MAVEN B1.2 10X42 £1,049.99

These bins feel compact for 10x42s; very solidly put together, with a closed bridge design and easy-grip rubber armouring.

The eyecups are covered with hard, textured rubber. I did wonder if it might be a bit uncomfortable, but even in extended use it was fine. Indeed, the eyecups are excellent, twisting up and down to four click-stopped positions, and offering a maximum of 17.8mm eye relief.

The dioptre adjustment is a twist-ring on the right barrel, and is easy to find the setting you want and sufficiently hard to doesn’t easily jogged out of position in normal use.

The focus wheel is excellent, too – a good 1.5 fingers wide, and well textured. It turns very smoothly and moderately stiffly, taking just short of two full clockwise turns from close focus to infinity, and I found it easy to get the focus really precise, and maintain it.

Close focus is quoted as around 1.5m, but in practice, it felt more like 1m! Outstanding!

The view feels wider than the quoted 120m@1,000m, the contrast is excellent and the colour is very natural – I found very little evidence of colour fringing.

That’s one of the benefits of ED glass, the other being that these performed really well during a few dawn and dusk forays in late summer. They gather light really well, and even in near-darkness I was able to pick out plenty of detail, and in all circumstances, that extra bit of magnification was useful. In the past, birders were sometimes put off 10x bins because they had poor field of view and weren’t as bright as 8x, but improved glass has helped compensate for that.

They’re waterproof and fogproof, can be used on a tripod, and have a lifetime warranty.

VERDICT

A very impressive all-round performer which feels like it would last you a long, long time. Well worth having a look at, or through.

SPECS: Eye relief: 17.8mm Field of view: 120m@1,000m Close focus: 1.5m Weight: 760g Size: 145mm x 132mm x 56mm RRP: £1,049.99 Warranty: Lifetime Supplied with: Microfibre bag, strap, rainguard, tethered objective lens covers Web: nature-observation-uk.myshopify.com