Praktica Falcon 10x50mm Porro Prism Field Black Binoculars - Fully Coated Lenses, Sturdy Construction, Aluminium Chassis, Sharp Clear Image, Bird Watching, Sailing, Hiking, Sightseeing, Astronomy

Pleased with the quality of these. Found that i shake more than i realised, so had to get the ones with the tripod attachment. Image quality is good, and focus adjustment is firm but not too stiff. Carry bag is nice, and i found these excellent as a starter into watching the night sky. Lens covers fit snugly but don't have anti loss straps, so i put them safely to one side before going out. Overall weight is good, look nice, and reasonably priced. well known make.

Ahhh the 7x35 Porro prism binocular…back in the 1970’s the 7x35 binocular was commonplace especially amongst bird watchers who favoured the wide angle viewing and relaxing 7x magnification. There is today to my knowledge only about four 7x35 binoculars commercially available, this praktica falcon, the Nikon Aculon & action ex and the Celestron G2 upclose ( I’ve tried all of them..) I am mightily impressed with this praktica for the price paid, of course it isn’t waterproof and has hardly any eye relief for spectacle wearers but actually i found I could still get quite a good view wearing glasses because of the wide 9.3 field of view, better without specs on though. Close focus is a respectable 4 metres and the focus wheel although not butter smooth as the Nikon Aculon is still pretty good. This falcon model is slightly better quality than the Celestron upclose and optically better plus the strap, case and lens caps are all better than the Celestron’s. I found even in low light conditions this little 7x35 praktica performed admirably well! I’m not a binocular snob but in the last decade have looked through probably about 100 different pairs of binoculars and i have to say this 7x35 falcon is a very useable field binocular with price/performance being very good & would be perfect for a beginner or anyone who just appreciates that lovely relaxing wide 3D view!Enjoy!

I bought a pair of these 8x40 Falcons two years ago now and I realised I have not made any comments on them which considering how well they have performed, I really should.First up, I'm going to get the negative stuff out of the way as I like to finish on a positive. The single worst thing about these binoculars is the lens caps. They are horrible and keep falling off. Not exactly a big problem though given the over all picture. Second is the case which is thin neoprene. It does the job, but feels flimsy and not exactly that nice. Again, not a major issue.Anything else negative? Hmmmm, not really. No water proofing or anti fogging Nitrogen, but that's not surprising given the price. Just don't use them in the rain or at extreme temperatures. Bit of a struggle to find anything else bad to say about them. They look slightly strange to my eyes, but handle pretty well. Certainly better handling than I expected. The focus wheel on my pair honestly is absolutely perfect. Its extremely smooth and slow which is exactly how I like it. I have about 15 different pairs of bins for me and my wife to go birdwatching and the focus wheel on these is amongst the best even though matched against bins costing around the £300 mark.So on to the optical performance. Cheesy as it sounds, but these have out performed numerous other pairs of bins I own that are a fair bit more expensive. How so? Well firstly my pair show next to no chromatic blur on sharp contrasting edges like telegraph poles and wiring. The view is nice and sharp even on birds further away at the edge of focus limit. Also birds in darker areas in trees can appear as just silhouettes. But the colour does still pop out a fair bit on mine allowing me to still see and identify them. Yes I have two pairs of bins that do this even better, but they both cost a lot more. These are the cheapest full sized binoculars I own, yet they basically still outperform all but two of my substantially more expensive bins.They have lower specs like BAK7 lenses and are multi coated rather than fully multi coated, but even the brightness of image is good. Certainly not darker than other 8x42 BAK4 Fully multi coated bins I have bar the two pairs I already mentioned that perform better. Bit of a head scratcher really as to why they are so good given the difference in price and specs.It might appear I have a load or rubbish bins then if these perform so well compared to them. But I don't! These just have a fantastically sharp, bright and 3d view with great field of vision. Other binocular users have had a view from these and all have been surprised by how good the optical performance is. At the end of the day, I put this down to them being Porro prisms rather than the newer less bulky Roof prism design. Porro's often perform well as they don't need all the extras like phase coating and such. If you get a pair of Porro prism binoculars that have been manufactured well, they will perform as well as Roof prisms that are substantially more expensive with much higher specs. Just take care of Porro prism bins even more than Roof types. Porro's are more delicate than Roofs.I bought a rain shield for these so I could ditch the horrible lens covers and picked up a cheap £19 padded case for them. Its completely transformed the overall feel of using them. They feel excellent. Some have commented that they are unsure of the durability of them which is a fair comment. I am careful with all my binoculars, but 2 years of solid use and I have had no issue with these.All in all I would say these would be a go to binocular for anyone getting into birdwatching for the first time. The price is extremely low so first timer's can toe dip to see if they like it without spending loads cash on a pair that then just gather dust on a shelf. Even without the extras I spent on mine, a first timer would still be getting a pair of binoculars that punch well above their price in optical performance. I can't recommend these enough really.