very nice touch. Both of the cups worked very well and I ended up putting the screw-out version back on just because I found them easier to move back and forth when going from glasses to naked eyes.

For a boat binocular it would be hard to match the BN 7x50 DC for what it brings to the table. If you are looking for a great vehicle binocular these would also be worth a look. The wide padded neoprene strap is needed for a glass of this size but it is not likely to be carried for a long day and I passed on getting an aftermarket strap system.
art

Completely left out all of the testing I did for resolution and the fact these are individual focus glass and when set once they are good until needed for very close work... Not needed often on a boat.

I was surprised how few people needed to adjust the settings from mine, though my eyes are seriously compromised these days compared to a decade ago.

Anyway, the resolution test I used was a series of printed signs, labels, and tags at various distances and angles. Handheld the German BL 15x56 were only a step better than the BN 7x50 DC and my old ClassiCs were left in the dust. The HGs were a tad better then the 7x50 in good light. The 15x56 on a tripod was clearly better, as expected.

Thanks for the report.

These are some kind of battery operated then?

Interesting. Sounds a lot handier than, "See the skinny snow patch to the left of the rock face? Now, go up until you hit the top of the lone spruce tree; just to the right of that is the bear."

Thanks for the heads up, Art. What do those things weigh ? E

Yes, a fairly large canister type and I cannot find the information on the website... The glass is out in the boat so I do not have it right at hand.

Shorter, but larger in diameter than a AA.

There is an automatic turn-off timer at 2 minutes or you can press the top button twice to shut it off.

But, but, but... That is Naked Island and ALL the faces are rock! And which snow patch are you calling "skinny"? It might need counseling after hearing that!

They weigh 1250 grams, which equals 2 3/4 pounds, best I can figure. They are very steady from a rocking boat...

Should have noted also that they are rated as waterproof to 5 meters... I do not want to go that deep, so I will have to take their word for it!