Apropros of nothing....what kind of binoculars would be best for my inland passage cruise to Alaska? Thanks, I figured this group knows best

Zooms. I went the used route and got a pair off Ebay, they were way bigger then what's available now, but I didn't care as I was only using them a few times a year.

You can spend a fortune, or you can spend not that much at all, if they are simply for the cruise and not for boating or anything where you need them every weekend, there's not a lot of reason to spend lots of money on them.

I say zooms because there are times you want to see a group of something on the shore, or the wall of a glacier, and there are times (early on in the cruise, as it gets old fast ) you want to zoom in on the dark thing way up on a tree to discover it's an Eagle in a nest.

I have a pair of Celestron Skymaster that are great for high clarity, distance viewing. My pair is 20 x 100 and was around $200 though they make more affordable models. .

+1 on the zoom.

Like a camera, a zoom lens is more flexible for day to day use versus a fixed length. The ability to see a wider field then zoom in to whatever is interesting is very useful indeed.

With binoculars, you'll see numbers like 7x50 or 5-9x40. The first number or set of numbers refers to the magnification. So 7x50 = 7 times magnification whereas 5-9x40 means 5 to 9 times (zoom) magnification. The second number refers to the diameter of the lens. Generally bigger is better but that's only up to a point. A larger lens (50mm versus 40mm) means that the unit can gather more light and produce a brighter image for you to look at. A larger lens is obviously of greater use in lower light situations such as dawn / dusk or at night.

Something else to seriously consider is optical stabilization. Though expensive it's really quite useful. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to hold an image steady. Just standing on the ground and holding your breath, a high magnification image will move a fair bit. On a ship that's moving it will be harder still.

How much you spend on binoculars is a function of how much you intend to use them on the ship and afterwards as well. You can get cheap ones or you can spend a fortune. Broadly speaking you'll get what you pay for. Nice things cost money and optics definitely fall into this category!

Have fun on your cruise!

It would be very helpful if you would list some budget guidelines as prices are all over the place (in my backpack I always have a $40 pair of Nikons, but for birding I use Leica 10x42 Ultravids which cost about as much as a Yugo.)

That said, I very much agree with RCyyz that image stabilization is worth the price premium especially when observing from a moving platform. One set I would recommend as a good price/performer for general wildlife/scenery is the Canon 8x25 IS -- $260 from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Image-St...2328139&sr=8-5

When you activate the IS it removes almost all of the handshake and really enhances the experience.

We went on an Alaska Cruise-Tour last year, and based on what everyone said, got a pair of waterproof/fogproof binoculars. We got them from the Zen-Ray site - refurbished 10 x 40. They appeared to be brand new. They worked great. They were under $130 each, including shipping. We are very happy with them.
As it turned out, we didn't need the waterproof/fogproof feature as it was 70 - 90 degrees (90 in Fairbanks) throughout the trip and did not have a drop of rain.

DD

Never having stayed in one I'll ask whether having binoculars in the cabin is a perk cruise lines offer suite guests. A stay a while back at the wonderful Fairmont Vancouver Airport found a pair in-room for certain category of rooms and higher so to me this would be a more useful cruise suite inclusion than others like special soap, especially in Alaska. Just MHO...

We also bought the Zen Ray for our trip, both to Alaska and then to Africa. We also had a cheap Bushnell auto focus that we had bought at Costco. The Bushnell were great, the autofocus was perfect, and for about $25 could not be beat. We did use a Cannon with image stabilization and they were great.

I would stay away from the Zen Ray. We bought them but in retrospect they seem to "advertise" on these forums.

Celebrity cruises offers them even in the "lower" Concierge Class cabins. The only problem is that they are generally pretty inferior quality. Even a pair you may buy for $25 would probably be far superior!

Too bad. The ones in the deluxe rooms (IIRC) at the Fairmont Vancouver airport were a good quality and were nice to spot planes on the runways.