Binocular recommendation

Looking for guidance from frequenters of this forum - Could you recommend binoculars suitable for birding, sports and star-gazing that would have some of these features; rubber-clad, compact (similar to the reasonably nice Celestron 8x21 binocular I had), not made in China, and priced at under $75.
Feel free to let me know if my criteria is way out of line.
I generally spend my time on the TeleVue and refractor forums and have ventured here seeking new knowledge.
Thanks
Gary C.

Gary,
Someone else may know of one, but other than used I don't know of any binocs under $75 not made in China or Taiwan. Actually, I wouldn't let that bother me, IMHO the Chinese are making some rather nice binoc optics for the money you spend. I have a pair of Vortex Spitfire's and really like them. Here is a lower priced pair by Vortex:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product.asp?t=87&pid=11806&m=
Good eye relief, weatherproofed, 6º field of view. The only thing I don't like it the minimum focus distance of 15'. For nature work I prefer and shorter focus, 10' or less, but that may not be an issue with you.
Nikon's had the Action series around for quite a while, here's a nice pair:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product.asp?t=87&pid=8315&m=
Nice optics, armoured, well priced, and the 7x35 is more appropriate than the 8x26 Vortex for casual astronomy. It's a bigger, much heavier pair than the Vortex though. Now this Nikon is apparently new, but it seems to fit most of your criteria:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product.asp?t=87&pid=10834&m=
I don't know much about it, but it's lightweight, weatherproofed, and has the close focus I like for nature work in the field. Its small exit pupil of 3mm would limit you for astronomical work though.
Hope this helps you get started in your search.

David E

Gary Cunniff said:

Looking for guidance from frequenters of this forum - Could you recommend binoculars suitable for birding, sports and star-gazing that would have some of these features; rubber-clad, compact (similar to the reasonably nice Celestron 8x21 binocular I had), not made in China, and priced at under $75.
Feel free to let me know if my criteria is way out of line.
I generally spend my time on the TeleVue and refractor forums and have ventured here seeking new knowledge.
Thanks
Gary C.

No criteria is ever out of line.

IMHO 21mm and rubber coated are the two criteria that I would most likely pass on. It has been my experience that small aperture bino's can and do work well. Larger aperture just work significantly better. For birds, wildlife and night sky. More detail resovled, more color for those targets where color is an identifying parameter, and fainter fuzzies after dark.

It has also been my experience that within a given price range, one gets better optics without the rubber coating on the binos. The manufacturer has to make cost choices.

Gary:

I don't know of any binos under $100 that are made somewhere other than China, these days it pretty much comes with the territory.

For night sky, you need some aperture, personally I like 10 x 42 roof prism binos as an all around birding/astro binocular. Big enough to get capture some light and show the DSOs, particularly from dark skies, light and compact and the better ones have good close focus for close up birding.

If you wait long enough on Astromart, you might find some decent quality Japanese binos but it might be a year or two...

The best source of good quality used binoculars is Astromarter John Cota. John loves binoculars and he loves testing them. I would look him on up under User Profiles and send him a PM and see what he has for sale.

Jon

If you're serious about avoiding China, you could try Russian optics. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Yukon Advanced Optics gets their binoculars from Russia. They have some 10x50s under the $100 mark.

Yukon Advanced Optics 10x50 at $89.95
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product.asp?t=87&pid=10512&m=

If you wanted to go the surplus route, there are also a couple of interesting surplus binos. I don't know if they'd be good for seeing birds, but if aggressive capitalist imperialists or Nazi Tiger tanks ever come rolling into your neighborhood, you'll be ready.

Iron Curtain 6x30s at $39.95
http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/t1484.html

Kershaw Mk 3 British at $49.95
http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/t1508.html

The new Orion catalog has some Japanese binoculars for $149.