Keep your eye on the birds
This year I am going to ask my wife for a decent pair of binoculars for Christmas, so I intend to use the web to make my purchase, and do some research. I did not realize all the choices and brands that are available. I have an old pair that I think I got while I was in college, and have no idea as to the range these might have. The reason for my request is that I was at a football game with my son, and we were trying to use the binoculars, but they kept going out of focus and were a little fuzzy. I could tell this since our neighbor has 3 bird feeders and we were trying to identify some of the birds that were feeding and the binoculars were not able to stay focused and seemed really fuzzy.
I went to the How to Buy binoculars and was quite surprised that there are actually different types of binoculars recommended for different types of activities. for instance they recommend a air of binoculars with an 8X40 or 8X42 lens. So what exactly does this mean. Well according to the FAQ, the first number represents the magnification, or how large the image will appear in the binoculars. It was interesting to note that the higher the Magnification does not mean you will get better clarity, as the brightness of the object will go down. The second number represents the the lens size. So a 8X40 would have a larger lens than the 8X25. And this is the point I really liked, in that the larger lens will obviously let in more light, and be easier on the eyes.
