Celestron Oceana 71189 7×50 IF/RC Binoculars with Compass – Waterproof

I am very happy that I bought this binocular; I bought it for our first charter trip and the binoculars provided with the boat were really bad. Compared to those, these were shining. I think they were also much better than the Bushnell 7X50 we had during sailing school. Actually with these it was the first time I could enjoy watching the world through a pair of binoculars. The image is clear and very bright. It doesn’t seem to lose any brightness at all. They are not very heavy, if you hold them in a position with your arms close to your chest to provide more support you can use them for quite a while.Now, the bad – they are not extremely well built; the rings around the lenses are stuck with some very cheap glue and they almost came off in only a week of using it. This doesn’t have any effect on the optical quality, but still; I hope that the inside is built somewhat stronger, otherwise I will have to replace them too soon.They have separate focus adjustments for each eye, which is good if you have different vision in each eye, but the correction rings are too lose and the slightest touch moves them, meaning that you have to adjust focus again.The built in compass is fine, well visible during day or night using the red lamp included. It was also accurate, as we compared it to three other compasses and they all showed the same bearings.The biggest issue I have with this binocular is that the extremely high eye-relief number claimed by the manufacturer, (24mm I believe) doesn’t seem accurate; normally 18 is a good number, and 20 or 21, exceptional. Celestron claims that this one has 24mm; I choose this product based on the eye relief because I wear eyeglasses and I wanted to be able to use it with them on; well, not much luck, because the field of view is so drastically reduced when wearing my glasses, it’s not worth bothering. Actually I think it is about 18 because this was the number on the Bushnell that I used and I have the same field of view with this one. Luckily, I realized soon that if I remove my glasses I am still able to see clearly without needing to adjust the focus, so that’s what I did.During one week of use something happened to the scale and compass window – it has somehow rotated so that the compass reading does not show through the window it is supposed to; also the distance scale is not vertical anymore, making it totally useless. I suppose I have to open the compass housing and fix it somehow, but I am not sure how and why this happened. In any case, I suppose it shouldn’t have, so this takes away one star. The other is lost because of the focus adjustment rings which are too easy to move involuntarily. All in all I am happy with the purchase and would recommend it with the above mentioned caveats.

Great Value!Last year (2010) I purchased these binocs by Celestron for $118US via Amazon.com.I have used them for a full cruising season and am quite pleased. They certainly exceed my expectations for relatively inexpensive binocs. I also have an older pair of West Marine branded binocs aboard (which have survived many years (at least 10) of marine use and not always the best treatment and are now showing their age). The West marine binocs cost about $150 more. The Oceana binocs are certainly comparable to these (even a bit better in some aspects). Optics and ergonomics are good, padded case included, backlit compass uses red light (battery included), quality of construction seems comparable to somewhat more expensive binocs. While the optics are not likely up to Steiner quality they are certainly quite adequate for typical boating use (low light performance is comparable to binocs costing a few hundred dollars more).

Handliches Fernglas – keine Probleme.

Il tappo del dispositivo che contiene le batterie per la luce in notturna non si chiude bene e quindi inutilizzabile.

Excellent product…delivery as promised…highly recommend

These were all around not bad. Good optics, nicely dampened compass and a storage bag included. Except for one major flaw that made me return them: The compass was too far out of view and it wasn’t possible to look at it without ramming them deep into my eyesockets – and even then it was often a struggle.