hungry4binos
FNG
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2022
- Messages
- 2
Howdy folks,
I've been hunting for about two years now, up until now I've limited myself to hunting coues in elevation... less glassing required and my little 8x binos work great. I never thought much about my bino use, I put them on my face and "close" them to get 1 image... sounds about standard right?
Well, I was shooting with a buddy yesterday and he lent me his kaibabs- I was unable to see a single image, rather... I saw two images separated by a big black bar between them. I just couldn't "close them" enough to make one complete image.
I went home and did some research- I guess interpupillary distance is... a thing?
I have no idea what mine is, so I've got to figure that out, but the little 8x's I've used go as low as 55mm and the kaibabs go as low as 60mm... so I know that's gotta be the range I'm at.
I also have another vision problem... I can focus and utilize stereoscopic vision when I'm concentrating... IE... when I'm driving, working, etc... but I do fatigue and my eye just closes naturally, or my brain stops accepting messages from that eye. I never noticed it, not until I started shooting and hunting. I wear dark tinted glasses often because this limits the amount of "information" that my eye receives and stops it from auto-closing.
Eye docs say they can't do anything without surgery, and... well, I've lived this long with this situation that there's really no use in doing anything about it, a lot of it has to do with my brain just "ignoring" signal from that eye. There are exercises and such that I can do, but... well, lots of progress won't be made it'll just limit some of the fatigue. Virtually- 90% of my vision occurs out of a single eye, the other one exists to catch peripheral movement.
Well, the reason for the long story is...
I'm starting to try to really seriously hunt bigger game out in the desert and longer range binoculars are must. Even on a tripod my 8x's can only do so much. I had a hell of a time last season getting into Javelina. I got into them 3 times, but damn did I have to hike and struggle to make it happen. I haven't tried other binos just yet... I did have a "list" of binos that I was looking to purchase, but with this IPD concern, now I have to reevaluate all this. I went back and had to cross many of them "off" my list because they had the same IPD as the kaibabs... which where 50% unusable, I had to close one eye and concentrate out of the other eye because I could not "reconcile" both images.
This also got me to thinking-
I know spotting scope aren't meant for concentrated glassing, but... given my situation, would that be a reasonable alternative? I don't get fatigue from only looking through one eye, that's how I live most of my life as is....
However, I can use binoculars as long as the IPD is close enough for me to get one image. Issue being the smallest IPD full sized binos I've found are still at 57mm. Of course I haven't tried them yet- and coincidentally they're $500 over my price range.
Before this my short list was Vortex Viper's at 12x, Cronus 15x,
On the high end maybe Vortex Razors, Meopta's, or Mavens... the Razors and Maven's where at at 56IPD... which would probably be perfect. But I wasn't real excited about going over 1k in glass. So this would push back my purchase a solid 6 months if I needed to go higher end, which will mean that I'll have a hell of a time this December - February Javelina/Deer season.
Though... I still have a fun time last year...
Inquiring from you more experienced minds- though I believe the next logical step is to go to cabelas are try out a bunch of binoculars. I was wondering about the feasibility of doing all my glassing through a solid high quality spotter.
I've been hunting for about two years now, up until now I've limited myself to hunting coues in elevation... less glassing required and my little 8x binos work great. I never thought much about my bino use, I put them on my face and "close" them to get 1 image... sounds about standard right?
Well, I was shooting with a buddy yesterday and he lent me his kaibabs- I was unable to see a single image, rather... I saw two images separated by a big black bar between them. I just couldn't "close them" enough to make one complete image.
I went home and did some research- I guess interpupillary distance is... a thing?
I have no idea what mine is, so I've got to figure that out, but the little 8x's I've used go as low as 55mm and the kaibabs go as low as 60mm... so I know that's gotta be the range I'm at.
I also have another vision problem... I can focus and utilize stereoscopic vision when I'm concentrating... IE... when I'm driving, working, etc... but I do fatigue and my eye just closes naturally, or my brain stops accepting messages from that eye. I never noticed it, not until I started shooting and hunting. I wear dark tinted glasses often because this limits the amount of "information" that my eye receives and stops it from auto-closing.
Eye docs say they can't do anything without surgery, and... well, I've lived this long with this situation that there's really no use in doing anything about it, a lot of it has to do with my brain just "ignoring" signal from that eye. There are exercises and such that I can do, but... well, lots of progress won't be made it'll just limit some of the fatigue. Virtually- 90% of my vision occurs out of a single eye, the other one exists to catch peripheral movement.
Well, the reason for the long story is...
I'm starting to try to really seriously hunt bigger game out in the desert and longer range binoculars are must. Even on a tripod my 8x's can only do so much. I had a hell of a time last season getting into Javelina. I got into them 3 times, but damn did I have to hike and struggle to make it happen. I haven't tried other binos just yet... I did have a "list" of binos that I was looking to purchase, but with this IPD concern, now I have to reevaluate all this. I went back and had to cross many of them "off" my list because they had the same IPD as the kaibabs... which where 50% unusable, I had to close one eye and concentrate out of the other eye because I could not "reconcile" both images.
This also got me to thinking-
I know spotting scope aren't meant for concentrated glassing, but... given my situation, would that be a reasonable alternative? I don't get fatigue from only looking through one eye, that's how I live most of my life as is....
However, I can use binoculars as long as the IPD is close enough for me to get one image. Issue being the smallest IPD full sized binos I've found are still at 57mm. Of course I haven't tried them yet- and coincidentally they're $500 over my price range.
Before this my short list was Vortex Viper's at 12x, Cronus 15x,
On the high end maybe Vortex Razors, Meopta's, or Mavens... the Razors and Maven's where at at 56IPD... which would probably be perfect. But I wasn't real excited about going over 1k in glass. So this would push back my purchase a solid 6 months if I needed to go higher end, which will mean that I'll have a hell of a time this December - February Javelina/Deer season.
Though... I still have a fun time last year...
Inquiring from you more experienced minds- though I believe the next logical step is to go to cabelas are try out a bunch of binoculars. I was wondering about the feasibility of doing all my glassing through a solid high quality spotter.
