Steiner 8x50 Merlin Binocular :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

starry nights

2008-05-02
After taking an amateur astronomy course, I knew I had to upgrade my little old Nikon toys. Funbear's review of the Steiner Commander V started me off. The diopter adjustment on that pair happened to break when rotated, a fluke quality flaw, or I probably would have stopped there. I tried and returned (thanks, Amazon!) Pentax, Celeston and Leupold 10x50s and some from Garrett Optical. All were nice in some ways but not perfect, and many were very heavy. I kept thinking of how it felt to look through the Steiner optics and went back to the brand, ordering this style. They're not specifically designed for astronomy, but they work well for that, too. The 8X magnification doesn't look much different from 10x to me, and stars are much, much steadier. The roof prism is lighter than a porro prism and your hands are closer together, also reducing shake. They have amazing depth of field just like the first ones I tried. The wing style eye cups reduce ambient light and help me see better. These apparently have been discontinued. I'm so glad I got mine. I reach for them every day and pay closer attention to the world around me -- a beautiful product.

Excellent binocular

2006-09-14
My goal was to find a binocular that would do well at four things; observing wildlife, hunting, astronomy and checking shots at the rifle range.

Given that there are very specialized binoculars for each of these separate activities I knew there would have to be compromises somewhere. Hunting and astronomy would require light gathering capability, use at the range would require high power, hunting would require light weight and wildlife would require rapid focusing.

The 8x50 Steiners are excellent for wildlife observation. I've used them to watch deer and raptors and they've provided clear views in bright light and at dusk. One evening I noticed some movement in a dark, almost silhouetted, tree and turned the binocular on it. Almost as clear as daylight viewing was a hawk being harassed by a couple of smaller birds. The rapid focus has made viewing flying birds much easier.

These glasses are underpowered for use at the rifle range but that is something that I expected. I didn't want to go above 8x magnification in order to avoid shaking problems. Since I'm not a competition shooter the lack of magnification here is not a big deal for me. I've switched to Shoot-N-C targets and these glasses are good enough for me to know I'm on paper with a reasonable grouping at 100 yds.

I have only viewed the moon at night. Nice crisp image but not a substitute for a telescope. I'm expecting these glasses to be more useful for meteor showers and perhaps viewing Andromeda from a dark location.

These are the first high-priced binocular that I have ever bought. One thing that struck me right away was the stereoscopic image. Cheap binoculars that I have used previously had a very flat image, these make using binoculars much more fun.