“Will you wait for that?” the guy in the white lab coat asked.
And before you leap to an unwarranted conclusion, know that I was talking to a pharmacist, not a shrink, and the issue was filling a prescription.
“Sure,” I said. And I did. Took a trip around the aisles of the pharmacy. Studied the covers of magazines I had no intention of buying. Walked around the card racks to see if there were any impending holidays worth celebrating.
I stopped when I saw binoculars. I always stop when I see binoculars. I don’t know what they were doing in a pharmacy but there they were. For sale. And the tag read like a pricing error.
$9.99. Even the LeMaire binoculars Roger Tory Peterson bought back in the 1930s cost more than this!
Curious, first because of the price, second because they were just sitting out begging a hand to grab them, I lifted them to my eyes…
And was almost forced to run to the aisle specializing in medications to aid stomach disorders.
The image was ghastly. Horrible. The worst thing I have ever seen this side of a Coke bottle.
The field of view–the chunk of the world you saw when you peered through the things–wouldn’t do justice to an image offered by an average soda straw. The image quality undermined any sense of the word. It was dark, murky, and the instrument turned the world a sickly green.
I turned them around and looked at the objective lens. Sure enough. They had that amber coating that consumers find irresistible (which is precisely why manufacturers of cheap binoculars put it there).
Of course they were out of alignment.
Of course they wouldn’t focus closer than 20 feet.
What do you expect for the price of a burger and cheap domestic beer?
I decided to find out.
“Excuse me,” I said to the first person that fate placed in my way. “Do you know anything about binoculars?”
“No,” the shopper admitted. The perfect subject.
“Would you mind looking through these and letting me know that you think?”
She obliged.
“Well, the wall looks closer,” she admitted.
“Try moving the focus wheel,” I suggested.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s better; clearer.”
That was all. She looked at me. I looked at her.
OK. Maybe it wasn’t a representative test. Maybe the woman was just humoring me. If she’d been seriously shopping for binoculars, she might well have been more discriminating.
But I wonder how many people have gone into one of the many stores that specialize in getting people to buy things. Buy worthless binoculars on impulse. Go home. Try and use them. Go to the kitchen to pour a glass of ginger ale to quell the sudden uneasiness in their stomach. Put the instruments on a shelf in a closet. Never look at them again. Never realize their mistake.
You see there really, truly are binoculars out there that make the world come alive (not just make walls look closer).
In my nearly fifty years of looking through binoculars I have found precisely three that sold for under $50 that were worth half a damn (and that was a long time ago).
Minimum ante in the binocular world, now, is around $100 bucks. That’s the bad news. The good news is that for $100 there really are instruments that make the world come alive.
But you won’t find them in the Everybody Stores. And from this fiscal starting point, the sky (and the earth and everything on and over it) is the limit.
I picked up my prescription. Paid the bill. Left.
Yep. You guessed it. The prescription was something for my stomach. I really needed it now.
If you are in the market for birding optics be sure to visit NJAS/CMBO’s online store FeatherEdge Optics. In addition to the best binoculars and spotting scopes available for bird watching, you will also find helpful educational resources to aid you in making an informed decision. Or, stop in at one of the NJAS nature stores where our staff is always delighted to help you choose the perfect pair of optics so that you can enjoy the natural world to the fullest!