Steiner 20x80

Just for the sake of a new post, I was at Cabella's in Sydney Nebraska today. They had a special in there close out section, Steiner 20x80 bino's. Individual eyepiece focus. I compared them to a store brand center focus 20x80. The Steiner's seemed to be much brighter. I did not see any purple fringing. They seemed very nice. Trouble is they were $725 "if I wanted them today". (The other side of the coin is that I could have had a divorce "If I dared buy them today - or any other day!)Of course I could not try them at night. Regardless, I have a hard time thinking these would be that much better than a Burgess/Apogee 25x100 bino's.

Any comments?

Michael

I have no experience with those for astronomy, however the brief daytime looks that I had through a set completely turned me off to them.

I ran into a fellow down at the coast that had the giant Steiners set up at the beach on a large video tripod. He said he used them for looking for whales, dolphins and ships at sea. He was most happy to accomodate, when I asked if I could peak through them. At the time, there weren't any whales, but there were plenty of diving Northern Gannets. Normally, the adult northern gannet is a large, sleek white bird with just a hint of yellow-orange on it's head and a great, huge wingspan tipped in black. It has a tendancy for spectacular vertical dives into the water, and is really a fun bird to watch.

However, when I tracked a couple gannets in the Steiners, the range of colors around the bright white birds was bizarre to say the least. There were both purple and yellow
tint chromatic abberations. It was MUCH worse chromatic aberation than in my Fujinon FMT-SX 16x70, and I find the extra colors in the Fujis objectionable on Jupiter and the Moon. Admittedly, I didn't have the Fujis with me for a side-by-side comparison, but I can only imagine what the Steiners would show on astro targets.

I tried aiming the Steiners at a black cormorant on a red buoy, and the extra colors disappeared. But, having seen what they do to bright white, I don't believe I'd want to spend that kind of money on them. Like all Steiner products, I believe them to be quite overrated and very overpriced. Obviously, I didn't tell that to the kind gentleman that allowed me to come to that conclusion. I just thanked him, and wandered off down the beach with my 10x50s.

Mike Swaim