Alpen Ranier Series
by Andrew
About a year ago, I was given some binoculars from a friend of mine. I had never heard of the brand before, it is an Alpen, from a U.S. based company that manufactures the binoculars right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. It’s a 2007 (?) model from the Rainier series. I was very skeptical at first because my friend said that he bought it but never really had the time to use it. He said he paid a pretty penny for it and wanted to sell it, but then he wanted me to have it because I am such an outdoorsy person. Lucky me! My skepticism quickly wore off when my family and I started to use it. I love to go camping, canoeing, hiking, hunting, animal-watching (not just birds) and etc. with the family, and the most attractive feature for me is the waterproof casing protecting the binoculars not only from the elements of dust and moisture but to full-fledged immersion into water (grandchildren). It is very durable and rugged with quality engineering. It is a roof prism style of binocular, and to me it seems to be a little on the heavy side when it comes to talking about the weight in comparison to regular binoculars. The bigger sized lenses cause the weight difference. I wear eyeglasses, but these binoculars don’t bother my eyes after prolonged use. I’ve come to enjoy bird watching even more because of the quality of the images being so bright, crisp and clear making identification of species (not only of birds) a lot easier. I used to hate squinting looking through a pair of binoculars because I still couldn’t make out what I was looking at. For me, it was a GREAT gift to my family and myself. But I’m afraid that I’m going to have to purchase another one so that we’ll stop fighting over it because we all want to use it at the same time. For my friend, sometimes he wants me to shut up about it because he realizes what he did and what he’s been missing out on. Overall, it’s a great camera. Highly recommended.
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