Review: Celestron 10-30x50 Zoom Binoculars "UpClose Series"

Update!

After taking the binocs on a trip and having the alignment go out
one time (from being knocked about a LOT), I DID find that it has
alignment adjustment screws. 4 of them, just under the rubber cover
on the prism assemblies (2 on the inside bottom near the focusing
wheel, hard to locate). If you unscrew the main objective lenses and
look inside the prism housing, you will see what look like very tiny
pins pressing on the sides of the prisms, this will let you see
where the alignment screws come out on the outside of the binoc
housing. Otherwise, they are very difficult to find (very small)
under the rubber sleeving. You will have to lift up a corner or 2 of
the rubber to adjust the screws.

I'm even happier with this purchase now that I found them.

p.s. In real use for night-time and day, they worked great. I was
especially impressed with how well they worked with the night-sky (I
gave some short astro-lectures at some campsites for others with
them). Even when used at 30x the image was rather crisp. In daytime
at 30x they worked very well if supported on my knees or up against
a tree. Who says you can't hand-hold binocs at 30x? It must be
people with nerve disorders. :-)


On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 13:21:21 GMT, HandyAndy
wrote:

Celestron 10-30x zoom 50mm objective UpClose-Series Binoculars

Price: $49.99 from www.heartlandamerica.com (the cheapest price I
could find).

(An unconventional product review.)

I will be heading out on a lengthy many-months backpack/kayaking
trek and wanted to get a decent, all-around, every-purpose,
knock-about, binoculars that I wouldn't mind losing if I fell down a
cliff-side. I didn't want to spend much at all, but still wanted
something usable with some decent power, zoom, and light-grasp. I
ideally wanted to get some 8-24x zoom binocs with 60mm objectives
but couldn't find any. Also, anything I looked into at 60mm
objectives were ungainly huge in size, length, and weight. More than
I cared to backpack for months. At 10x-50mm, when you work out the
math, that's the same light-gathering power as 7x35 binocs. So I
wasn't gaining anything by settling on 50mm objectives in this zoom
range, but ... you do what you gotta do with what's available out
there.

I knew the drawbacks I was facing getting zoom binoculars, but
thought, "What the hey, if I can get them cheap, let's see what they
can do." I looked online at many models of zoom binocs (in the
economy price ranges). The Barska 10-30x50 looked promising but they
had that obnoxious ruby coating and I didn't know if there would be
an easy way to remove that without destroying the lenses (and also
an even narrower FOV). The Oberwerk 10-30x60mm from
www.bigbinocs.com looked even more promising, fully broadband
multi-coated, BAK4 prisms, etc, but the size was huge, and the FOV
was an even narrower 3.5 degrees at 10x. I found another
obscure-maker pair at the 8-24x60, JUST WHAT I WANTED, and they were
even cheaper! (but can you imagine the construction and optics of
those?) but alas, they had that damn ruby coating on them too which
would negate any extra light grasp I could get from the 60mm's.
Sigh...

I received a thin catalog in the mail for the above company
(Heartland America) one day, saw these Celestron ones with BAK7
prisms, fully-coated optics, a 4.1 degree FOV (at 10x), only $49.99,
and ordered a pair. After all, they had the honored Celestron name
on them! (Yeah, I know, Tasco owns them. :-)

If you are not a handy-man with optics and mechanics, save your
money!!! I would have sent these back, no questions asked -- IF I
was not who I am. Quality of these are more on your Tasco-level of
construction than Celestron. But more of the Celestron optics
quality (after repair) than Tasco, an odd mix.

However, after:

1. Resetting one of the objective lens housings that was screwed in
crooked to the prism housing.

2. Digging out one of the objective lenses from its plastic housing.
(No easy task going through glued plastic without doing some damage
to the plastic. The other lens was not glued in and was easy to
readjust.)

3. Recutting the lens housing plastic threads with a thread tap.

4. Adjusting the objective position in each lens housing so that the
travel at one end of focus would stop at infinity. (They were set
into the barrels too far and were hitting infinity at about 1/2 the
focus adjustment range, cutting down my close-focus to about 80 ft.
And originally each one was set for a different focus too.)

5. Using quite a bit of strength to remove the last vestiges of
miscollimation in a vertical axis by bending the whole pair of
binocs in one direction every so slightly to get rid of the slight
offset at the 30x zoom setting. (There are no collimation
adjustments other than if you shim the front lens assemblies with
foil or something, I had not had to do that yet. The permanently
affixed prism assembly itself seems to be very well adjusted as-is.
Any initial miscollimation disappeared if the lens housings were
screwed into the prism housing as tight as I could go. I only had
that slight miscollimation at full 30x show up and used the
brute-force method to remove it. One view higher than the other just
enough to be noticeable and annoying. Laterally they were perfect.
Exact collimation at 30x for 2 optics assemblies is quite a feat,
you have to admit.)

After all of that horsing around I got some pretty decent optics out
of this inexpensive puppy. If only they were assembled properly in
the first place. All that rotten quality control was hiding some
decent lenses and optical performance.

After the objective lenses were readjusted for proper infinity focus
then I could get a close focus of about 25 ft. The zoom eye-pieces,
while having a rather short eye-relief (and you need precise eye
placement at 30x), are usable and the rubber eye-cups fold down to
give you a little more working room. Their zoom mechanism also seems
to be very well synchronized (tied to each other internally by a
strong spring-steel metal band), with no (to nearly no) readjustment
of focus throughout the whole zoom range.

