Oberwerk 8x56mm Binoculars OB8x56

Not as good as the celestron 8x56 but worth the price.

Oberwerk 12x60 are very nice but these 8x56 felt like I was looking through two long tubes. Returned them for Bushnell Legacy WP 10x50 which are very nice.

I have had these binocs for almost a year and am very pleased.Many people mistakenly think that magnification power is the key issue in binoculars and telescopes. But no matter how good the optics, you can not get around the need for a large aperture to gather lots of light. At the same time, too much magnification both dims the image and increases the amount of hand shake. The 8x56 size is, for me, a good compromise of the light gathering, size and hand shake issues.Big binocs can be too bulky and heavy for most people. My largest are 11x80 astronomical binoculars and are used with a tripod. The 8x56 Oberwerk binocular is large but still capable of being held by most people. At the same time the comparatively low 8 power magnification reduces the amount of hand shake in the image.These binocs give performance surprisingly close to the large binocs, which means bright vivid images in daytime and almost night vision capabilities at night. The Bak4 prisms seem to give better detail than my big binocs which do not use this type of glass prisms. There is still some blurring of astronomical detail compared to a decent telescope in both these and my 11x80's, but for day-time and low light use, these give you much more detail than you will see with smaller aperture binoculars. If you have only used smaller binoculars, you are missing out on just how good binocular viewing can be.The Oberwerks are well-made and about the only improvement I would suggest would a better case than the supplied synthetic canvas type. The case is fine for basic carrying, but I would like something with more protective capability like the solid case I have for my 11x80's.However for about a hundred bucks you don't get everything.