Barska 20x50 WA X-Trail Binoculars

Wow this is amazing. Im going on a camping trip next week and this Woot brings me cheap binocs that I can use. Definitely gonna buy it.

These are only suitable as a toy for kids. By the time they are tired of them, and they are laying in the bottom of the closet, the kids don’t care they are not any good. If you think they are anywhere near the quality of real optics, forget it. They are about the same as the “300X” telescopes that are sold every year and end up turning thousands of kids off of astronomy because they are really bad quality. Same as these. If you really want a decent pair of binoculars, you will have to pony up some real cash. Like everything else, you get what you pay for. Especially in optics.

Lowest at eBay is $24.95 + $10.95

$32 + shipping at the cheapest (non-eBay) Froogle reseller

Pretty good deal, eh?

Just adjust the “color temperature” knob. You can adjust from black and white to full vivid color to suite your eye preference…

Sweet. I was just giving a friend the URL to the Oberwerk I bought here a while back.
These aren’t as good, but significantly cheaper.
I might buy a couple for friends to use while camping/stargazing, and to save wear on mine :slight_smile:

You say this because you have used Barska optics before or just because they aren’t labeled with a more expensive brand name?

Granted these arent $300 binocs, but they are hardly toys. They are decent binoculars for $40 and a damn good deal at $16. And yes, I have used Barskas before. Glass optics, not plastic and these are ruby coated. Not exactly something you’d buy at the dollar store.

S.O loves to look out our Florida room out at the Wacammaw river and watch all the birds. I’m in for one 'cause Christmas is coming up! She’ll be thrilled!

That used to be the case, not anymore. I have several pair of el cheapo binoculars and some good ones including Nikon, Minolta two pair of Canon image stabilized, one costing $1200. Due to computer designed optics and modern coatings, even the cheap binoculars can be quite good. There are junk binoculars, but some of the cheap ones will surprise you.

if only it had been night vision

barska makes… passable stuff. Its ok if ur on an EXTREME budget. Bushnell or leopuld would be my choice for binocs

Long live woot. And pat yourself on the back for figuring out you can “use [these]… for looking at stuff”. If that’s really all you want to do, your eyes might do the trick as well.

nice, 20x50 with coated optics is good at this price. i’m in for 1 makeing this my 5th set of binoculars. it’s nice to have a few sets so that when the kids want to look to you don’t have to keep passing them back and forth and for 21 bucks i won’t feel to bad when they are droped. also someone sated that powers above 12 would need a tripod to keep the steady, i have never needed a tripod as long as i have something to lean on. i got a set of 20x60 that i use all the time on my deck, i sit in a chair with my elbows on the railing and hold pleanty steady or i stand and lean my hand against a vertical support beam for the roof on my deak, works perfect no tripod needed. heck my 3 year old uses my 12x30 set!

One of the biggest differences between binocs of high quality (Ziess) and dubious quality (Barska) is eye strain, especially in the case of prolonged use. If you hunt or even use them for bird-watching or a football game, the eyes tire very quickly with poorly crafted binocs. It’s just not worth it to go cheap. Take the 20 bucks you would spend on these and start saving for a good pair that you will use for a lifetime.

As someone who has sold binoculars (and cameras) for a living, please believe that 20X magnification is impossible to handhold if your trying to track an object like in hunting. These would be suitable for brief use as in following a horse race but not for the aforementioned hunting or astronomy.

These will be perfect for my tugboat. They are wide angle so you don’t have to have as steady a hand or solid ground as you would with standard binocs. For $20 I should have bought 2…maybe next time.

i watch deer and turkey on my deck anyday that i want to, there outside every day, with a set od 20x60 with no problems, i just rest my elbows on the railing ir lean against a support beam, i must be able to to the impossible! i must go and try to bend some keys with my mind now! never thought i could, but you have giving me hope!

We astronomers have figured out how to use these things called “tripods” to help with that. :slight_smile:
Hunters in blinds could probably do the same.

So, have you ever sold Barskas? What was your rate of return, if so? Most common complaint?

Edit: oh, ick, sorry, these don’t seem to be tripod-mountable? You are correct, then.

what do u do with binoculars anyway??

My experience with cheap binoculars makes me expect that these are of some usefulness for direct viewing but no good for digiscoping. If they’re like the pair of $10 8x20 roof prism binocs I had, the center of the image is reasonably sharp and the edges are rather soft. Good binoculars are sharp from edge to edge. However, the center is the part that one normally actually looks at.

Yes these are intended for daylight. Also, 20x is very powerful, and as mentioned, difficult to hand hold. You’ll want to lean them against something, or use a tripod, or whatever. But 20x50 is a very normal setup for high-magnification binoculars.

I’m sort of thinking of ordering a pair but I doubt I’d ever use them. I have a pair of Nikon 7x50 and that’s generally been enough magnification.

Oh by the way the red coating on the lenses is actually a sign of cheap binoculars that aren’t color corrected. Rather than use expensive glass or complex optics to focus the whole range of colors to a single point (glass’s index of refraction varies with wavelength, especially cheap glass), they simply reflect away the red (or is it filter out the blue), so there’s not as much a range of wavelengths and that improves the image sharpness. It adds some color cast, but as with sunglasses, your eyes adjust for it after a few moments. Expensive binoculars do NOT have these color effects, they are very neutral.

http://betterviewdesired.com is a good site about expensive binoculars and birding, for those who care.

Do you ever see any bandicoots?