Can anyone recommend a pair of compact autofocus binos for under $200.
Currently I have Steiner binos. I focus each eye and then I can scan the country at various distances without refocusing.
I am looking for the same capability in a compact 8x30 or smaller/lighter bino.

I think that you will find that auto focus binoculars are like the Jack of all Trades. They can a of little everything but nothing very well.

Not sure what you mean by auto focus? If you are looking for another binocular in the superior Individual Focus like the Steiners you already have, then your choices are scarce. IF is greatly superior to CF for most purposes, especially hunting, and has only be available in mostly Steiner and some Leupold (and Wind River) models. If you want something fairly compact and under $200 in an IF, then the Steiner 8x30 Military Marine is about your only choice. Occassionally, you will find a used Leupold compact roof prism model on ebay or some other source that you might be able to get for less than $200. Good luck.

I have used the individual focus bino's and you could not give me a pair. I much prefer center focus. With center focus I can focus the bino's with one hand, even when stalking in heavy woods or brush. You can actually "look through" heavy brush or leaves by focusing the binos at the object behind the brush or leaves between you and what you are trying to see. If you hunt nothing but open country you may have never tried this technique but it works excellent in the woods.

Stonecreek,
I think you hit it on the head.
I am looking for the same type of system as the Steiners. Not center focus.
I focus each eye individually and they stay focused at all distances, occasionally if much closer or much farther they may require a small tweak.
I am kind of surprised to hear there are so few options. That is why I posted here as I have been using my Steiners so long I am out of touch with what is out there now.
Thanks for the info I will go check out the Wind Rivers for this type of model.

I do not often use my binos in cover, I glass predominantly in open country.

I like them. They have cheated me a couple xtra animals over the years because of being able to count points on a disapearing deer. They work good with a spotting scope. You cover more ground quickly.

The Stieners you have are your best choice for that money. They are pretty tough and decent glass.

rukidnme: As you have observed, the IF type binoculars are generally much more user-friendly than the CF's, for a number of reasons.

(1) Focused to infininty, an IF will still be in clear focus as close as 75 feet or so. I rarely, as in virtually never, move the focus on my 23 year-old Leupold Golden Rings. When I do, it is to look as some minor detail of a very small and close object, and I can click them two notches without even looking through the lenses and know that they will be in perfect close focus. Even if I didn't know, from many years of useage, exactly where to place the diopters for close focus, they are quickly and easily focused SIMULTANEOUSLY while looking through them by grasping each diopter with the respective thumb and forefinger and instantly focusing for "unusual" distances -- or, as pointed out by the CF advocate, to blur the foreground brush in order to tightly focus on the deer screened by the brush.

(2) CF models are actually rather slow and confusing to focus, requiring two steps, and in the proper sequence. Most users instinctively do CF's backwards by focusing with the single diopter, then refocusing with the central wheel, which then puts the diopter eye out of focus (after which they bounce back and forth trying to figure out which adjustment is f*&$%^g up the other).

(3) Most CF models are VERY easily bumped out of focus, requiring you to adjust the focus every *&^%$$ time you raise them to your eyes. (Leupold and a couple of other manufacturers have rigged a lock on the CF wheel, but then that largely defeats the purpose of CF for people who use them at short and varying ranges like birdwatchers.)

(4) The biggest problem with binoculars is not focus, light transmission, or clarity, but collimation (the alignment of the two individual telescopes so that they're looking the same place). The more complicated CF system is harder to build and more difficult to collimate and keep in collimation than the simpler IF system.

(5) The simpler IF system is cheaper to build, so more resources can be put into the quality of the optics rather than be wasted on the mechanics.

(6) The IF system is more easily and surely sealed and waterproofed. It is also tougher and harder to break.

(7) The IF system is obviously also more compact and lighter in weight.

I am constantly puzzled that bino manufacturers don't regularly offer the IF's. I guess that it's a matter of marketing and (1) most people have never had a chance to compare the two, and (2) most people assume that a system that presumes to focus both eyes at once must be better than one that only focuses one eye at a time.

Every now and then you can find one of the older Leupold IF's (they call it "one time focus") in new or near new condition on ebay or some other place. There's a gun store in Burlington, Washington that apparently has a bunch of these and puts them up on ebay occassionally. They have a website and I believe it's Kessel's or something like that. You might try them for some IF Leupolds.

Leupold recently made their upscale Golden Ring compact model in just what you're looking for, but they are pricey at more than $400, discounted.

However, if you like your Steiner's, as I mentioned earlier, their 8 x 30 Military Marine model usually goes for less than $200. It has a polycarbonate body, which makes it very light, but in my experience, it's optics are a bit lower in quality than they should be, with less light transmission and a slight blurring at the extremes of the field of view. They have a slightly upgraded line, but I don't know if the optics are particularly better than the MM or not.

Good luck, and congratulations on your experience with the individual focus system. Most users will never have the opportunity to understand why their binoculars don't work the way the should.

I found that website for the Washington gun shop: kesselrings.com

Kesselring Gun Shop
4024 Old Highway 99 N
Burlington WA 98233
360-724-3113

Stonecreek,
Thanks for all the info and for taking the time to get the address.

I agree with your statements. Can't imagine why someone would rather have binoculars that have to be focused constantly when you can have binoculars just as clear that never need to be focused more than once. I am like you, I know where my setting is so I just leave it there and I never have to refocus.
I can glass through my Steiners for hours with no eyestrain and they are as clear as anybody elses binos I have looked through. These are the Hunting model I bought 10 years ago and believe they are of much higher quality than their current products.

I bet if one of the major bino makers like Sw Le or Ze came out with a new bino model with this feature and called a "new" major advancement in binoculars and marketed it as the next great improvement people would gobble them up.

Bushnell makes a set for around $65.00. I'd get a set, but the $50.00 set of regualar focus that I've had for the last 25, maybe 30 years refuse to lay down and die. I've beat the hell out of them and they refuse to quit. They haven't been inside the house since 1991 when I bought my hunting pickup new and decided to leave them in there so I would never forget them and so I would have them with I was out and about and saw something I wanted to look at close up. They have been outside through horrific California heat and though horrific Wyoming, Colorado and North Dakota cold sometimes hitting 30 below zero and they refuse to quit. Optica are average; nothing to brag about, but for the abiuse I give them, they are perfect. I've looked through fixed focus and it's okay. I just can't see retiring what I have now. Too much game has been spotted through those glasses; too mnay memories made. Dang, there I went and made a tear in the corner of my eye.

Roger: I may be wrong, but I think the Bushnell's you're talking about are "fixed focus" (as opposed to individual focus). With the fixed focus models, the factory simply pre-focuses, usually to just short of infinity, then "welds" the focus in that spot. This is useful for "economy" models and avoids having to build in any kind of focusing mechnism. This makes production cheap and also makes life simple for people who just can't seem to understand how to focus an optical instrument (ask an optometrist about some people's apparent inability to decide which image in the examining scope is sharper; this can drive the Doc mad). The disadvantages, such as never really being in sharp focus, are, of course, unacceptable to most hunters.