£540
David Chandler
There are two binoculars in the new RSPB Buzzard range – 8x42 and 10x42 models. These are mid-priced binoculars with distinctive styling – a silver-grey focusing wheel and dioptre ring, and are said to deliver ‘exceptional performance’. The glass includes ED and field-flattening lenses. Viking sent me one of each – I spent my time with the 8x.
The feel
At 740g this is a bit heavier than some 8x42s but it didn’t feel heavy around my neck, even with a thermal imaging device hanging there too. Build quality seems good – this feels like a sturdy binocular that could take a bit of rough treatment (not recommended!). There are shallow thumb indents on the underside and the focusing wheel and dioptre ring are more heavily ridged than most. It is, as you would expect, armoured, waterproof and filled with nitrogen. The dioptre ring isn’t locking but stays in place well enough once set. The twist-up eyecups have two intermediate positions, were comfortable against my face and had a very good, reassuring action – better than some. You’d think this was easy to get right but some binoculars do this better than others.
View and focusing
The view through this Buzzard is clean and bright, with, I’d say, cool rather than warm colours. The view feels wide and it is – these are wide-angle binoculars. Sharpness is very good but not quite edge to edge – there’s a narrow ring of peripheral softness. Don’t be put off by that – it’s not an issue. Brightness is also very good and the Buzzard impressed in low light, revealing colour on leaves in close shade and on distant trees 20 minutes after an overcast sunset, and colours on fly-by Long-tailed Tits 14 minutes post-sunset. A Starling murmuration beyond the trees, 15-20,000 birds maybe, was good, too!
Focusing precision is good, with, sometimes, some ‘hunting’ to find best focus. The focus wheel is a little wider than one finger and moves fairly stiffly but smoothly. Two revolutions are possible, anti-clockwise towards the horizon, but in normal birding you won’t use more than about 3/8 of a turn. There’s an index mark on the focus wheel, and I think most of us wouldn’t make any use of that.
I didn’t notice any significant chromatic aberration, just a tad, I think, on a backlit Fieldfare. Performance against the light was good, but, with side-lighting, the Buzzard was perhaps a bit more prone to eyepiece flare spots than some binoculars. This is another binocular where the official close-focus figure is wrong, at least for me. Two metres they say, which is par for the course. My tape measure said it was about 1.3m, which is very, very good – this binocular is better than most for butterfly- and dragonfly-watching.
Specs
Eye relief: 18.4mm
Field of view: 8.1°/142m@1,000m
Close focus: 2m
Weight: 740g
Size: 143x135x53mm
RRP: £540 (10x42: £550)
Warranty: 10 years
Supplied with: Contoured, neoprene strap; case; tethered, removable objective caps; rainguard
Web:
vikingopticalcentres.co.uk
shopping.rspb.org.uk
Verdict
A solid, competent, wide-angle, mid-range binocular with excellent close-focus. I do have a gripe about the packaging, though. On the box it says ‘Do not recycle’. Surely, they can do better than that? Binocular choice is a personal thing. What works well for me might not for you. As ever, our advice, if you can, is try before you buy. And if you can’t, ask the retailer about their returns policy just in case you don’t get on with your new binocular.