Hunting Binoculars

What makes binoculars good for hunting?

Binoculars for hunting are judged in the minutes when other pairs give up. Game moves at first and last light, foxes come out at dusk and the stag you are after is often lying in shadow at long range on the far side of a corrie. A birding pair is chosen for a wide field of view and close focus in daylight; hunting binoculars are chosen for how much they can show you in poor light, how well they cope with rain and knocks, and how quietly they sit on your chest next to a rifle.

That is why most of the hunting binoculars on this page have a 50mm or 56mm objective lens rather than the usual 42mm. A bigger objective lens gathers more light and gives a bigger exit pupil, and the gain in brightness and image quality is real at dusk. The trade-off is weight: a 56mm pair weighs about 1kg to 1.3kg, so you need a harness rather than a neck strap. The three Bresser Pirsch models ("Pirsch" is the German word for stalking) are the exception, with ED glass in lighter 42mm and 56mm bodies.

What a hunter needs from a pair of binoculars:

• Brightness at dawn and dusk: a large objective lens, high light transmission and an exit pupil of 5mm or more.
• A steady, detailed image: enough magnification and resolution to judge an animal's sex, age and condition before you even think about the rifle scope.
• Weatherproofing: waterproof and fogproof, nitrogen filled or argon purged, so they don't mist up when you climb out of a warm truck.
• Quiet, tough armour: rubber armour that won't clink against a rifle barrel or reflect the sun.
• Comfort for long glassing: good eye relief, twist-up eyecups and a focus wheel you can work with gloves on.

Low light: why 50mm and 56mm lenses matter

Low light performance comes from three things working together: the size of the objective lens, the quality of the glass and coatings, and how much of that light your own eye can use.

Exit pupil

Divide the lens size by the magnification and you get the exit pupil, the beam of light that reaches your eye. An 8x56 gives 7mm, a 10x56 5.6mm, a 10x50 5mm and a 10x42 only 4.2mm. In daylight your own pupil shrinks to 2mm or 3mm, so any pair looks bright. At dusk your pupil opens wide, and a pair with a small exit pupil starts to look grey and flat just when the deer step out. A 7mm beam fills a fully open eye, which is why the 8x56 has been the classic European stalking size for decades.

One honest caveat: our pupils open less with age. A young eye can reach around 7mm in the dark, but many people in middle age open to only 5mm or 6mm. If that is you, a 10x50 or 10x56 can be just as bright in practice as an 8x56, and the extra magnification shows more detail.

Twilight factor

The twilight factor is the square root of magnification multiplied by lens size. It gives a rough guide to how much detail you can make out in poor light, as opposed to how bright the view looks. The numbers make the case for big glass:

The UK's legal light

Low light matters more in the UK than most guides admit, because the law sets a hard limit on when you can shoot. In England and Wales, section 3 of the Deer Act 1991 makes it an offence to take or kill deer between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise. In Scotland, shooting deer in those hours needs a written authorisation from NatureScot, and the Wild Deer Best Practice guides cover how that works. So the hour after sunset is the busiest part of an evening outing, and it is exactly when a 56mm lens earns its weight. You need to be sure of the animal and of what lies behind it before shooting, and that means seeing detail in fading light.

8x or 10x? Matching hunting binoculars to how you stalk

There is no single best magnification. It depends on the ground you hunt, the distance you usually see game at, and whether you are sitting or moving. A useful rule: the more you move and the closer the quarry, the lower the magnification; the more you sit and the further the distance, the higher.

Woodland and high seats

Roe, muntjac and fallow are usually seen at 30m to 150m in thick cover. An 8x gives a wider field of view, so you find a deer slipping through trees faster, and the lower magnification is easier to hold still. An 8x56 or 8x42 is the usual choice, and the 8x56 wins once the sun is down.

Open hill and moorland

Red deer on the hill may be a kilometre away, and a hunter will spend hours glassing slopes to find a beast before the stalk starts. A 10x shows more detail at that distance. Lightweight 10x42 binoculars save weight on the long walk in; a 10x50 or 10x56 keeps working as the light fades.

