Background: I stumbled upon this website in the past few months, after my buddy and I decided that we want to plan our first Elk hunt. We have decided on an OTC CO archery hunt! In preparation for said hunt, I decided that I am going to need better gear (my buddy has not yet accepted he needs better gear, which I am continuously working on). We are both single income families, and he just had a child, and I am paying for a wedding, so both of our budgets are tight.
Coming from a strictly tree-stand hunting background, I have never really needed a pair of binoculars, and when I did, my cheap Bushnell H20 8x25 binos did the job just fine. I honestly did not understand why you would want to spend hundreds, and often time thousands, of dollars on binos....until I found this forum. I was still skeptical, but decided to trust this community. I did (no joke) probably hundreds of hours of research trying to figure out what I could justify spending, the features I wanted, and the binos that fit those criteria. I knew I wanted either an 8x42 or 10x42 pair of binos with a good FOV and weren't super heavy. I eventually narrowed it down to the Hawke Frontier ED X and the GPO Passion ED (before I found this forum, I thought Vortex was the best of the best lol).
While I was browsing Cameraland's website, I noticed they had a pair of Demo Hawke Frontier 8x42s (not the X model, last generation. Hawke CS couldn't even tell me about them) for $199. I figured I would take the chance on them, and just return them if I was not impressed. So I ordered them, waited a couple of days, and the UPS man dropped them off.
Holy.....Crap.... I understand now. They are INCREDIBLE. I have literally been looking through them for the past 3 or 4 days, I am like a child with a new favorite toy. The image is SO CEAR and SO SHARP. I can see when its dark outside! My fiancee just keeps laughing at me, but even she noticed a big difference between my cheap Bushnells and my new Frontiers.
Now they are not perfect. The built in lense caps come off easily and leave a bit to be desired, and the focus wheel is kind of lose, but it adjusts smoothly. I was also surprised at how heavy they were. At 24oz, they are NOT heavy binos, but I was just use to my tiny Bushnells.
I just want to say Thank You to this forum and this community. There is SO MUCH information out there it is almost hard to digest it all. I am constantly learning new things and finding new items to buy. I am ALREADY looking into the future and figuring out which bino's I might upgrade to next (I have only had the Frontier's for like 3 days!!!!)
Coming from a strictly tree-stand hunting background, I have never really needed a pair of binoculars, and when I did, my cheap Bushnell H20 8x25 binos did the job just fine. I honestly did not understand why you would want to spend hundreds, and often time thousands, of dollars on binos....until I found this forum. I was still skeptical, but decided to trust this community. I did (no joke) probably hundreds of hours of research trying to figure out what I could justify spending, the features I wanted, and the binos that fit those criteria. I knew I wanted either an 8x42 or 10x42 pair of binos with a good FOV and weren't super heavy. I eventually narrowed it down to the Hawke Frontier ED X and the GPO Passion ED (before I found this forum, I thought Vortex was the best of the best lol).
While I was browsing Cameraland's website, I noticed they had a pair of Demo Hawke Frontier 8x42s (not the X model, last generation. Hawke CS couldn't even tell me about them) for $199. I figured I would take the chance on them, and just return them if I was not impressed. So I ordered them, waited a couple of days, and the UPS man dropped them off.
Holy.....Crap.... I understand now. They are INCREDIBLE. I have literally been looking through them for the past 3 or 4 days, I am like a child with a new favorite toy. The image is SO CEAR and SO SHARP. I can see when its dark outside! My fiancee just keeps laughing at me, but even she noticed a big difference between my cheap Bushnells and my new Frontiers.
Now they are not perfect. The built in lense caps come off easily and leave a bit to be desired, and the focus wheel is kind of lose, but it adjusts smoothly. I was also surprised at how heavy they were. At 24oz, they are NOT heavy binos, but I was just use to my tiny Bushnells.
I just want to say Thank You to this forum and this community. There is SO MUCH information out there it is almost hard to digest it all. I am constantly learning new things and finding new items to buy. I am ALREADY looking into the future and figuring out which bino's I might upgrade to next (I have only had the Frontier's for like 3 days!!!!)
