You may have a hunt booked with us already or planning on a future hunt in the north country.  You may be asking yourself, what type of optics are adequate for this type of an adventure?  Do you need to spend thousands on Swarovski, Zeiss, Leica or Kowa? Or can you make a pair of $500 Leupold or Vortex binoculars work?  We get this question quite often.  The truth is, purchase the best optics YOU can afford.

While it’s not necessary to spend a couple grand on a pair of Swarovski’s, there are benefits of having them.  One of the biggest benefits is eye strain.  It has been shared over the years one of the major benefits of good quality glass is eye strain.  You can sit behind your glass for hours on end and have less fatigue on your eyes. This comes in extremely handy when glassing for animals at close and long distances for hours on end. Sometimes we might hike up to a vantage point and sit and glass to locate animals for hours.  Maybe to give us an idea of whats in the area or pick apart a few animals deciding which one you want to go after.  The better your optics, possibly the quicker we can determine the above.

Another beneficial piece about high-end optics is light transmission.  Those first 30 minutes of daylight and last 30 minutes of daylight are crucial times to glass and spot animals in the surrounding areas. Typically higher end optics gather a little better light with their lens coatings and allow for longer glassing times. The other feature to take in to consideration is your objective millimeter lens.  Pretty standard size power bincoulars are 10×42.  These offer good magnification with 10 power, and good light transmission with a 42mm lens on the front.  If you want to step it up and gather more light maybe look at a 10×50 or 10×56.  Or if you want a little more magnification look at a 12×50 or 12×56.  These will be better for a little longer range glassing which can be common up here in the north.  If you really want to reach out there look at 15×56.  The only downfall when you start getting binoculars this size, is just that, size!  They tend to be really heavy and bulky, not idea for backpack hunting and usually require a tripod to glass from.

All of that being said above, we would recommend looking at 10×42 bincoulars in a pricepoint you can afford.  If you are budget conscious, look at maybe a Vortex Razor 10×42 or Leupold BX-5 which will run you around $1000 – $1200.  Or even more budget conscious look at Leupold BX-4’s or Vortex Vipers for around $500.  If budget isn’t as much of a concern, look at some Swarovski EL 10×42’s or Leica Ultravid’s which will run around $2000 – $2500.

Remember, purchase the best glass you can afford, it will pay off in the long run!