How are you integrating Image stabilized binoculars into your system?

[thegoosano]

The Zeiss 20 x 60S are still available to purchase, just exceptionally and stupidly expensive. The Kowa 20x in the 660s is a better view

$10k holy crap


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Fireflyfishing]

I’m not. The end.

 

[Ajsomp]

Is it asking too much to have alpha glass, IS, and RF in a single bino?

I have been wanting to add a pair into my game. RF Binos with ballistic solution shorten the kill chain significantly. But image through RF binos is always worse than the counter part size without the RF. I’d rather sit and glass with binos than a spotter, and if I’m sitting with a tripod I don’t see a need for IS.

I feel like the IS would be great on my chest, but then if I see something I either have to pull out a hand held rangefinder, or my RF binos. Maybe I could go back to IS binos and a revic rangefinder, but I feel like I’m going backwards in my set up.

 

[Cervid]

had the 16x42 Sig binos, but I sold them because I couldn’t figure out how to incorporate them into my system.

I did go on a weeklong western spot and stalk style hunt with them before giving up on them though. I also use the Maven B2 in 9x and a small, lower end Leica 10x rangefinder. My thought before the trip was that the Sigs were replacing a set of ~15x normal binos I might have gotten. But the optical quality is so bad that I found myself finding objects with the 16x Sigs and then switching to the 9x Mavens to figure out what they were. I do love the ease of use, handholding, etc for quick looks, but this all just ends up being a gimmick if the 9x Mavens work better than the 16x Sigs for resolving what you’re looking at. So they aren’t really a replacement for higher powered binos. And they also aren’t really a replacement for 8-10x powered binos because the FOV is so narrow and the optical quality is mediocre even compared with not quite alpha glass. (Haven’t looked through the 10x Sigs, but while their FOV is better than the 16x it’s still not as good as most 8-10x binos and I’m assuming this version shared the optical quality issues of the higher magnification versions.)

I would concede that there are maybe more specialized use cases - like glassing from a boat/car in motion (in which case you’d want the 10x probably). Also, I found they were great for shotspotting/seeing bullet trace while handholding. I don’t spend a ton of time doing either though.

There was an earlier comment about the apparent optical quality/focus issues as being more related to the image stabilization technology rather than the glass quality. I don’t think this is the case because if you mount the Sigs on a tripod and turn off image stabilization the image is not going to improve and will still be showing what in my view is an unacceptably low optical quality.

 

[swavescatter]

had the 16x42 Sig binos, but I sold them because I couldn’t figure out how to incorporate them into my system.

I did go on a weeklong western spot and stalk style hunt with them before giving up on them though. I also use the Maven B2 in 9x and a small, lower end Leica 10x rangefinder. My thought before the trip was that the Sigs were replacing a set of ~15x normal binos I might have gotten. But the optical quality is so bad that I found myself finding objects with the 16x Sigs and then switching to the 9x Mavens to figure out what they were. I do love the ease of use, handholding, etc for quick looks, but this all just ends up being a gimmick if the 9x Mavens work better than the 16x Sigs for resolving what you’re looking at. So they aren’t really a replacement for higher powered binos. And they also aren’t really a replacement for 8-10x powered binos because the FOV is so narrow and the optical quality is mediocre even compared with not quite alpha glass. (Haven’t looked through the 10x Sigs, but while their FOV is better than the 16x it’s still not as good as most 8-10x binos and I’m assuming this version shared the optical quality issues of the higher magnification versions.)

I would concede that there are maybe more specialized use cases - like glassing from a boat/car in motion (in which case you’d want the 10x probably). Also, I found they were great for shotspotting/seeing bullet trace while handholding. I don’t spend a ton of time doing either though.

There was an earlier comment about the apparent optical quality/focus issues as being more related to the image stabilization technology rather than the glass quality. I don’t think this is the case because if you mount the Sigs on a tripod and turn off image stabilization the image is not going to improve and will still be showing what in my view is an unacceptably low optical quality.

I wonder if you just got a bad pair of the 16’s?

I made a huge stink about the new Sig Pro stabilized binos because the clarity was awful in two out of the three pairs I bought.

Maybe I got a good pair of Gen 2 16’s because I gain nothing (center of image - edge clarity sucks) by switching to better binos except light transmission.

I think the Sig QC standards are just a mile wide and you may get a trash pair or solid ones. I still recommend buying from a place with a good return policy since Sig told me to go pound sand.

 

[Bowhunter1740]

Building an optics kit depends so much on species and weapon type. For archery elk and mule deer hunting the IS bino’s can be amazing when trying to finish a stalk. To pick out an ear or antler through the timber or brush while handholding with a single hand is amazing. The 10x30’s are probably the sweet spot for this, but the 16x42’s I have used were a poor use case.

The lowlight performance and FOV while glassing in my experience limits their use. As many stated a 10x30 for archery elk, early/late archery deer or quick chest bino may great. Most elk hunts I have been on are in timber so a spotter and tripod can be skipped with just a set of IS bino’s.

For mule deer a set of IS chest, 12-15 bino’s in the pack, tripod, and 65mm spotter seem to be a perfect mountain balance. For a rifle deer hunt I might skip the IS to focus on thorough glassing with better clarity/low light performance.