all binoculars

One of my co-workers got a pair of these from Amazon today. Wow! We stood at the window of our 24th floor office and read the menu of a hot-dog cart on a corner a block and a half away.

What really clinches it (and made it possible to read the hot-dog cart menu) is the image stabilization. If you have a high magnification, any minor shake of your hand is magnified. Try it with a video camera with one of thos high digital zooms. When you're at 100x, even the electronic image stabilization can't compensate just for the average minor muscle twitches in your hand.

The image stabilization on this is optical (i.e. analog), not digital, meaning there's no fuzzing of the image as a processor tries to adjust the image to compensate for vibration. Optical zoom and optical stabilization require more expensive mechanical components to implement, thus you'll see mid-range video cameras offering their digital counterparts to enhance or substitute for optical zooms and stabilizers.

Given, these binoculars will set you back a pretty penny, but you could go to a ball game, sit in the nosebleeds and count the laces on the ball. Definitely a very cool thing for the gadget-oriented.

The problem with high power binoculars is that humans can't hold them steady, and that jitter makes it impossible to really look at something without a tripod. The image stabilization in this pair solves that problem and holds things rock steady. This is an expensive product that clearly distingues itself, and one of those products that technology makes seem a little magic.

I have only two small complaints: First, for a product this expensive they should pre-install the neck strap for you -- not a big deal, but it would be nice for the customer. Second, I wish the lens cap covers were higher quality and attachable to the unit so they wouldn't get lost. Again, not a big deal.

These are without a doubt the best binoculars I've ever used.

I bought the Canon 18x image stabilizer binoculars a month ago and I love them.

The reason I bought these high-powered binoculars is I want to identify all the major landmarks in the San Jose South Bay area. My wife and I ride up to the mid-hill of Mt. Hamilton once a month. Most of the time before we are ready to turn back and coast down the hill, we spend a fair amount of time looking at the spectacular scenery of the San Jose and South Bay area. We want to identify as many landmarks as possible. With our compact Minolta 10x binoculars, we get a clear look at downtown San Jose and of course the Lockheed aircraft hangers. But we could not find the San Jose airport. With the new Canon binoculars, we can identify the airport and many other places. We can even find the street intersection that is only one street away from where we live. The interesting thing is once we identify a place, we can also use the compact Minolta to see the landmark, although with smaller vision. These Canon binoculars make excellent spotter.

The image stabilizer is an interesting high-tech feature. It helps to get a clear and stable view if you press the stabilizer button. However, the binoculars weight 2.6 lbs. I am tired after holding them for two to three minutes. Last time we rode up Mt. Hamilton, we bought a regular camera tripod with us. These Canon binoculars come with a built-in screw thread that can accept a standard tripod quick-release plate. With the binoculars mounted on the tripod, we spent a good half hour looking down the beautiful landscape. The obvious question is, does the use of the tripod defeat the purpose of paying extra for the image stabilizer? How much something is worth is a very personal question. It differs from person to person. I am not going to attempt to answer this question.

We are very happy to own these binoculars. This is a very pricey toy, but we love it. I first saw the Canon 15x image stabilizer binoculars at Wolf's Camera web site and they have a price tag of around $1,200. I was shocked by the price. I told myself some day I might buy it. A year later, amazon.com was carrying this 18x version at a much lower price. I was overjoyed and broke down and bought this toy the following month.