The difference between monocular vs binoculars can be understood very easily. The main difference is that the monocular devices are used with the one eye and the binocular devices require to have a view with both of your eyes.
This is not a matter of much consideration that buying the one will regret you later on that you should buy another one, they are very similar devices for the almost same purpose. They have some little difference in their functionality, price, and their overall design and look.
Monocular vs Binoculars
If we compare both devices with the telescope, then they are no doubt very rugged, they look sturdier and stronger. Telescope uses long optics all the way but you can get high magnification in small devices like monocular and binoculars.
Let’s now break down the difference between monocular and binoculars so that you can find the right device in your hand that can better fulfill your requirements.
Magnification:
Magnification power determines how clear and sharp the device can provide the images, higher magnification power of a lens gives you a detailed view of the image or the object you are targeting. The same way the magnification power of a monocular device depends on their size, bigger sized monocular comes with high magnification power normally.
Binoculars, on the other hand, perform differently than monocular devices, they use both the magnifying lens at a time to provide you different levels of magnifications, so you can have an edge here to come up with the higher magnifying ability in binoculars.
Eye Relief:
Eye Relief tells you how close you should place your eyes from the eyepiece of the device to have a clear view of the objects. Monocular provides you with good eye relief, but binocular devices come with the different eye relief ranges, on some binoculars you should put the eyes exactly before the eyepiece and some binocular devices require to put your eyes at some distance.
If you are wearing your glasses and viewing the objects through the eyepiece then the monocular devices are going to give benefit over binoculars, you can have a better view even with the glasses on monocular devices, but on the binoculars, if you use the glasses then eye relief can become a critical feature for you.
Night Vision:
On the market, you can get a wide variety of monocular and binocular device. If you are a night hunter and looking for the device which can give you a better view without killing your night vision then the monocular is the best device for this purpose and has a great advantage over binocular devices.
If you are viewing the objects with binocular devices, then most probably you are going to kill your night vision, this is a big downside from these devices. What if you don’t need to have a night vision feature then you can use the binocular devices for having a wide field of view.
Field of View:
Using binoculars will give you a great benefit over monocular devices. As in the monocular devices, you only have one lens to view the object that has a limited field of view. On the contrary, the binoculars come with the two lenses that give you a good range of field of view.
This is the fact that you can never have a better field of view with any device than your natural eye but in the binoculars, we use both the lenses at a time which helps us have a great field of view very closer to the natural eye.
The magnification is the factor which has a great significance. If you have kept the magnification much higher then it means you have focused the area that in turn becomes smaller, and you will end up with the smaller field of view. If the field of view is of more concerned then you should go with the binocular with the low magnification.
Comfort:
The main difference you’ll observe is when both the devices are in not use, holding them in different ways provide you different comfort level.
Binoculars come with the neck strap to hold them into your neck when they are not in use, whereas mostly monocular devices come with the wrist strap to hold them all the way, it may be disturbing sometimes, you are not doing the things freely with your hands, or sometimes it becomes heavier to hold with your wrist, so on the other hand neck can provide you a strong way to hold your binoculars.
Even while the devices are in use, the binoculars have an advantage over monocular devices concerning comfort.
Because it’s obvious that when you are dealing naturally while the device, you’ll be more comfortable. Binoculars are used with both of our eyes, we don’t need to shut one of the eyes to view the objects we are targeting to, whereas using monocular devices require shutting one eye to have a view, so this becomes less comfortable than using pair of binoculars.
Price:
If the price is more concerned then you can get high-quality monocular devices at affordable prices as compared to the binoculars. Pair of binoculars comes with fewer specifications in the same price range.
We are not saying that shouldn’t go with binoculars, they are great in many areas, the best feature is that they come with a large field of view. If you have a low budget then you should get monocular devices because they are going to give the better specifications at less price than binoculars.
Monocular vs Binoculars – Conclusion:
As we explained to you how both monocular and binocular devices differ in what ways. If you need a portable device that is more compact and lightweight, then monocular can be the best choice. These devices come with high specifications at an affordable price than binoculars.
They perform very well with the night vision feature. On the other hand, binoculars give you more comfort, and the best thing is that they work on two lenses and hence provides a large field of view.