An important thing to consider when looking at the size of a compact binocular is how small they are when they are folded. When you are are looking through them, just how small they are is not that important, but size is far more important when you carrying them around with you. Different designs of compacts fold up in different ways and this can make a big difference is their size. At 24x Magnification:When you increased to their maximum level of 24x the Exit Pupil reduces to just over 1 (25/24) which means that not a lot of light that enters the binocular will reach your eyes. All lenses and prisms are multilayer-coated for brighter views and the body is a light-weight of only 305g.

There is no mention in any of their marketing of them being either water or fog proof and so I must assume that they are neither. In this price range, not many binoculars are fully waterproof or fogproof and so this is fairly understandable, but it would be nice to know that they were at least a little "weather proof" - anyway I am sure that they would survive a little light rain, but to be completely safe just make sure that you don't get them really wet in very bad weather. These Nikons are marketed as sports binoculars but they’d also be good as modern-day opera glasses – good for the theatre and big concerts. You should be under no illusions - these are far from being the best binoculars in the world, but having said that these Nikon EagleView Zoom binoculars are far, far cheaper than the top of the range compacts and to be fair to them they are not at all bad and I would say easily outperform their price tag. If you can live with their weak points and are looking for a cheap pair of zoom binoculars then the Nikon EagleView Zoom 8-24x25 CF maybe just for you. As you increase the magnification level and zoom in on an object, the FOV reduces even further. However this is not as big a problem as I would suggest the best way to use these zoom binoculars is to have them set at 8x to locate the object that you want to observe and the once you have it in your field of view, you can then zoom into it to get a more detailed view. This Nikon compact has, what I think are actually two hinges (it is hard to see as they are located under a cover), with both hinges located very close to each other, meaning that they almost work like single a central hinge design. Whatever the case, the two barrels can be brought closer together or pulled further apart to match the distance between your eyes ( Inter-Pupillary Adjustment) by opening or closing the hinges. This adjustment felt smooth and there was the right amount of friction to prevent them from opening or closing too easily, but not too much so as to make moving them difficult. The minimum distance between the centers of the two eye-piece lenses that can be achieved is 56mm when fully folded and the maximum is 72mm when full opened.

Weight and especially size really matter in a good pair of compacts and obviously we are looking for a pair that is as small and lightweight as possible. This is because if the "compact" pair is too large to suit your specific requirements, you may as well just go and get yourself a similar quality mid or full sized pair of optics that by their very design will usually perform better, especially in low light conditions: These are quite hard parameters to judge and very subjective, but I thought that the contrast of the image produced was good and once you have correctly focussed on an object the image is pin sharp.

When set to a magnification level of 8x, their field of view is 80m at 100m / 240ft at 1000 yards (4.6°) - which, for a what at this setting effectively an 8x25 binocular is not very good. To put this into context, the Steiner 8.5x26 Wildlife Pro has a FOV of 333ft at 1000 yards and the Kowa 8x25 BD has a FOV of 331ft at 1000 yards and even the Minox 10x25 BV BRW which has a magnification of 10x has a FOV of 290ft at 1000 yards. Even with two hands, the 20x magnification makes for a wobbly image. There’s an integral tripod mount (on a rail, so you can adjust balance) which is much better. If you’re using them handheld at home, it’s worth leaning them against the doorframe for a steadier picture. I doubt if this very thin rubber armouring would protect the optics very much from damage, but it does make a nice grippy surface to hold onto and is well placed for this. At 350g (12.3oz), it must be said they are on the heavy end of the scale when compared to most other compacts, they do however still feel very light compared to most standard full sized binoculars. I could not find any details as to exactly what the interior frame or the exterior body is made of, but the exterior looks to be made from some sort of hard plastic. Nikon state that they have added a carbon fibre material in parts of the grip which they say enhances durability. I am guessing that this is in the parts of the barrels that have a thin dark grey rubber coating on them, which you can see as being the dark sections on the image below:Nikon Sportstar Zoom 8-24x25 binoculars come in a portable and compact body, and employ a zoom lever on the top of the body which gives a smooth 8-24x zooming experience. The focusing ring can be operated while looking through the binoculars during observation. Some cheap optics use coatings on the lenses to artificially tint the view, for example you find many cheap binoculars with ruby coated lenses which are used to filter red to compensate for their poor-quality optics that do not properly converge the color spectrum. Thankfully this is not the case with these and I thought that the colors that are produced by the EagleView look and feel natural, but with possibly a tiny bit less saturation than on my control binoculars. There are two buttons on top for the two types of image stabilisation. The buttons feel different, so it’s easy to find the right one with your finger without looking. The Stabiliser mode eliminates shake; then, when you’ve found your subject, use the Powered IS mode to also eliminate bigger movements. The life of the (two AA) batteries varies dramatically: around 10 hours at 23°C but only around 1 hour at -10°C.

Whilst I would not expect a low cost binocular like these to have the same build quality as a top of the range pair that costs ten times as much, but I still want them to be tough enough to handle most normal bumps and scrapes and still want them to feel like you have a good quality optical instrument in your hands and not just a toy. To see this in action, you can hold these binoculars up at arm's length and look at the eyepiece lenses, where you can clearly see the circle of light in the eyepieces, this represents the exit pupil. As you increase the magnification you can actually see this circle of light in each eyepiece getting smaller and smaller - see my series of photos below that I took to demonstrate this: Despite the glossy plastic exterior to the Nikon Sportstar Zoom 8-24x25 binocular, there’s enough weight and heft that we found it easy enough to hold them steady when observing. Inevitiably though, the further we went up the magnification range amplified any exterior hand wobble, with resultant image judder.With their eye-cups fully retracted, they have a length of 11.9cm (4.7in), this increases to 12.4cm (4.9n) when you fully twist out the eyecups. Fully folded, the width of the binocular is 9.2cm (3.6in), fully opened it is 11cm (4.3in). Their height is 6.3cm (2.5in), which once again all on the larger end of the scale for a full compact binocular but nothing excessively so. To minimize reflection on the lens surfaces and ensure clear, sharp images, anti-reflective coatings are often applied. These anti-reflection coatings are very important as part of the light that passes through any lens is reflected by the front (incident light) and rear (exiting light) surfaces. This reduces the amount of light passing through the lens and if this transmittance is very bad, the image you see will be darker than on binoculars that transmit more light. Also, the reflected light may cause ghosting and flaring, affecting image contrast. With these Nikon binoculars, the minimum distance that you can focus on an object is a 4 meters (13.1ft) away, which once again is not great and quite a bit further than the best. I consider anything under 6ft to be very good. So if you are looking for a compact binocular specifically for things like observing butterflies then I do not recommend getting these. Rather take a look at these close focusing binoculars.