Carson CloseUp 6x18mm Close-Focus Monocular (CF-618)

I wear eye glasses and can see the full field of view with them on, though some people have more deeply recessed eyes. I can focus it with one hand. My middle through pinky fingers hold the front barrel while my thumb and pointer turn the eye barrel. Just under 3 full turns covers the range from infinity to 10". Half a turn takes it from infinity to 6 feet. The Carson 7x18 focuses well past infinity too. It is 2.5 inches at shortest and 3.5 inches at longest. 7x confirmed by merging images with my 7x35 binoculars. The field of view is 400 ft, not 472 ft as advertised. The apparent field of view looks 50 degrees, not the 60 of my binoculars. I don't mind since the eye relief is so good. The focus is smooth with good tolerances and the right amount of friction. No wiggle. The inside is black, and the lenses are coated. Looks like quality. The larger barrel diameter is 1 1/8 inches. Very high depth of field far away, and very shallow depth of field up close. 1/2 turn takes you from infinity to 7 feet. I can easily hold this very steady with one hand, but I can also hold 16x binoculars steady. I'm well practiced. With my glasses I have a combined 20/20 vision. With my weaker eye I was just able to read a street sign two blocks away, while standing. I'm tempted to send one to my father as a gift. --------------------------------- Update: I opened the window so I could get a truer side by side test with my binoculars. Looking through a window with a few faint water spots, they look equally sharp as my Tasco Essentials 7x35. With the window opened, I could see that there is slightly more ever so faint haze in the Carson 7x18 than in my Tascos, which had slightly less clarity than naked eye. This is easily overlooked. Imaging looking through a clean window, vs opening the window to look outside. The clean window shows a good view most would not complain about nor notice anything wrong with when looking through, but the opened window is much better. The fully coated optics are nice, but not perfect. The roof prisms scatter a bit more light than porro prisms. You have to pay more or get something less streamlined to avoid that. Also, the center of view was sharper in the Tascos, as was the edge of view. The Tascos had a much wider field of view too. My Tascos are not as sharp as my Nikons. You get what you pay for. But if you are not super picky, the Carson will give you a magnified view that shows much more than what your eyes can see. It is small and portable and inexpensive. I've looked through some uncoated all plastic lens monoculars before, and the Carson is much clearer than them.

The Carson CloseUp: Handy, good quality monocular. I use it all the time. Very small, lightweight, cheap. Comes with a strap to carry it around your neck, and a little black pouch with belt loop. So very easy to carry along. Good for seniors like myself, or for kids who like to explore. You do need two hands to twist the two telescoping parts to focus-in on things. Carson did not place a scale with markings to make it easy to pre-set the monocular to an approximate distance, before fine-tuning the focus. This is a drawback that would have been easy to prevent by adding some little lines with viewing distances. Read on for my work-arounds. This monocular has a very wide viewing range, with two main areas of use (and focus work-arounds): 1) FAR: for distance viewing (mostly outdoors). See a bus number or street name from far away, or deer and birds on a nature walk. -- Prepare the monocular by screwing the two parts together, so it is at its shortest (only 2.5 inches long). The monocular is now focused for far away. This is the opposite of what you would expect (counter-intuitive). You would normally expect the monocular to be at its longest for viewing far away, like a telescope. But no. This is what took me the longest to get used to. So: short for far away. From this position it takes only 2 or 3 twists (quarter-turns) to focus in to as close as 8 feet. So easy to use, not much effort. 2) CLOSE: for close-up viewing (mostly indoors). Clearly read the finest print, see the smallest detail. Nature lovers can observe the details of flowers or strange little insects. You can see sharply from as close up as 11 inches. That is what makes this monocular so special, and why it is obviously called the Carson CloseUp. -- Prepare to use it for close-up by twisting the two parts apart, unscrewing them, so the monocular is at its longest (about 4.5 inches long). It is now focused at its closest, or less than 1 foot away (again, counter-intuitive). Then twist to adjust the focus to further away. It takes about 8 twists (quarter-turns) to get it to focus 3 feet away. So that is more work. Closer in, it has a very narrow depth of field. That means you do have to very exactly focus it to see sharp. So that takes a bit of work twisting it, adjusting the focus. A tip if you regularly use the CloseUp at medium distances. Like reading product labels and prices on the bottom shelf, without having to bend over or go down on your knees. Take a fine-tipped permanent marker, and draw some little lines, so you can pre-set the focus before viewing and fine-tuning the focus. That will save you a lot of work in finding the right focus in the mid area. Carson should have done this, engraving little lines. So little effort to save the user so much work. I hope these work-arounds will help make this product even more useful and easy to use, if you decide to get it.

Was considering buying a replica mini telescope for bug-out bag at $65, Decided instead to gamble on three separate $15 scopes just to see if I could get one to meet my minimal requirements (mostly being small and lightweight). The three I ordered were: HDE® 15x - 55x Zoom 21mm Compact Monocular, Sold by: HDE Carson CloseUp 7x18mm Close-Focus Monocular (CF-718), Sold by: Amazon.com LLC Celestron UpClose G2 10x25 Monocular, Black (71213) In a nutshell, I was pleasantly surprised with all three. None of them were the cat's meow, but for ~$15 I didn't expect them to be (and you shouldn't either). For my own purposes, they were all surprisingly acceptable. The HDE did indeed have the best magnification and like other posters said, needs a tripod to really use anything at the upper levels, but it looked pretty darn good at the lowest level (15x). The Celestron had the best quality feel to it, which I expected, being a name brand, but the optics were no better than others. The Carson, which is half the size of the other two (you can't tell by the graphics) is my favorite. Tiny, lightweight, clear picture, enough magnification to just look out there and say, "What is that?" The Carson also has a Macro function, which is pretty cool. I used to check out a tiny splinter in my hand and could see it! My only complaint is the Carson looked like it had been returned by someone else (one of my pet peeves on Amazon when I'm buying 'NEW'). I can't give any of them five stars because they each do have small issues, but I thought four stars was fair because you are getting so much (materially) for so little (cost). Hope that helps.

