When choosing any binoculars, I always weigh up size, price, and performance. My ideal is a large magnification to pull any far-off subject up close and personal, plus a big objective lens to gather sufficient light to ensure the crispest, sharpest image. Additionally, I’d like build quality to be robust, preferably with on-board stabilization to counteract any hand tremor, plus the device not to look or feel ‘cheap’ when handled. Unfortunately, to realize all this, the trade-off is often a large and bulky unit costing a king’s ransom.
Not so in the case of Fujifilm’s ‘Techno-Stabi’ binocular range, the name appearing less eccentric when you realise ‘Stabi’ is simply an abbreviation of ‘Stabilizer’. This series is impressively compact and priced fairly when compared to similarly premium-built Swarovski, Leica, and Zeiss products. Plus, in the case of the new 20x magnification Fujinon TS-L 2040 and its 16x Fujinon TS-L 1640 sibling, I’m getting a rather lovely, contemporary design that might warrant a similar TikTok frenzy to that of Fujifilm’s X100VI camera, if it weren’t for the fact that binoculars are even more niche.
