Binoculars for old guys
Equipment
In my younger days I carried binoculars on every hunt. In recent years I have worn glasses with progressive lenses. My old binoculars became a pain as I need to put the glasses away to see well and put them back on to shoot. No self respecting whitetail stands still for all of this motion. Are there binoculars that work well for folks with eyeglasses who insist in keeping the glasses on?
Mine do, but I wear tri-focals. Might be different with progressive lenses. I just turn the eyecups down and have no problems.
Eye caps down should work. If not why put glass away just left up just above binos to forehead. Do it all the time when I have on sunglasses.
What I do is use the bino's to push my glasses up, look, then move the bino's and let my glasses drop back into place. Worked on the cow elk we were rifle hunting today. Takes practice but it's the best solution.
I wear progressive lenses too. What works best for me are the Steiners with infinite focus set for my corrected vision in the center of the progressives. Find a Steiner dealer and try them out. You adjust each eyepiece to the vision in that eye, and never have to adjust them again for anything from about 15 yards to the skyline.
Greenmountain, same problem here and I've tried most of the solutions w/o buying new binoculars. Rolling the cups down helps but still limits the field of view and somehow usually smears my eyeglasses. :(
Lately I've been wearing a strap (chum) on my eyeglasses so I can dangle them and use the binoculars. Usually have a hat on so pushing eyeglasses up isn't a option for me.
What Stix and LKH said.
Just pushing the glasses up as you bring the binoculars up to your eyes works great....
Until you push the glasses off your head and they fall out of the tree!
I've seen me do it!
Pete
Binoculars with collapsing cups work well with glasses for me. My Swaros and Leicas are fine, as are an ancient pair of Bausch & Lombs.
As per the smudges...clean the eye cups with eye glass cleaner wipes or some rubbing alcohol to remove the oils from previous use. Then don’t use them or don’t let others put them directly to their face without glasses or you will have to clean the skin oil off them again.
As per progressive lenses...I use them around the house and shop, but hate them for hunting, skiing, hiking, shooting my bow and glassing. I wear glasses with distance correction only (mono-vision) for all those activities. Usually take an old pair of my used frames and get the mono vision lenses fairly cheap. Just got a pair of yellow tinted ones for shooting sporting clays for $105 C at our Walmart Vision Center and they are excellent. My pins on the bow and the target haven’t been this crisp for a while! Good luck with it!
If you want to try Steiners out, I have a pair of brand new Steiner Predator 10x42 I'd let go for $250. They retail right around $400.
altitude - do those come free with a pack of Bishops heads?
By far the best place I've found for binocular reviews and recommendations is at birdforum.net. Birding demands high quality optics, so you'll find better info there than any hunting related forum I 've seen. You should find lots of discussions about good binoculars for eyeglass wearers.
Hello Guys: Thank you for your suggestions. I asked my hunting partner. He is an O.F. too. He suggested I try his. I think I will make a winter project of checking out what my older friends have then making a purchase.
What are these "eyeglasses" you speak of grandfather?
I've worn soft contacts for about the last forty years when hunting. About one diopter less correction in the right eye, so that eye will see the pin in crisp focus, and the left eye with full distance correction so I will locate and identify the critter with perfectly sharp focus and then shut that eye as I come to final aim. The bino's when I'm using them, will be adjusted for sharp vision downrange in each eye. But I'm just going on 76, you might want to find an old guy for a better answer. 8^)