Foxing and pest control

At dusk on farmland a 10x50 or 8x56 lets you check a field edge before you switch to a lamp or thermal. Binoculars don't replace night vision binoculars or thermal imaging, but they help in the half-light, and the shooting itself usually happens with a thermal or night vision rifle scope.

Long range glassing on a tripod

High power binoculars of 12x and 15x are popular with American hunters in big open country, but they need a tripod to hold steady. In the UK most stalkers carry a spotting scope instead when they need that reach, or put a 10x56 on a tripod adapter.

Hand shake is the hidden limit. Every movement is magnified as much as the image, so a 10x needs a steady rest. Brace your elbows on your knees or the rail of a high seat, or lean against a tree. If you hunt mostly in close cover, our 8x42 binoculars page has lighter pairs that do the same job in better light.

Compare every pair of hunting binoculars on this page

Specs are from each maker's listing. Prices move daily, so the bands below are a guide; check the cards above for today's price.

The Hawke Endurance ED 10x50 comes in black or green with identical optics, which is why the grid above lists 14 pairs. The widest field of view belongs to the GPO Passion 8x56 at 129m, a big number for a 56mm pair. The Bresser Pirsch ED 8x42 and 10x42 are the most lightweight binoculars here by a long way at 636g, a good fit for hunting on foot.

Glass, prisms and coatings

Once you have the right size, the glass decides how much of the light actually reaches your eye in the last minutes of a hunting day, and how sharp the image looks when it gets there.

• ED glass: extra-low dispersion lenses cut colour fringing, the purple or green edge you see on a dark animal against a bright sky. Kowa's XD Prominar, Bushnell's ED Prime and the lenses in the Hawke Endurance ED and Bresser Pirsch all do this job. Better contrast and resolution help you pick a brown beast out of brown bracken.
• Roof prisms: every pair here uses roof prisms, which make a slimmer, better sealed body than porro prism binoculars. Most use Schmidt-Pechan prisms with dielectric mirror coatings and phase coating for contrast and resolution.
• Abbe-König prisms: the GPO Passion 8x56 and 10x56 use this longer, more expensive prism design. It reflects light without a mirror coating, so less is lost, and that gives very high light transmission. The cost is size and weight, which is why they are the heaviest pairs here.
• Fully multi-coated lenses: every glass surface has several anti-reflection layers, and lens coating quality is a big part of what you pay for. Fewer reflections mean higher light transmission and less glare when you glass towards the setting sun.
• Water-shedding coatings: GPO's PASSIONdrop on the Passion HD 8x50 and Bushnell's EXO Barrier make rain bead and roll off the outer lenses, and both make it easier to wipe off mud and fingerprints.

Build: waterproofing, weight and staying quiet

Hunting binoculars get rained on, dropped on rocks and knocked against rifles, so the body matters as much as the glass. These are the points to check on any binoculars you plan to take hunting.

• Waterproof and fogproof: all are sealed and filled with dry nitrogen or argon, so the inside of the lenses won't fog with sudden changes in temperature. The Bushnell Engage EDX is rated IPX7, which means it can be submerged for a short time.
• Chassis: a magnesium chassis (GPO, Kowa BD, Bushnell) is stiff and light for its strength. The Hawke Endurance and Kowa SV II use polycarbonate to keep the price and weight down.
• Rubber armour: a full rubber coating grips well with wet gloves and stops metal clicking against a rifle or a high seat rail. A green or dull black finish reflects less light than bare metal.
• Weight: a full size hunting binocular of 56mm weighs over 1kg. Carry one on a binocular harness rather than a neck strap: it spreads the load across your shoulders, stops the pair swinging when you crawl and keeps it ready on your chest. A rainguard over the eyepieces and lens covers on the objectives keep the glass clear between looks.
• Tripod adapter: if you glass for long periods from one spot, a tripod adapter makes even a 10x56 rock steady. Check the listing to see whether your pair has a socket in the hinge.