I've not used them at night, but daytime views afford a very bright
and crisp image at the 10x setting with no chromatic aberrations at
all. When viewing clouds within 15 degrees of the noon sun I notice
no lens-flare at all. The image dims rather rapidly as you zoom-in
(normal and understandable) and the FOV widens to keep pace with the
zoom setting (you're just enlarging the original FOV view), up to a
point (at about 18x) where it vignettes on the sides within the
optics internal eye-piece and housing limits, if your eyes aren't
close enough. If you fold down the rubber eye-cups then the FOV
widens during the whole travel up to 30x.

The view is crisp and clean all the way up to about 20-22x power,
then it tends to get a little soft. But I've noticed new details in
the 30x view (when steady on a tripod) that could not be seen in
lower magnifications, showing that it's not just empty
magnification. It's useable, but a tad softer.

At powers of 22-30x I also notice some violet flaring around bright
high-contrast objects in daytime views. As previously mentioned I've
not used the binocs at night yet so I can't tell you what kind of
star images it will provide (going by daytime views I surmise the
lower power views will be more than usable, the narrower than usual
field of view in all zoom binocs providing a challenge for
night-time use anyway).

Focusing is tight, both physically and adjustment-wise. Just a
little movement is critical on higher-power views. It also doesn't
take much movement to adjust it for it's whole focus range, the
focus adjustment only has to turn about 90 degrees of a full turn
from closest to infinity. There was originally some slop in the
focusing adjustment. I tried to dismantle the focusing mechanism to
see if I could insert a washer or shim to tighten that up, but
couldn't get into it easily even after taking apart all the screws
and things that I could. So instead I took some 20lb-test nylon
monofilament fishing-line, and wrapped a few turns of it down inside
around the axle between the focusing knob and the binoc
hinge/housing, tied off a suture-knot, and trimmed the ends out of
sight. It was just enough to act as a thin nylon washer to remove
all play. Works *really* nice now with no backlash nor slop.

It comes with 4 soft plastic lens caps (that I put small slots into,
and strung black nylon shoe-lace through so they are attached on
tethers to the binoc body (through the neck strap mountings) so I
don't lose them while hiking). A soft nylon, square, binocular case
(flimsy, slightly padded, but usable) with velcro closure. A soft
nylon neck strap. And a micro-fiber lens cleaning cloth.

A tripod mounting for it is an additional accessory found online for
about $18-$30 depending where you shop. It's a simple L hunk of
metal attached to a 1/4-20 thread hole in the end of the binocular's
hinge front, under a plastic cap. I'm not going to pay $20 for a
little elbow of metal, so I bent one of my own, drilled two holes in
it and used some 1/4-20 thread nuts & bolts. 15 minutes of piddling
around and for less than $1 I have something just as good if not
better than what they sell at over-inflated prices. If you do want
to buy one you can find a cheaper in-house brand-name at
www.adorama.com for (if I remember) about $15. I didn't want to
bother, making my own was faster and cheaper.

Hand-holding is doable up to about 18x if you're very steady (as I
am), but anything beyond 14x would probably have to be on a tripod
for the average person. 30x for me is okay if I'm leaning up against
something, but the view is still jittery. (There's a nice scale
printed on the left eye-piece that shows you what zoom setting you
are at (marked as 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, & 30x). Zoom is adjusted by a
well placed, wide, and easy to use thumb-lever on the right
eye-piece. A "+" and "-" diopter adjustment is also on the right
eye-piece.) Considering the the narrow 4.1 degree FOV (@10x) and you
will have to learn to aim them well if trying to find a bird in
flight on your first attempt before it's flown out of range.

The binocular body itself is rather light for their size (a major
plus for my backpacking needs), the main objective barrels being
strong plastic coated in a thin but strong rubber sleeve (which I
removed and put back during repair). The rest of the binocs are
metal and are also coated in that rubber coating (or rubberized
flat-dark-gray finish). They seem to be rather durable and solid.
They feel and behave like much more than $50 worth (after my
fix-ups), that's for sure.

Conclusion:

If you just love to rebuild things, tinker 'til your heart's
content, save money in the process, and take pride when you can save
that poor unloved and unkempt puppy from the dog-pound -- then by
all means GET A PAIR! I love them as they are now. Very functional,
nice, sharp, precisely collimated, views, etc. etc.

If you're not like me and you expect top performance right out of
the box -- save your money. Or take a chance and hope you get a pair
that was assembled properly (though I bet your chances of that are
slim to none).

The front objectives are some pretty hefty looking achromats (about
1/2" thick at the edges) when I removed them during repairs. I was
impressed. I definitely got more than $50 worth in optics parts out
of this deal. And was even happier when I could make them work as
their designer had intended.


Why didn't I send this pair back and try another you ask? 1. They
were out of stock after their first shipment. 2. I didn't want to
hassle with shipping and waiting at all. 3. I love a good repair
challenge. 4. I love saving something that others would throw away.
5. How else could I have told you in such detail on how they are
built and what's inside and what's wrong and right with them? 6. I
would have eventually taken them apart anyway to tweak them. To me,
a "No Serviceable Parts Inside" label is like waving a red-cape in
front of a bull. There's not one thing I own (even SLR cameras,
VCR's, analytical lab balances, and microscopes) that I've not taken
apart and made much better. All the while shaking my head and going
"Tsk tsk, who designed/built this piece of crap, this needs to be
like this and this should be like this....." and then I do it. A
patent-hound would be in heaven if they ever found my home and took
apart all my toys to see what's different inside. :-)