>>1931122>>1931170Oh man, I think that's so tough because it's so subjective. Like when I started birding I really wanted to get 12x binoculars because I figured why wouldn't I want to see birds better? But the more magnification, the tighter the field of view, making it harder to find what you're looking for sometimes. The field of view is also affected by the size of the objective lens.
I think a couple factors that apply to choosing a birding binocular maybe don't matter as much for ship spotting though. Mainly because ships aren't moving quickly, it's easy to spot them first without binoculars, and it's easy to pick them out once you bring your binoculars to your eyes. Most of this has to do with field of view. I think Nikon does a good job of explaining it here
https://imaging.nikon.com/sport-optics/guide/binoculars/basic/basic_08/Basically, if you want to see the most stuff in your field of view, you want less magnification and the largest objective lens. But the disadvantage there is obviously the lesser magnification. On the other end, get high magnification and your field of view suffers and it's more difficult to keep it steady.
So it's really about compromise. You might have cases where you wish you had more magnification, but remember that more magnification = larger, heavier binoculars, less field of view, a shakier image. I think 8x and 10x are great for most purposes and I wouldn't go with an objective lens smaller than 42 unless you REALLY want the binoculars to be smaller and lighter. You could go 12x or 15x or even more if you are going to be stationary and use a tripod or something.
I don't know if any of this was helpful, I feel like I'm just rambling. I'm just excited, I want everyone to have fun with binoculars.