Eye relief, eyecups and focusing

If you wear glasses, eye relief is the first number to check on any binoculars for hunting. You need around 17mm or more to see the whole image with the twist-up eyecups wound down. The Kowa BD 8x56 and Hawke Endurance 8x56 give 23mm, the most on this page. Without glasses, twist the eyecups fully up so your eyes sit at the right distance.

Set the diopter once: close your right eye and focus on something with the focus wheel, then close your left eye and turn the diopter ring on the right eyepiece until that side is sharp too. After that, only the centre wheel needs touching. A smooth, large focus wheel is easy to turn with gloves on. Close focus matters less than for birding, but the Hawke Endurance focuses down to 2m, useful when you want to read a fresh slot or check a deer's track.

Rangefinder, night vision and thermal binoculars

Rangefinding binoculars add a laser rangefinder that shows the distance in the view at the press of a button. Some rangefinder binoculars add angle compensation and ballistic data for the rifle, so the hunter knows where to hold for a long range shot. Models like the Zeiss Victory RF, Leica Geovid and Swarovski EL Range are popular with stalkers who shoot at longer distances, and premium models cost well over £2,500, though budget rangefinding binoculars start at around £300. A separate laser rangefinder is a cheaper route if you already own good binoculars, and many stalkers prefer to keep them as two tools so one failing doesn't leave them with neither.

Night vision binoculars and thermal imaging devices are a different tool. Thermal shows the heat of an animal through total darkness and thin cover, which is why it has become standard for foxing and finding deer in woodland. But a thermal view is a low-detail picture, so most stalkers still use conventional binoculars to identify the animal and check the background in the light that is left. The two work together; one doesn't replace the other.

Where premium brands fit in

Many UK stalkers dream of Swarovski, Zeiss or Leica glass. The Zeiss Victory SF, Zeiss Victory RF and Zeiss Conquest HD ranges, the Swarovski EL and Swarovski NL Pure and the Leica Noctivid sit at the top, with prices from around £1,000 for the Conquest to well over £2,500. Steiner's Nighthunter 8x56 is a long-standing hunting favourite, and the Steiner Predator range uses coatings tuned to lift browns and reds against green cover. Vortex, Meopta, Maven, Leupold, Nikon, Viking and Opticron cover the middle ground with models such as the Vortex Diamondback, Vortex Razor, Maven B1.2, Nikon Monarch and Opticron Explorer.

What you get for the extra money is mostly the last few per cent: better image quality right to the edge of the view, slightly better light transmission and lighter bodies. Alpha glass also holds its price well on the second-hand market. For most hunters, a good ED pair in the £300 to £650 band does nearly everything an alpha pair does. Compare whole ranges on our GPO binoculars, Hawke binoculars, Kowa binoculars and Bushnell binoculars pages.

Best hunting binoculars at each budget

Under £300

The Bresser Pirsch ED 8x42 and 10x42 bring ED glass, dielectric prisms and a lifetime guarantee at 636g, ideal if you stalk on foot all day. The Kowa SV II 10x50 is the cheapest way into a 50mm lens, though its 87m field of view is narrow. All three are a good price for a first pair of hunting binoculars.

£300 to £450

The busiest band. The Hawke Endurance ED 10x50 and Bushnell Engage EDX 10x50 are good all-rounders for mixed ground. For the wood edge at dusk, the Hawke 8x56 and Bresser Pirsch ED 8x56 give you the full 7mm exit pupil, and the Bresser saves 24g with ED lenses on top.

£450 to £650

The Kowa BD XD Prominar 8x56 and 10x56 add XD glass in a magnesium body, and the GPO Passion 8x56 and 10x56 use Abbe-König prisms for the brightest views here.

£1,000 plus

The GPO Passion HD 8x50 and 10x50 bring HD multi-coated glass in a lighter 950g to 960g magnesium and aluminium body than the 56mm pairs.

Hunting seasons: when you will use them

Deer seasons differ by species, sex and country. In England and Wales, for example, roe bucks are open from 1 April to 31 October and red and fallow stags from 1 August to 30 April, while muntjac have no close season. In Scotland there has been no close season for male deer of any species since October 2023. Check the British Deer Society's open season chart before you go out. Winter hind and doe culls bring the shortest days and the worst light of the year, which is when good low light performance pays for itself.

