Best Binoculars for Any Purpose & Any Budget

1. Optic Quality: What Are You Paying For? 

Obviously, the biggest selling point of high-end binoculars is their premium glass, coatings, and coating technique. Their premium lenses boast edge-to-edge clarity, minimal chromatic aberration, and enhanced low-light performance. With high-end binoculars, you’ll notice every detail in a bird’s feathers or easily track wildlife like deer at dawn or dusk.

However, some argue that optical benefits diminish beyond the $1,000-$1,500 range. For example, Vortex Razor HD models, which retail for $950-1,100, compare favorably to higher-tier options, delivering excellent clarity at a fraction of the cost.

Lens Coating: The Cure for Better Light Transmission and Glare Reduction

Binocular lens coatings reduce light reflection on glass surfaces, so more light passes through to your eyes and less is lost to glare. Without coatings, each glass surface can reflect up to 5% of the light, significantly dimming the image. Let’s take a basic binocular with ten glass-to-air surfaces. Without coatings, only about 50-60% of incoming light actually reaches your eye. Single-layer coatings bring this figure closer to 90%, and modern multi-coatings can increase it up to about 95%. The difference is dramatic, especially in dim lighting.

But coatings aren’t just about light or brightness. They also impact color neutrality, contrast, and resistance to glare. A well-coated surface reduces visual noise, delivers richer contrast, and corrects for color tints caused by subpar coatings.

Types of Lens Coatings: Marketing Claims vs. Real-World Performance

When looking at binocular specs, pay close attention to the coating descriptions, as some brands may oversimplify or exaggerate the benefits. Terms like “multi-coated” carry little weight without clear specifications. Reputable brands will disclose precise coating details, while lesser-known models may use vague labels.

Coated – The term “coated” refers to the bare minimum – at least one glass surface in the binoculars has a single-layer anti-reflective (AR) coating. The rest of the surfaces are likely bare glass, which reflects a significant amount of light.

Fully Coated – This term suggests all glass-to-air surfaces are coated with a single layer of AR coating. While better than “coated,” prisms don’t always follow suit and may remain uncoated or inconsistently treated.

Multi-Coated – Binoculars labeled “multi-coated” feature multiple AR coatings on at least one lens surface. This does enhance light transmission, contrast, and glare reduction but the term can be misleading since not all surfaces may receive the same treatment. Frequently, the objectives or eyepieces have multi-coatings, but other surfaces may only have single coatings. 

Fully Multi-Coated – This is the gold standard in consumer optics. All glass-to-air surfaces, including objectives, prisms, and eyepieces, are multi-coated with advanced AR coatings. These reduce light loss to less than 1% per surface, resulting in brighter, sharper, and more colorful images.

Prism Coatings – For prisms, the treatment varies. Porro prisms typically rely on total internal reflection (TIR) and don’t require reflective coatings. However, roof prisms often need phase-correction and dielectric coatings to enhance contrast and prevent light phase shift.

Orange Coatings?

Some budget binoculars come with flashy ruby or orange-coated lenses. While they might look cool, they don’t always mean better performance. Actually, darker or greenish coatings are usually a sign of higher-quality optics because they’re designed to cut down on reflections and improve light transmission. On the other hand, those bright orange coatings can cause glare and even reduce the amount of light that makes it through the lenses. Don’t be fooled by the flashy appearance!

Lens Glass: What Determines the Clarity

Ever looked through a pair of so-so binoculars and found the view blurry or lacking detail? That’s usually a result of poor-quality lens glass.

The lens glass is the central component that influences brightness, sharpness, and color fidelity. Cheap glass can create chromatic aberration – that annoying “color fringing” you see around objects – and squash fine details like plumage coloration on a bird. But with high-quality glass, those details come alive, even in dim lighting or at a distance.

Types of Lens Glass

Standard Optical Glass: Many entry-level binoculars use standard glass, which performs decently under average conditions but leaves plenty of room for improvement. Chromatic aberration and reduced brightness are common drawbacks in this range.

HD Glass: When a brand labels an optical instrument as “HD,” it typically refers to one of two things:

1. High Density: Some brands, like Vortex, use “HD” to indicate that the device incorporates high-density, extra-low dispersion (ED) glass in its lens elements.
2. High Definition: Other manufacturers use “HD” to describe a High Definition Optical System. Unlike “High Density,” this term refers to the entire optical path – from the objective lens to the eyepiece – and indicates that the system as a whole is designed to produce sharp, high-resolution images.
3. The meaning of “HD” may differ across brands, and its quality varies depending on the manufacturer. For example:
   • HD optics often include fully multi-coated lenses, phase-corrected prisms, and sometimes even protective coatings on the lens surfaces.
   • However, some brands might use “HD” simply as a marketing term, which doesn’t guarantee superior performance.

ED Glass (Extra Low Dispersion): This term that carries a more consistent meaning across brands. ED glass is designed to reduce chromatic aberration by aligning light wavelengths more accurately, thereby producing sharper, more color-accurate images. ED specifically refers to lenses that include at least one element of ED glass.

However, the effectiveness of ED lenses depends on the overall design of the optical system. Poorly engineered bins with ED glass may still produce worse results than a well-designed system without it.

Use ED and HD as indicators of quality but don’t skim on deeper research.