Celestron UpClose 10-30x50 Binocular

by Celestron

Product Details

• Item Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B0000CAOGU
• Item model number: 71140C
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,849 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 12, 2004

Product Description

The UPCLOSE Series from Celestron is a complete line of compact and full size binoculars at very economical prices. All models are rubber covered to protect against rough handling. These binoculars are fully coated to give high contrast views. A series that has something for everyone whether for action sports, vacationing, nature viewing, wildlife observing or various other activities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and economical!, June 2, 2007

By 

Henry Yan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Celestron UpClose 10-30x50 Binocular (Electronics)

I bought this product from Digital Foto who shipped it fast. This item is wonderful after you adjust the interpupillary distance and focus. It's easy to zoom for magnified images. Compare field view of 215 ft/1000ft to barska's 195/1000. 14 mm eye relief is just enough for me, an eye glass wearer.

More than enough for birding and even good for entry-level astronomical observations. Highly recommended!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for a pair of Zoom Binoculars, January 22, 2010

By 

E. Zenisek (Southwest USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Celestron UpClose 10-30x50 Binocular (Electronics)

I use binoculars regularly for both terrestrial and astronomical viewing, and I was looking for something that would give me more options than a single fixed pair of binoculars. I'd read warnings from many places about zoom binoculars, but decided that I'd go ahead and give them a try since this pair are affordable and made by a reputable company, Celestron. I have a pair of fixed zoom Celestrons that I love as well.

Let me start by saying there was a crack in the left hand eyepiece lens, just off to the side. I didn't feel it was bad enough to warrant the hassle of a return, but it does exist. My advice would be to check the optics carefully whenever you purchase something like this from an internet retailer. Since this is a fairly cheap pair of binoculars, I wasn't terribly upset about it, but just something to watch for and one of the reasons I marked down a couple of stars.

If you're not familiar with Zoom binoculars let me give you a quick overview. There is a single small lever up by the eyepieces that allow you to change the zoom factor of the binoculars. This lever moves a set of lenses in the housing back and forth, and both the left and right lens must move exactly together for the image to remain in focus across multiple zoom levels. This is no easy task, and these binoculars aren't great at it. If you change the zoom level, you'll need to refocus. Also, the light gathering capability of the binoculars doesn't change, so as you zoom in things will get dimmer. That's ok if you're observing a terrestrial object during the daytime, but isn't very good for night sky observing at all. If you plan to use them for that, then just keep them zoomed out all the way. As with any zoom binoculars, the least zoomed out setting suffers from a terrible field of view, meaning you can't see as much... there's more black space around the actual visible image. Zooming in abates this problem, but you trade off field of view for brightness. In addition, getting the binoculars to focus at maximum zoom is... an art. Focusing while zoomed all the way out is a snap, but zooming in reduces the margin of error for focusing, making pinpoint images much harder to obtain. In addition, since the lenses move back and forth and are not fixed inside the binocular, moving or jarring the binoculars will likely cause them to lose focus, at least a little.

These problems are inherent in almost all zoom binoculars unless you're willing to spend an excessive amount of money, so none of the aforementioned issues are exclusive to the Celestrons. In fact, the Celestrons, once focused, have an incredibly sharp image throughout the available field of view almost up to maximum zoom. Unless you're lucky, however, pinpoint focusing at maximum zoom is nigh impossible. If you're willing to trade off zoom for a little bit of fuzziness, however, that's not too big of an issue.

Overall these binoculars get three stars. They certainly satisfied my curiosity about zoom binoculars and verified all I had heard. I probably would not purchase them again, opting instead for a fixed zoom pair. If I were set on getting a zoom pair again, however, I wouldn't hesitate to go with Celestron.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Arrived very misaligned, October 12, 2010

By 

Ellen Su (Hebron, OH) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Celestron UpClose 10-30x50 Binocular (Electronics)

I've had these for some time now and they were not right from day one. They were okay at 10X but as soon as you zoomed, double vision occurred. I saw through the other one star reviews it was more than half the original cost to send them back so I opted to just use them 10X. Recently I started to look for a fix online and found a so-so one on YouTube but a comment in Amazon to one of the one-star reviews gave me a link and I was able to fix the binoculars myself... woo woo! It appears that Amazon will not allow me to post a link but if you just search "binocular collimating", some helpful sites should come up. The little adjustment screws are just under the rubber armor. There is no need to take anything apart. You will need a sturdy micro flat blade screwdriver and a lot of patience. The screws are hard to get started but they will move.