Barska 8x32mm WP Blackhawk Binoculars

Comments about Barska 8x32 WP Blackhawk Binoculars:

8X32 Blackhawk



In April 06 I ordered two pairs of Barska 8x32s from binoculars.com, for my granddaughters. They arrived after a few weeks on back-order, and I have been so pleasantly surprised that I bought a third pair, for use by myself, as grab-and-go birding binocs. The ultimate validation came a few nights back - for years we have heard Swainsons Thrushes during early summer, singing and calling on our property great to listen to, but almost impossible to catch visually. Hearing a thrush, in early dusk, I set out in earnest pursuit with the Barskas. Finally caught up with him, about 30 up in a maple tree these birds are well-camouflaged and move so quickly that they are a difficult target. I followed him all over several trees, singing and catching bugs, until he flew off. The barskas provided quick and accurate focus adjustment, which helped a lot. For me, this experience alone justified the $62 price of admission for this sort of use, these binocs are keepers.



Plusses



Light-weight good for kids

waterproof I will not push my luck on this.

Easy to focus quickly.

Rubber-clad.

No problems with image-merging.

No obvious collimation problems.

No noticeable false-colour issues this was a surprise.

Good close-focus 10 ft.





Minuses



1. Not multi-coated some internal glare with strong incidental light.

2. Focus is not sharp across the complete FOV. I have seen this in other birding binocs, and in practice matters little.

3. Some QC issues in the mechanical assembly

* there is some variation in the stiffness of the focusing and diopter mechanisms, and in the inter-pupillary adjustment.

* one pair has a slight but annoying slop in the main focus mechanism (although this is not nearly as bad as the slop in my Orion Vista 8x42s). Another has a little slop in the diopter adjustment not a show-stopper but mildly annoying.