Telescope Reviews: Carson 8.5 x 42 UltraWide Binoculars

I had purchased these binoculars some time ago, but not really had a good opportunity to test them out for observing. These binoculars run around $150 and are distinguished by an enormously wide field of view. The specifications for these binoculars indicate a FOV of 578' at 1,000 yards. This translates to a TFOV of 11° FOV which at 8.5x amounts to an almost Ethos-wide 95° AFOV (!). Of course, the specifications also specify "extra long eye relief" which is utter nonsense as the eye relief is tight and catching the entire FOV really requires jamming your eyes into the eyecups. The FOV though seems pretty close to that. I was just able to catch the entire lower half of Orion - all three belt stars and Saiph and Rigel. Mintaka to Saiph is over 10° so this seems close. Even wearing glasses, I could still catch Orion's belt and sword together.

Center sharpness is quite acceptable and out to 50% it's still reasonable, but then starts to fall off with substantial fall-off at the extreme edge. However, I compared these with the significantly more expensive Miyauchi Binon 5x30's ($400) and have to say that the FOV looked very comparable. I have commented elsewhere that the 13° FOV quoted for the Binons is definitely wrong (or more accurately wrong at least for my pair of Binons). And while the Binon's have better center sharpness, the edges in the Binons are not much sharper than the Carons - although the AFOV on the Binons is a far more digestible 57-60° or so with much better eye relief. I looked at the same bottom half of Orion and have to say I could only see a tiny bit more than in the Carson's, so I estimate the TFOV to be at best around 11.5°. And with the Binons having a lot of edge falloff too, the edges in the Carson's did not seem that unreasonable.

Of course, you are not going to get pinpoint stars over a field of view like this(!). But the super wide field does make it much easier to catch objects with more context available. I was looking for R Leporis (Hind's Crimson Star) in my 18x50's but having a lot of difficulty making sure I was looking at the right place with the 3.5° FOV. In the Carson's, Arneb and mu Leporis and R Leporis were all visible at once making it much easier to confirm the correct location.

Anyone looking for eye relief and sharp edges will be disappointed in the Carson's, but if you don't wear glasses and accept the inevitable edge distortions, the ultra-wide field of view has its merits. With my current plethora of binoculars, I will probably let the Carsons go rather than the Miyauchi's as I dislike tight eye relief, but the larger objectives and higher magnfication of the Carson's may mean I'll be holding on to them a bit longer!

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