Binoculars for Wildlife Observation or Safari Touring

Bringing a pair of binocular doesn’t comes to most people mind when they are planning a trip to the safari. However, for anyone who have been to the safari, they’ll know that realistically you are not going to have that many close-up encounters with those beautiful wild animals. Instead, most of the time you will be viewing the animals from afar in the safety of your vehicle.

Having a right pair of binocular is crucial in ensuring that you get to enjoy the splendid views of wildlife in their natural habitat. However, not all binoculars will be able to do the job well enough and how do you determine which binoculars should you purchase for the trip?

Here are some important features that you should consider when buying binoculars for your safari trip.

1. Toughness of the binocular. A safari trip will definitely involve moving through rough terrains, bushes and many other type of harsh environments. To ensure that your binocular can last beyond the trip, choose one that is made of rugged body or has a Rubber Armor protection.
2. Size of objective lens. Chances are, you will be spotting wildlife at near dusk or in the early morning which means that the lighting conditions in your environment will not be the most ideal. To counter this, make sure to choose a binocular that has a bigger objective lens as bigger objective len can allow you to view in lower light conditions – we will recommend objective lens size between 32mm to 50mm as anything bigger than 50mm will likely cause the binocular to be too bulky.
3. Lens coating.  For wildlife observation, you will want to be able to see every spot of the animals clearly and this is where the coating of the lens comes into play. Lens using more advanced type of coating will have much better light transmission which results in extremely high image contrast. Always look out for binoculars with lens that have multi-coating, phrase-correction-coating or electronic-beam-coating.
4. Waterproofing. Being in the wild, you never know when you will get wet and hence getting a binocular that is 100% waterproof ensures that you have one less thing to worry about.
5. Night vision capability. Most of the predators like the big cats usually hunt at night and as a hardcore wildlife observers you will not want to miss the actions. To fully enjoy wildlife observation at night without disturbing the animals, a pair of binocular with night vision capability is a must.
6. Magnification power. As chances are, you will be quite a distance away from the animals and hence you will want to be equipped with a binocular that has a decent enough magnification power. However, as you will also be constantly on the move, a high magnification power binocular will cause the viewing to be very shaky (unless you are using a pair of binocular with image stabilization system) and hence you need to seek a balance between high power and steadiness of image. We will recommend getting a pair of binocular that has magnification power between 7 times and 10 times.
7. Image Stabilization. You will constantly be on the move, be it that you are sitting inside a moving vehicle or up on your feet walking with the elephants. Using a pair of binocular with image stabilization system means that no matter how fast you are moving or how much the binocular is shaking, you’ll still always get the steadiest view.

Based on the above, here are some of the binoculars that we will recommend for your next safari or wildlife observation trip: