Customer Reviews

Carson Close-Up Monoculars

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Carson Close-Up Monocular is a great optical device! It has excellent optics, is easy to use, is small and light weight. It has the additional advantage of being able to focus at an extremely close distance, I believe of about 10 inches!!! This makes it great for looking not only at birds, distant mountains, etc. but also at paintings in museums, cool things I don't want to touch - like spiders or bugs, etc. It appears to be well built and sturdy too. It's quite compact and lightweight, lighter than a tiny monocular I had planned to take on an upcoming trip. This Carson monocular has replaced my old monocular and because of its small size and weight it will likely replace my binoculars for birding, hiking, etc.

Highly Recommended. 4.5 Stars. Under $15. I can use it even with my safety glasses on but I lose some width looking through the scope. Works for me. Only bad point is the thin, black, string holder would make a great garrote to get yourself killed. It is not for any workplace. OSHA would never approve the string. Replace it with a safe, breakaway ribbon like I did & you have a 5 star, very sharp, mini telescope with a UNHEARD of CONTINUOUS FOCUS down to 10 inches. It only uses one focusing ring while a rival close focus monocular forces you to use a 2nd focusing ring for distances within 6 feet. If the 1st ring on the rival monocular isn't all the way back, it won't focus. Lightweight. I use the close focus end of the scope at work, (for distances between 2 - 10 feet), to read labels from a lift. I had no fogging problems.

Lightweight and compact enough for a shirt pocket, with small lightweight black nylon belt pouch and lanyard. But I'm a little disappointed with this item despite having researched it thoroughly and having modest expectations.
It requires two hands to focus the lens. Its optics are good at close distances; for a nature walk, you will see more detail on an interesting plant, leaf, etc. But don't expect it to also serve for long distance viewing; in my experience it is NOT a viable longer distance substitute for binoculars. I can't make out street name signage or park trail signposts at a distance, for instance. So it's good close up, but not very helpful as a navigation tool.
It does give pretty fair results out to about 60-80 feet, but not (to my eye) beyond that enough to be very helpful. Build quality and small carry case are fine. The 'lifetime warranty' requires you send in a $12.00 check for service, lol.
This item might be very useful at museums, to see details of items in glass cases or hung on walls behind barrier ropes. I give it 3 stars because it's just not useful for the distance work I would have liked to use it for in addition to the closer work.

I'll be darned. This monocular actually delivered as advertised. I think most of us know that when you purchase any optical instrument at very low price; chances are that somewhere along the way it will have problem. Another Carson product I purchased in the past (zoom microscope) was exactly like that. It was very difficult to focus, very narrow field-of-view and simply pain to use.

This monocular, conversely had been opposite. As others have already noted, it really does do excellent job of extreme close focus. This monocular is so low priced that you don't have to baby it. If you lose it or break it then just buy another one.

FYI in case you decide to purchase this. If you're sensitive to glue or plastic smell you may need to aerate it first because my monocular smelled when I first opened the box and used it. Also, people with extreme near-sight vision wearing glasses may have some problem focusing on certain objects like plants or forest.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I had trouble deciding what kind of rating to give; here's why: I ordered two of these and received Amazon's typical fast service. However, these fragile optical devices were shipped in a book box--no padding. One device was broken (internal lenses rattled), and the other was seriously misaligned.

I submitted a return request noting the packaging problem, returned them, and Amazon shipped two more to me overnight--again, typical super-speedy service. Guess what--no padding. One was broken, one mildly misaligned. So this time I called and talked with a typically helpful rep, explained the problem, and he said that he'd contact the facility that ships these and explain that padding is required.

I waited a day and requested two more, explaining the padding requirement. Again, overnight shipping--arrived on a Saturday (cost Amazon extra)! You guessed it: No padding.

I kept the best two of the lot (each has a rather mild alignment problem), and am hoping the internal lens package doesn't break loose one of these days as the result of shipping jostling.

I still really like Amazon, but now cannot expect them to take care with fragile items--I'll have to buy things like this elsewhere.

This monocular allows me to read signs, registration plates, house numbers with the convenience of an object kept in my pocket/on my belt.

It's okay for the price I paid, ($13.50), and it's about average in clarity, etc., but what can you expect for such little money? The close-up feature to me is almost useless as it takes too many turns of the focus tube to use quickly. The Brunton Echo Pocket Monocular to me is a much better pocket monocular for general use.

I bought the Carson 7X18 monocular for nature walks.
The quality optics let me see far and close objects quite clearly. Focusing is easy. It is very light and fits easily in my pocket.

This is a quality product at a very reasonable price.

Wanted something very small for hiking when i don't want to bring my good binoculars but this isn't it. Very poor image quality. For the price i wasn't expecting Zeiss or Leica quality but i did expect something usable. Returned it the next day. Very disappointed. Do not buy.

I find this very helpful at the grocery, especially the produce section, to see the prices that are set too far back. I even use it for printed materials where the font is smaller than I can comfortably read. I put the item down and focus in. It makes the print larger. Cool, eh? It has a wider field of view than any monocular I've used before. That helps a lot with a shaky hand and I can wear my glasses while using it, if need be.