UKC

It is my sisters birthday in a few weeks and apparently she would like some binoculars.
Can somebody recommend me a pair for under £30.

Cheers

In reply to Carlito: What does she want them for? Binoculars are one of those items that people dont want to spend money on but really should. Cheap bins (under £100) are generally a waste of money. The optics and focussing will be really poor and can give you sore eyes and headaches. There is a lot of info out there in Webland about buying binoculars, I suggest you do some research first as otherwise the salesman may try to bamboozle you with tech talk and that's not really what you need!

In reply to Carlito:

Should get some ideas on here.

http://www.praktica-uk.com/

I've had a pair of compact 10 x 25's for years, and they're light and easy to use for most non serious use ( great for spotting lines on crags). For example you can comfortably read car number plates at 200 metres.

I did have some zoom binocs that went from 7 - 20x magnification, but for general hand held use, at any more than about 12x magnification they were nigh on impossible to hold still enough with any degree of success.

In reply to Carlito:

Your budget is pretty low, so you're probs looking at second-hand for anything worth spending the money on. Look for names well-known for optics (Nikon, Leica, Vivitar...) and avoid gimmicks. Like others said, what you want depends on intended use: check sites dedicated to birding, astronomy, whatever.

In reply to Carlito: Bushnell bins are meant to be of reasonable quality- the 8x25 H2O roof prism model is available for just over 30 on amazon

In reply to Carlito:

Not binos, but our local Aldi are still doing a fairly serious looking 'spotting scope' and tripod for under £30!

In reply to Carlito:

These will be hard to beat for a bargain at the moment!

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_8&products_i...

In reply to Lord of Starkness:

At that price Praktica seems a good bet. I bought some Carl Zeiss Jena compacts at that price a few years ago but can't find anything similar now.