It's so cool looking at things up close.
đź”Binocular update: if you want or need binoculars with anything above 8x magnification, you should absolutely hold out for ones with image stabilization. It removes shaking like magic and should be on your list for any aging birder in your life. I have the canon 12x36 image stabilization iii model, and my only complaint is that you need to manually hold down the button that engages the IS, so I’m hoping to test the Canon 12x32 IS model which seems to have more of a traditional on and off switch. This one may also be able to focus on closer targets, which hasn’t really been a problem but would be a nice bonus.
After my monthly birding group acquired a scope, I was amazed at the detail on water birds that I’d never noticed, so I started looking at scopes, but:
- I don’t want to carry a tripod
- I don’t spend much time looking at stable targets
- I might be going on a family cruise next year (which has extra shake built in)
With the Carson 60x-120x pocket microscope, you can see each individual pixel on the screen of your phone, or gross dust mites, and with the Nikon 8x25 pocket binoculars, you can see musicians onstage or animals while you're out for a walk (there are better binoculars out there (I have a pair that lives in my house for backyard birding), but the best binoculars are the ones you have with you, so I put a huge premium on ones that fit in a coat pocket and I keep these in my Advice: Car bin for longer trips).
Nikon Trailblazer 8x25 ATB Waterproof Black Binoculars
(note: you may be tempted to get the 10x ones instead, but keep in mind that as you get greater magnification, you're decreasing the amount of area you can see and the amount of light that the lenses let in)
(I've recently ordered another pocket microscope, also made by Carson, that has a clip for attaching to your phone for pictures and more social/collaborative investigation — It's 100x-250x, so I'm expecting it to be notably more fiddly, but the other options (mostly with cables or wifi) seemed to really be exaggerating their levels of magnification)
See also: Capturing moments for more info on using your phone with binoculars to display and capture images via “digiscoping”