Vortex Diamondback HD DB-214 10×42 Binoculars

These are just great, very clear view, easy to carry around, quality product for a fair price. The unconditional warranty is unmatched too, no worries for the life of the product, what more could you ask for.

For the overall price point these are the binoculars to get. I’ve use them multiple times already and even got them with in the rain. The dust caps have a great fit keep the dirt out. They are a light enough carrying weight to keep in a pack or in THE AMAZING case that they come with. Obviously would recommend because of the Vortex warranty!

First, I’m a Swarovski fan, I own the superb 15X56HD, and the pretty darn good CL Pocket 10X25. If I spend real money on binoculars I get Swarovski. What led me to purchasing the Diamondback 10X42 was I wanted an inexpensive 10X42 or 10X50 casual astro bino to supplement my telescope viewing. Something that performs pretty well but I wouldn’t be too worried about fumbling around with it in the dark on my hard unforgiving driveway.

There are many candidates but the first I tried was the Maven B1 10X42. Now this isn’t exactly cheap, I got mine for $780 during the last Prime Day. Briefly, it was a dog – mainly roof angle error, if you can believe that in this day and age. And the color correction was just weird. It went right back – I’m not impressed with Maven because of that experience.

The next candidate was the Celestron Granite 10X50. This is a pre-current model still available on Amazon. I have had good luck with other Granites, an 8X42 and a 9X33, that I have since gifted to family members. The 10X50 I got had a horrid focuser – stiff and the lost motion was almost 1/8 of a turn, which made focusing a lot more difficult than usual. One barrel was soft – the resolution was noticeably degraded. If I can notice a lack of resolution at the native magnification I want nothing to do with it, so back it went.

Then I got what is arguably the most popular unit in this low price point group of candidates – the Vortex Diamondback 10×42. There is a reason for the popularity as the performance is good, along with being ergonomic and stylish. At 10X both barrels are dead sharp in the middle of the field. On my optical bench the right barrel is close to diffraction limited with the main aberration being moderate coma. The left barrel is not as good with it having more coma. The resolution of the left barrel is still good enough that there is no degradation at the native 10X. Color correction is quasi ED – that is, it is closer to ED than to achromatic. The Bekay fringes (fringes on objects just out of focus) are green/magenta and not too terrible. The main detractor is limited field performance. It’s not terrible but the sweet spot is pretty small, I would say its about 40 percent of the field. There is both blurriness (field curvature) and pretty strong lateral color (green/magenta fringes). I’m not too obsessed with field performance and this level of field performance is acceptable to me at this price point. One nice positive I didn’t expect is glare control. I was able to look pretty deep into the sun corridor and have remarkably good contrast on backlit objects. In fact, it clearly out performed my Swarovski 10X25 in this regard.

I’m keeping these, at least till I give them away some day. There are a lot of other candidates in this price range, and at $100 more there are a bunch more with flatter fields and better color correction. But the unknown factor is quality control. I think you can get a dog with all of the name brands and models. I would think that as the price goes up the possibility of getting a bad unit goes down, but the worst (by far) of the units I tried was the Maven B1 10X42, basically a thousand dollar model. I found it frustrating to get a binocular this way without trying it out before buying. But this is the world we live in now, and Amazon’s return policy does facilitate the process. I must say I was beginning to get a complex about returning these high price items though.

Fast delivery and was as expected

Super claros.. cómodos, no decepcionan

For the money you can’t beat these. The range of vision is great and in light exposure is also terrific. Te