7x35 and 12x50 Comparison

I took my 7x35s and 12x50s out tonight just to see the difference and to see if I'll be happy with the 7x35s.

First thing I noticed was the much much much less shake in the 7x binos. 2nd thing, it was light enough for me to feel the difference when I picked up my 12x50 which tired me after just 5mins of pointing up.

In terms of stars, the bigger FOV in the 7x showed me the "shapes" of the star patterns better making it easier to star hop. In the 12x the FOV was obviously smaller but still good enough for me to recognise shapes with a 5mag star map - I just needed to recognise a smaller section at a time.

In the 12x, the stars were obviously much brighter and sharper to the edge which of course means I could see more stars. In the 7x, stars were of course dimmer and I could only make out the few brigher stars in my area.

In a more practical test, a 5.66 star(Yale2565) was easily seen with the 12x50s while it was hardly discernible in the 7x35s and only seen because I knew it was there and looking for it. I would have missed it if I were just casually looking at that area. Neighbouring star (Yale2566) at 6.16 was almost invisible to the 7x while pretty much quite obvious in the 12x.
A 7 mag star nearby was lost in the 7x while the 12x could still detect it. (Yes, I've got really light polluted skies!!)

Overall, I find the 7x35s are very good binos for star hopping and learning the constellations and positions of the major stars. It is of course much better for casual handheld viewing.
The 12x50s are better for seeing a little more detail in the the constellations and actually seeing and hunting for things like star clusters and stuff which the 7x might now show.

For me, I'll probably bring the 7x35s out when I wanna learn about the constellations and for casual viewing. The 12x50s will be a complement to my scope for me to roughly locate the object and see where it is (or the stars around it) before I use my telescope. For travel, I would probably bring the 12x50s as they show more detail in clusters and are closer to actually bringing a telescope (very much different but relatively closer, if you know what I mean). For travels when I bring my Megrez 80mm, the 7x35s would complement it better I guess. =)

Well, just a short comparison between the 2 ranges of binos I have. Please remember that besides specifications, the quality of the binos are very different. The 12x50s are the better ones with better coatings and mechanics which I actually paid for. The 7x35s are China made Olympus which my dad got for free when he bought a camera.

I think these 2 binos will work very well together to satisfy the different viewing needs of their owner. The next thing to do is to get a 20x80 to get slightly more detail and resolve more stars ... instead of using a telescope.

I'm starting to fall in love with Binocular astronomy!!