Only Small Binos fit me! Aaaagh...

[hungry4binos]

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.

 

[WoodBow]

I also have a shorter than average interpupillary distance. I run all of my binos completely closed and they still are not quite close enough. I have used vortex viper 10x42, vortex kaibab 15x56, slc 10x42, and slc 15x56. All are the same result for me. I'd love to hear of some options that could remedy this.

 

[hungry4binos]

I also have a shorter than average interpupillary distance. I run all of my binos completely closed and they still are not quite close enough. I have used vortex viper 10x42, vortex kaibab 15x56, slc 10x42, and slc 15x56. All are the same result for me. I'd love to hear of some options that could remedy this.

I am seriously looking at the B5's with Maven's...15x at 56IPD... just need to try some out and save fair amount of moolah. Seems that when you go higher end they can make the actual barrels more compact which allows for that more generous IPD range- ugh.

That's the shortest IPD that I've found for "full size" binoculars based off scouring the 'net.

 

[CRJR45]

Hello , my names Bob and I too suffer from this affliction, so I'm following .

 

[ChrisAU]

I too have the same affliction. By specs the only 15x+ that would work for me are Zeiss 15x56 which would go down to 54mm min IPD.

The design of the bino has to work hard to get minimum IPD low on big eyes. If both eyes were straight back you couldn’t get to 56mm or even close, center of one piece of 56mm glass to the center of another right next to it touching it is 56mm, and then you have the body of the bino to add in.

 

[OutdoorAg]

X2 with you guys.

I can never borrow a buddies binos without having to close them way way down.

The 2 that have worked for me:

Swaro SLC Neu version
Leica geovid pro - newest model

The SLC Neu is more comfortable. Very easy and immersive view for close
IPD needs.

 

[mstei4]

I’ve never used them, but some of the porro prism models marketed more towards astronomy may work, they seem to consistently go down to 56 mm. Fujinon 16x70, Oberwork 15x70 ultra, and the APM 16x70 magnesium all seem to get good reviews on the astronomy forums I’ve looked. These are all on my list to look more into when I get some bigger binos.