Nikon Monarch 5 vs Nikon Prostaff 3s

I'm an avid outdoorsman and have been wanting to get into bird watching, hunting, and just general exploring/tracking of animals. I have never had a good set of binos but have had a couple of \~$30 ones. My dad knew I was looking to get a good pair and he did a bunch of research which landed him on the Monarch 5.

While scanning for a red-tailed hawk, I spotted a bluebird on a fence post I would not have noticed otherwise because the blue stood out so well in the field of view. These are one of the top rated budget binoculars on Audubon's site and they are well worth the $116. The average bird enthusiast should be pleased with them.

Viewing the Orion region with either binocular is an inspiring experience, but more so with the Bushnell’s larger FOV. Image brightness of the Nikon and the Bushnell, as judged by the ability to see faint stars in the Orion region, is the same. Unless the Nikon name, lower weight, compactness and close focus are over-riding considerations, the Bushnell, at 30% of the prize of the Nikon, is the much better deal.

Unfortunately, there are no shops in my area that will let you try out binoculars. However, I had very generous coworkers that let me try out their 10x42 Nikon Prostaff 3s, 10 year old 8x42 Nikon Monarch and an old Celestron 12x62. The Nikon Monarch was definitely the best overall (I found it equal in astronomy to the higher mag astronomy binoculars when looking at the night sky), but the difference wasn't great enough between the Prostaff and the Monarch for wildlife viewing to justify the difference in price for me. The only problem with the Prostaffs were they had a lot of glare when trying to use them for astronomy, and no option to tripod mount

It's especially important for short sighted people like myself because our eyeglasses add an additional optical element to the system, considerably extending its length (an alternative is to remove the glasses, but it is less convenient and one loses correction for astigmatism). I found this pair's eye relief more than sufficient for my prescription (which is close to -4.5). Lengthy viewing does not cause any eye strain

These binoculars were for my father & he’s enjoyed them immensely for the first week. Eye relief appears to be good enough for him with his glasses on & the image quality is very good.