HILKINSON 8X42 NATURELINE ED
£219.95
At a more or less entry-level price, this Chinese-made Hilkinson binocular has ED glass and di-electric prism coatings in a lightweight polycarbonate body. But is it any good?
Through the glass
I’ll cut to the chase. The view may be better than you expect for the money. It has good colours and is bright and sharp. I rated sharpness as very good up-close, and excellent at mid-range and distant. There is a little edge softness, but I was looking for it and didn’t find it distracting. Brightness is very good, colour-fringing seemed well-corrected, and the field of view is good. The actual field of view is 7.5°. That gives an apparent field of view of 60° (actual x magnification) which is pretty wide, and in use, this binocular certainly didn’t feel claustrophobic.
To check out its low-light performance, I took it out to count Marsh Harriers coming to roost under a sky with c65% cloud cover. It worked on Marsh Harriers, on two Bitterns, two Peregrines, two Barn Owls, and two Cranes. Which I’d say makes it excellent value for money! The NatureLine was still doing a good job 20 minutes after sunset.
I did see some vignetting (edge shadows) and countered this by holding the NatureLine against my brow ridge to get the eye-relief right. This increased the gap between my eyes and the eyecups which sometimes allowed incident light to cause flare/reflections. As always, if you’re considering buying, try it yourself and see how it performs for you.
Close-focus is quoted at an acceptable, but optimistic, 2.5m.
My measurement put it at about 2.8m. For most birdwatching that isn’t a problem, but it isn’t great for staring at up-close insects.
Build quality and the bits that move
This binocular felt comfortable enough in the hand and is reasonably lightweight (720g). It’s rubber-armoured, nitrogen-filled and waterproof and the build quality seemed pretty good, though the right eyecup had a looser action than the left and was a little prone to moving out of position. A different sample may well be different – at this price point you can’t expect the quality control that comes with a top-end binocular.
Dioptre adjustment is the usual arrangement of a twist-ring under the right eyecup. It moves smoothly, and stiffly enough to stay in place once set. The finger-wide focusing wheel moves quite lightly and very smoothly taking a bit over two anticlockwise turns from closest to most-distant focus. Focus precision is very good.
The supplied accessories include a simple, lightly-padded case, rainguard, neoprene strap and tethered, removable objective covers. It’s not the best quality strap but it does the job and is easy enough to replace if you want to. I would remove the objective covers – I’m not a great fan of these and one of them decided to cover an objective without my permission!
THE NATURELINE WAS STILL DOING A GOOD JOB 20 MINUTES AFTER SUNSET.