BARSKA 8-25X25 Zoom Monocular/Microscope - C2i_Inv_2311

Very Narrow Feild of View .Will not recommend to a friend.Returned the same .But Amazon Return Policy is Excellent and highly highly Appreciated.

It's a cheap optic with a small objective lens. For the price I expected a lot more lens distortion and chromatic aberration. Materials are pretty good, construction is middle of the road at best, but adequate for the price range. The controls are weird. the rubber ring nearest they eyepiece at first look seems to be attached to the eyepiece. It is actually the power ring, which is very stiff. The rubber ring in the middle is the twist focus, and the whole front tube also slides like an old fashioned spy glass to focus. At 8x, the sliding focus is easy to use and fast. For 25x and microscope mode, you have to use the twist focus unless you are a looking to give yourself a harder time than necessary. 25x is definitely more of a novelty than a real usable feature though mainly due to light loss and the small field of view. From minimum power to about halfway through the range of motion to "25x" is pretty usable though. If you are using it at close range due to vision impairment, 8x is very usable for scanning the TV across even a small room.In terms of build issues, the sliding focus mechanism gives it some wobble if you have to extend it very far. The optical component on the microscope add-on has a tendency to remain attached to the monocular upon disassembly. The stud for the lanyard has very sharp edges on the hole, and wore through the lanyard in about 4 days of use. You also can't fit both the scope and the microscope adapter in the case at the same time.

I bought this thing on a whim, I like photography, microscopes, telescopes, lasers just gadgets really. It's only $27 but you know ... it's $27 and supposedly reduced from 60-70, so I was expecting some quality. The thing works, and it focuses sharp; the image through the eyepiece suffers light loss so it does need to be bright. The field of view is poor although was I expecting more? -- maybe a little more. The build quality seems to be very good, it's all metal and the glass seems coated. Would I buy this again? - maybe.. it might come in useful one day.

I bought this for one of my children who is visually impaired. He uses it to read street signs and food menus and stuff when he's out by himself. And he absolutely loves the extra bit that allows it to be used as a microscope!

I assumed this would be superior to the HDE 15-55x (which is really just 8-14 or so), but was sadly mistaken. The maximum range at maximum magnification is about 18 *inches*. At 8x you can see at least half a mile but as soon as you try to zoom in it drops exponentially ... I doubt a quarter mile allows more than 9x if that. That is basically a fixed monocular.As a magnifier it is adequate, perhaps even good, even at extreme short range without the plastic thingy. But it is not great enough to make up for the false labeling. You can't even zoom to the max across a single room.

The quality of the outer case seems above average. Full power one needs a tripod to steady. About half power was the limit one could use hand held. Focus was just ok at full power and became better with lower settings.