Field Review - Nikula 10-30x25 zoom monocular

This is a review of the Nikula 10-30x25mm Zoom Monocular. This monocular has a cost between $20 to $35 U.S., and can be found quite easily on Ebay and Amazon.

I have for years depended on my little 10x Tasco monocular I won as a 3rd Prize back in 1998. This monocular though not terribly powerful nor fog proof or  waterproof, has taken quite the "beating" over years, and still delivers as clear an image as the day I got it. But I've been wanting something more powerful, yet not as bulky as a spotting scope. Go to any online store, like Walmart or Target and you'll find scores of expensive monoculars of all sizes yet most are between a power range of 6x to 20x. There's a reason for that, as any avid sportsman knows, the higher the power of the monocular, the smaller the field of view seen through the monocular, which simply means that you have to stabilize the monocular on a tripod otherwise the tiny movements of your hands will make it seem like your watching an earthquake when peering through the monocular.

Well I have a small pocket tripod so I thought why not try and find a high power monocular. So I spent a few weeks searching the web and really was only able to find 2 pocket sized monoculars that might fit my needs. One was the Brunton 10-30x Zoom. The price was reasonable at $35, but I am a penny pincher of the worst kind. So after bidding and losing on several auctions in the hopes of getting it cheaper, I decided to look to the 2nd monocular I found. Which was the Nikula 10-30x Zoom.

Now let me first say that this monocular is made in Taiwan, not necessarily a bad thing. Alot of good optics come from overseas, including my old Tasco which was manufactured in China. So this wasn't a huge worry for me. And the description showed that it had the much preferred Bak4 lens. Now the one thing that did strike me, is the cost. The  cheapest one was selling for $22. Now I am frugel, but I'm no fool. If its being sold for $22 with free shipping(from China), then very likely it only costs about $5 there. So I was concerned that the description was going to be misleading. But I couldn't help myself, I  bought stuff from China before and was perfectly happy with it, so I hoped for the best and bought it.

After a couple of weeks, it arrived and I eagerly opened it. The construction was better than expected, though I wouldn't be as confident dropping it as I am with  my rubber armored Tasco. The weight was nice and had a good feel in my hand, but as I put it to my eye I immediately noticed that the rubber eyepiece had an odd feel to it. Upon a closer look, the rubber eyepiece is slightly thinner that what you would expect. So when you bring it up to your eye, you can feel the thinness of it, causing an odd feeling that you're about to get a paper cut. That of course is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.. you can noticeably. feel the difference.

I looked at the other end and saw that the objective lens looks a little cheap. But I decided not to judge to harshly and kept an open mind. I peered through the lens to find a remarkably clean clear image at the 10x setting. I was actually surprised, the image was bright and very crisp, even more so than my Tasco. So I started messing with the zoom dial to see if the image stayed as bright and clear. I cranked the dial to 30x and was again surprised, though this time devastatingly so. The zoom dial didn't do anything. It didn't even increase the power by 1x, it was just a "Do - Nothing" dial.

I played with the focusing dial and looked at things at different distances from 7 feet to 50 yards and found the image to be the same nice image. But the power dial still didn't work. So basically I paid $22 for a 10x monocular.

I've contacted the seller, and they've agreed to send a new one. I'll update this post, as to whether the one they send shares the same problem.

UPDATE:11/14/2012
I just received the replacement that they promised to send me. It works great! And the zoom works perfect on this one. So I'm pretty happy with this purchase, for $22 bucks I got a really good monocular that rivals some of the name brand ones that cost $40 - $50.

But for this monocular, its really BUYER BEWARE! If you get a working one, it works better than I would expect for a $22 monocular. It delivers a sharp bright image (during mid-morning and mid-afternoon, outdoors) at all power levels. It stays in focus when zooming, its light weight, fits in shirt pocket, and has an easy to operate focus dial.

Just keep in mind, I don't know if the first one was damaged in transit from China, or if the power dial is a common imperfection in this Brand monocular. If you purchase one, buy one from someone who offers replacement or money back. Ebay is a good place to buy this one since they offer Buyer Protection on most purchases. I'm just glad this replacement works and works very well.