Originally Posted By MONGO45:
I'm working my way through some research towards buying some good binoculars.
I've owned a dozen cheap pairs over the years and finally treating myself.
I'm a police officer and I work long hours of surveillance, train rifle out to 500y and do some hunting (typically 0-200 in the woods)
I don't see myself ever using these with a tripod but would usually be braced seated in a vehicle, prone or tree stand.
Leaning towards the Razor HD in 10x42 when I started looking but the UHD line caught my eye.
I have not handled the UHD but I'd like to find out more.
Wanting "enough " magnification to see details of faces or license plates at distance without too much shake from being over powered.
Size and weight increase isn't a huge factor since I'd seldom pack them too far.
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Couple things here just as food for thought
1) If you've really only ever messed with cheaper pairs of binos, stepping up to either the Razor HD OR the UHD is going to absolutely be a night and day difference. You've basically at that point skipped all the steps in between right up into the super high level stuff, so your level of "WOW" is already going to be off the charts either way :)
2) If most of your time is going to be spent with these doing surveillance for long hours and some hunting and packing them long distances isn't any trouble, we'd suggest just opting for the 10x50's in either line. A little added size and weight won't be a big deal and the benefit you get is a bit more glassing in the earlier and later parts of the day with larger exit pupil and overall a bit better low light performance.
3) "Diminishing marginal returns" is a thing with binos. A $200 jump from the cheap stuff makes a huge difference. $200 jump from there makes a moderate difference, $200 jump from there starts to make less and less of a difference... And so on. Basically the higher end you go, the more you have to pay on top of each tier just to appreciate a difference again. The Razor HD was for a long time the top bino in our line. When we came out with the UHD's, we were concerned at first that maybe the difference wouldn't be mega appreciable for the more casual buyer (Not that a ton of casual buyers are opting for those kind of binos, but still...) Everyone took a look once the dev team had final samples and we were all blown away - they completely ruin the normal rule of thumb. While the regular HD's are still amazing binos and we do still stick to the fact that you'd be blown away by using them over the stuff you've had in the past, there certainly wouldn't be any "Man, I feel like I should have just gotten the regular HD's" if you didi decide to go all out and go for the UHD's.
4) How near are you to our HQ? We've also got everything here in our showroom that we sell for people to check out. Barneveld, WI. You're welcome any time.