This serves several purposes. It is good for those with poor eyesight. It can be used like a monocular to view things at a distance. For example, a performance onstage or street signs while walking. It also is helpful for seeing small print on a TV across the room. It even focuses closer dow to about 10 inches so you could use it to read prices of items in a grocery store or the items showing what is contained in the grocery item. Handy for those times when there is small print. I've also found that it can be used as a magnifying glass by turning it around, looking backwards from the large lens and holding an item with really small print close to the eyepiece. I can see the voltage and amps or watts on transformers this way. Those are usually printed in really really small letters. Hope this helps someone..

Highly Recommended. 4.5 Stars. Under $15. I can use it even with my safety glasses on but I lose some width looking through the scope. Works for me. Only bad point is the thin, black, string holder would make a great garrote to get yourself killed. It is not for any workplace. OSHA would never approve the string. Replace it with a safe, breakaway ribbon like I did & you have a 5 star, very sharp, mini telescope with a UNHEARD of CONTINUOUS FOCUS down to 10 inches. It only uses one focusing ring while a rival close focus monocular forces you to use a 2nd focusing ring for distances within 6 feet. If the 1st ring on the rival monocular isn't all the way back, it won't focus. Lightweight. I use the close focus end of the scope at work, (for distances between 2 - 10 feet), to read labels from a lift. I had no fogging problems.

Lightweight and compact enough for a shirt pocket, with a small lightweight black nylon belt pouch and lanyard included. But I'm a little disappointed with this item despite having researched it thoroughly and having modest expectations. Its optics are quite good at close distances; for a nature walk, you will see excellent detail on an interesting plant, leaf, etc. But don't expect it to also serve for long distance viewing. In my experience it is NOT a viable longer distance substitute for binoculars. I can't make out street name signage or park trail signposts at a distance, for instance. It won't help with the street sign at the end of my block 100 yards away. So it's very good close up for enjoying details of a flower, a leaf, a seashell , but not very helpful as a trail-hiking navigation tool. Birdwatcher's note: This does give pretty fair results out to about 60-80 feet, so if you're fairly close you might get a better look at a bird in a very nearby tree. But (to my eye) beyond 60-80 feet you're out of range and it's not very helpful. It requires two hands to focus the lens. Build quality and small carry case are fine. It feels sturdy enough, and I've dropped it once or twice and it was fine. The 'lifetime warranty' requires you send in a $12.00 check for service, LOL, which is about what the unit costs new. As a plus, this item might also be very useful at museums, to see details of items in glass cases or hung on walls behind barrier ropes. I give it only 3 stars because it's just not useful for the distance work I would have liked to use it for in addition to the closer work--and at close work, it's just fine. SUMMARY: This is very good for up close details of outdoor plants, flowers, and other small close up details. Handy, compact and light enough for a shirt pocket. Good value for money. I like it. But don't buy it thinking it will also be a binoculars substitute, even occasionally, the lens is not that versatile. Hope this is helpful. Happy viewing, everybody.

When I received it looked like it would work it has a nice tiny pouch, it’s very light and it came with a tiny wipe to clean the lens. But unfortunately the quality was garbage it’s all plastic there is no focus you can barely see anything out of it and if you twist it it literally falls apart.

This is perfect! I bought it for seeing things close up on the ground while standing up. Works great too for seeing small writing on tv while lying down. Then later there was a bug on the wall and I didn’t have to get up to see what kind of bug it was. Hey, I’m happy. 😀

Immagine di buona qualità e soprattutto utile per la portabilità, piccolissimo e leggerissimo. Per escursioni e passeggiate l'ho trovato molto utile

I use this monocular to look at close objects, within two meters, reading numbers. It does what it says it would do. I did buy another monocular but it didn't do what was advertised. This is the real McCoy.

Excellent product. Will focus down to 10 inches, so magnifies by 7 at 10 inches. Arrived very promptly. Plastic, yes but it feels sturdy. Small and light so easy to carry. Also good focusing at long range, so a versatile product that is very good value for money.

Es muy bueno, tiene buen Zoom, adjunto imagen, (Foto de la palapa) y también funciona para ver cosas más de cerca, como tipo microscopio (foto del peso) se ven un poco borrosas en las fotos, pero esto es culpa de mi pulso, la imagen del monocular es muy nítida, otra cosa no sabia usarlo muy bien, así que pensé que no servía el Zoom, no sean como yo, les explico, si quieren ver cosas de cerca, tienen que sacar todo el lente, para el Zoom lo tienen que hacer más chico , es muy compacto , puse una moneda de 10 pesos como referencia para que puedan ver el tamaño, Lo recomiendo

Se trata de un monoculo muy pequeño, de peso ligero y precio razonable, a pesar de todo esto la calidad de imagen es excelente logicamente teniendo en cuenta que es un 18. En resumen es el equipo ideal para personas que como yo realizamos caminatas por lugares en los que a veces se echa de menos disponer de un prismatico pero que queremos llevarlo en el bolsillo. El aumento que aporta es tambien muy adecuado para este uso ya que es suficiente para la observación de la naturaleza sin que se produzcan movimientos ni vibraciones.