The Best Binoculars for Birds, Nature, and the Outdoors
Updated Dec 12, 2022
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To find the best binoculars, we had a professional ornithologist spend over 100 hours field-testing 17 pairs against his own $2,500 Leica Ultravids. After using our test pairs in the mountains and hills of Southern California, and then on a research trip to the rain forests of southern Mexico, he found that the Athlon Optics Midas ED 8x42 pair was the best of the group: The Midas pair offered performance comparable to his Leica binoculars, for a fraction of the price, and had the widest field of view of all the binoculars tested. This means you’ll see more, and it will look better.
