Any good ones? Doing field archery and FITA and looking to see where my arrows are hitting in the target. I have the cheaper Zeiss Conquests in 8x30, and I really can see arrows in the target as well with them at 80-100 yds as most of the 10x binos, even a pair of the newer Zeiss Conquest HD 10x40's and Leica Trinovids. But at those distances, that's not very well.

Tried a friend's Nikon 12x42 Monarch 5 that seemed pretty good, though the focus was pretty fussy. Considering these. Appreciate any comments.

Also, has anybody looked through the Zeiss Conquests in 12x45? Are they clear? I've been really happy with my 8x30's, but they seem to get mixed reviews, and I'm a little afraid of unit-to-unit quality control variance.

Thanks,
Steve

Does anyone use a spotting scope. With a tripod you could have a nice setup without keeping up with a pair of binos.

The Conquest is very clear but well outside your budget too.

Impala, FITA guys shoot from 4 locations, so some of them use spotting scopes, but the Field Archery courses are like a golf course, with 28 sets of targets to shoot at from various yardages. So nobody uses spotting scopes there.

Sheephunterab,

Was looking at camerland's demo/samples list, and they have a conquest 12x45.

Gotcha, I had no idea how the Field Archery course worked.

I've found that binoculars higher in power than 10X are very fussy in focusing. They also magnify shake, thus compromising their net resolving ability when handheld. I would look toward a good 10X instrument in this price range. A good quality 10X will outperform a lesser quality 12X every time.

Stonecreek,

That's kind of what the technician at Zeiss said. She suggested the Conquest HD 10x42's. Seemed to be steering me away from the 12x45 Conquests. Tried a pair of the 10x42HD's, and the view was pretty good, but I couldn't make out add'l details vs my 8x30's. Don't know if it was the light or just that pair or what. Another friend's Carson HD 10x42's let me see better than the 8x30's at 80 yards, but still couldn't make out the arrow against the black background. But with yet another friend'ss Nikon Monarch 5's in 12x42, I could see the arrow shot holes in the black target at out to 65 and the black arrow against the black target (which I couldn't see with my 8x30's).

I also tried some Swaro EL 10x42's at BassPro, and I could read some text across the store that I couldn't quite make out with my 8x30's. I figured different light, contrasting background, and better class of glass. But this could support what you were saying, too.

Not scientific, since these are all occurring different days in different light, but my sample seems to indicate that I can hold the 12's steady enough to look at the target for the few seconds needed and can see enough better to make out the arrow's position in the target. The older, fairly dirty Leica 10x42's didn't give me a better view at 80 yds than my 8x30's and weren't as good as the Carson's same day from the same spot. Not a fair comparison, but made me think I wanted 12x vs a better pair of 10x.

Probably cheaper to paint my arrows orange...