Celestron71390 Regal ED 8x42 Binoculars for Birding and Outdoor Actvities, Phase and Dielectric Coated BaK–4 Prisms, Fully Multi-Coated Optics, 6.5 Feet Close Focus

This relatively new binocular by celestron caught my attention because on paper it looked very attractive with field flattener lens, very long eye relief ( for a 10x42 ) and an extremely good close focus plus a dielectric coating and ED glass. However once I’d got it out of the box and had a quick look through it i could tell it wasn’t all I’d hoped for…Firstly the eye relief, with my glasses on i wasn’t able to achieve the full field of view plus the close focus in the specifications gives it to be 1.5 metres but i measured it to be nearer 1.8…Now for the actual view through this new glass…I field tested it and compared it with my Bushnell Legend L series 10x42 and the results were quite surprising given all the lens coatings and technology gone into the Regal. The Legend was the clear winner… displaying a richer and sharper image. The Regal lacked that sparkle and pop. Incidentally in the past I’ve had the celestron trailseeker ED 10x42 and the View through the Regal was very lacklustre compared to the trailseeker ed . Build quality is quite good though but it’s fairly heavy… my Bushnell is a full 100 grams lighter and out in the field after a few hours the lighter legend was much more comfortable. The list price for the Regal is £399 and I’d have to say in reality in terms of the image quality I don’t think it’s worth that…maybe I was expecting too much, anyway it has been returned and the Bushnell is still my favourite 10x42 for now…The Regal ed may work for you but unfortunately it didn’t cut it for me, it just wasn’t sharp enough..!