Marky Martin asked:


Golf Laser Range and a Golf GPS Range Finders are gadgets that are used to measure the distance from where your ball is lying to the pin. These have been available for some years but only recently have they been legalized by the Governing bodies of golf. This article examines the difference between Golf Laser Range and a Golf GPS Range Finders, so if you are looking to buy one of these gadgets, you will know what type suits you best.

Do Golf Range Finders Offer an Advantage?

The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and the US Golf Association announced a change in the rules. The Specific Rule is 14-3b, known as the range finder rule. The change in the rule allowed range finders to be used by amateur golfers. Major tournaments do not allow artificial range finding devices. But for every day golf play do golf range finders offer an advantage?

Slow play in golf is considered to be in bad taste and the average golf game today takes longer than it did 10 years ago so it is believe that to speed up play these devices have been allowed.

Golf Laser Range Finders and GPS Range Finders are the two main devices and are very similar in accuracy. The Golf Laser Range Finders looks a little like binoculars, you look through them and the unit then measures distance from the ball to the pin by use of a laser beam. You do have to have a direct line of sight as well as a steady hand. They may also be used to calculate the distance to a hazard.

Golf GPS Range Finders are more complicated; a map of the golf course is required to be loaded. Then your position on the course is determined to the pin by a satellite signal. The ability to use a GPS golf range finder is dependent upon the quality of the map. GPS maps may only show the distance to travel to the front, middle and back of the green and depending upon the model, may not even show hazards.

Maps of golf courses have to be bought through subscription or individually at an additional cost and if you are a regular player this can be a time consuming or expensive exercise, particularly if you play at many varied courses. Another con in terms of the GPS Range Finders is that if the weather is cloudy and there are many trees as there usually are on a golf course, the GPS might not be able to connect to the satellite, and you will not get a reading.

Essentially, at the end of the day, you have to decide for yourself what the best golf range finder for your needs would be. Personally speaking though, fiddling about on the course with gadgets might just make my game longer, but I am no technophile so I rest my case, the decision is yours!

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Aidan James asked:


Optics workers will tell you they are often asked to recommend the best binocular for birders (bird watchers) To match the binocular to the birder it helps to first look at the needs of the birding enthusiast.

What sort of optical demands must we consider? Well for one thing the birder need to see details like the patterns and color of feathers, often in dim light such as under a tree canopy or in twilight. They need good magnification so that they can easily identify birds at a distance and sometimes they will want to observe birds at very short distances so they want their binoculars to work for close focus observing too, maybe even down to just a few meters.

They need true color viewing so they can see everything as it really is colored and not with any tint or false color. They also need a reasonable field of view so they can observe birds in flight easily and be able to pick birds out from the surrounding trees.

They want the binoculars to be light enough to carry and hang on a neck-strap. Their binoculars should be light enough to hold comfortably for viewing and easy enough on the eyes to be able to use for long periods. Birders usually want their binoculars to be compact enough to pack in a rucksack. For observing from hides they often want to use their binoculars on a tripod or mono-pod so a fitting for these adapters is advisable. If their bird watching is in the wilderness then rugged construction and some element of waterproofing and fog-proofing is also advisable.

When looking at binocular specifications we usually pay most attention to the two numbers that define the basic specifications. The first number gives us the magnification factor, so an 8x binocular magnifies an image (brings it closer) by 8 times. The higher the magnification the more difficult it becomes to use the binoculars effectively due to the natural hand-shake which makes it difficult to keep the bird in view and also the smaller the field of view will be. For birding use, an 8x binocular is the most commonly used though in some circumstances enthusiasts will use higher magnification.

The second number in the specs tells us the diameter of the objective lens. This is important for two reasons, firstly the larger the diameter the more light is captured by the binocular so the clearer and brighter the resulting image. Secondly, the larger diameter also gives a larger field of view. In the birding world, the most popular objectives are 40mm and 42mm. Getting much higher than this makes the binocular a little too heavy and large.

Other important considerations are the quality of the lenses and prisms and the optical coatings used on those elements. These coatings reduce loss of light through reflection from the binocular and its internal components and they help to preserve good clarity and true color throughput. As a rule of thumb look for Fully-Multi-Coated (FMC) coatings for bird watching use. The specification for eye relief refers to the distance between the eyepiece and the eye. Those who wear glasses will need a longer eye relief to allow for the extra distance caused by the glasses being between the binocular and their eye.

Roof and Porro Prism designs refer to the two body styles of binoculars. This difference comes about through the placement of the internal prisms within the binocular body. Roof prism types are the more compact and modern looking. Their objective lenses are more or less in line with the eyepieces, while porro prism types are the traditional style with the lenses stepped out from the line of the eyepieces. More and more birding enthusiasts are now opting for the roof prism type particularly as their quality has caught up with the porro types in recent years.

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