Not a hunter? The same big lenses make these pairs great for watching wildlife at dusk. Owls, badgers and hares all come out as the light goes, and a 10x50 or 10x56 is also a good start on the night sky, as our astronomy binoculars page explains. For daytime birds, see birdwatching binoculars; for a pocket pair to carry on the hill as a spare, try our compact binoculars. Compact binoculars of 8x25 or 10x25 weigh around 300g to 400g, but their small exit pupil makes them a daylight tool only.

How to glass for deer

Good technique gets more out of any pair of binoculars than spending another £200. Stalkers who find more game tend to work like this:

1. Sit or rest first. Glass from a steady position: a high seat rail, a fence post, your knees or a tripod. A braced 10x shows more than a shaky 12x.
2. Scan in strips. Work across the ground in overlapping bands, near to far, rather than sweeping at random. A wide field of view covers each strip faster.
3. Look for parts, not whole animals. An ear flick, the pale rump patch, the horizontal line of a back among vertical trunks. These are what give game away in cover.
4. Go back over the same ground. Light changes quickly at dawn and dusk; a shadow that was empty five minutes ago may now hold a beast.
5. Keep the sun behind you. Glassing into a low sun washes out contrast and can flash off your lenses. Shade the objectives with a hand, or use lens covers between looks.
6. Identify with binoculars, not the rifle scope. It is safer, and the wider view shows you what is behind the animal too.

Looking after hunting binoculars

• Clean the lenses gently: blow or brush off grit first, then use a lens cloth or tissue with lens fluid. Rubbing a muddy lens scratches the coatings.
• Dry them naturally: after a wet outing, let them dry at room temperature with the covers off, away from radiators.
• Use the covers: a rainguard and objective covers keep rain, snow and seeds off the glass.
• Check the warranty: Hawke, Bresser and Bushnell offer lifetime cover on these models, and GPO and Kowa ten years. Keep your receipt and register your pair with the maker where they ask you to.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best binoculars for hunting deer?

For most UK deer stalking, an 8x56 or 10x50 is the best balance. An 8x56 is the brightest choice for woodland and high seats at dusk; a 10x50 or 10x56 suits open hill where deer are further away. On this page, the Bresser Pirsch ED 8x56 and Hawke Endurance ED 10x50 are strong value, and the Kowa BD XD and GPO Passion are the steps up.

Are 8x42 or 10x42 binoculars better for hunting?

8x42 for woodland, where a wider field of view and a steadier image help you find deer in cover. 10x42 for open ground, where the extra magnification shows detail at distance. Both are lighter than a 56mm pair, but neither is as bright in the last hour of light.

Are 10x50 binoculars good for hunting?

Yes. A 10x50 gives a 5mm exit pupil and a twilight factor of 22.4, which is enough for dusk on most ground, with more reach than an 8x. It weighs less than a 56mm pair, so it suits stalkers who walk a long way.

Do I need a binocular harness?

For anything over about 800g, yes. A harness holds the binoculars against your chest, takes the weight off your neck, stops them swinging when you crawl and keeps them out of the way of a rifle sling.

Can I use hunting binoculars at night?

Only in the twilight. Big lenses let you see in the half-light after sunset, but in real darkness you need night vision or thermal imaging. In the UK deer can't be shot between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise without special authorisation, so most stalking happens in that twilight window anyway.

What are full size hunting binoculars?

Full size binoculars usually mean an objective lens of 42mm or more. Compact hunting binoculars use 20mm to 32mm lenses and fit a pocket, mid-size models sit around 32mm to 42mm, and full size hunting binoculars of 50mm to 56mm are the best for low light.

Are these binoculars good for glasses wearers?

Most are. Look for 17mm or more of eye relief in the table above and twist the eyecups fully down. The Kowa BD 8x56 and Hawke Endurance 8x56 give 23mm, the most here.