2025 ushers in a brand new year of birding, and as such, Braden and I are taking our birding paths in new directions—something you will see in our forthcoming posts. One of those new directions is to post more reviews of bird-related books and birding equipment—all in the context of our continuing birding adventures. We’ve already dabbled in reviews a bit (see our post “Our Favorite Bird Books for the Holidays”), but today are pleased to unveil our first equipment review: Nikon’s Monarch HG binoculars. We hope you find this and upcoming reviews useful. Please let us know what you think!

As recounted in last week’s—and our next—posts (“Birding in Victoria, BC”), my wife’s and my recent visit to Victoria offered a rare chance to search for and observe shorebirds and seabirds. Although Braden and I have been birding for over a decade, our opportunities to observe ocean birds have been lamentably scarce, and ahead of this trip, I asked myself the crucial question: “What equipment should I bring?”

Taking my camera was, as usual, a no-brainer, and I quickly concluded that I’d be kicking myself if I didn’t bring my spotting scope and tripod as well. After all, ocean birds tend to hang out annoyingly far from shore! Surprisingly, my binoculars gave me the biggest pause. I, of course, needed binoculars, but I had been using my trusty pair of Nikon Monarch 5s for almost nine years and, frankly, I’d beaten the crap out of them. Not only could I use a new pair, I decided that it was time for an upgrade.

Although writing is at best a questionable way to try to earn a living, one advantage is that publishers are generally happy to send me copies of books to review. I had never before requested equipment, but with the recent success of Birding for Boomers, decided to give it a shot as well. Braden and I have both had good experiences with Nikon and Vortex equipment before, and so I wrote to both companies requesting to try out their upper-range binoculars. To my astonishment, a Nikon rep wrote back the very same day with the message that he would get a pair right out to me. Even better, they arrived before our Victoria trip, providing the perfect chance to field test them.

Nikon Monarch HGs are Nikon’s top-of-the-line binoculars for viewing wildlife, and as I pulled them out of the box, I immediately liked how they felt in my hands. The tubes fit just right into the arch between my thumb and forefinger, and the rubberized tube coating provided the right amount of “grippiness” for all kinds of weather. My next thought? Geez, you could run these over with a Jeep and not hurt them. I decided not to conduct that particular test, but with the HG’s magnesium alloy body, it may well be true.

I had requested a 10X42 pair of HGs. This meant that they offered ten times magnification and came with 42 mm diameter objective (front) lenses—the same specs as my old Monarch M5s. However, I immediately noted several cool additional features of the HGs. One is that they offered a 25% wider field of view—something especially important when scanning for birds. They also allowed me to focus on an object only 6.6 feet away versus 8.2 feet for the M5s. Think juncos and other sparrows!

Another great feature is that the HG diopter ring could be locked in place once you adjusted the focus for your particular eyes (for details, see note below).

A fourth handy thing I noticed about the HGs is that the objective lenses are set farther back from the front edge of the tubes. This means that they are less likely to get scratched and/or wet. Finally, Nikon particularly touts their field flattening technology with these binoculars—a technology that, according to them, dramatically reduces distortion and chromatic aberration across the full field of view. But the question remained: how would the Monarch HGs perform in the field?

It turns out that during our Victoria excursion, the importance of binoculars came into play to a surprising extent. Before the trip, I figured I would just be searching through my scope for seabirds and shorebirds. What I discovered, though, is that binoculars were an even more important scanning tool than usual. Why? For one thing, they allowed me to cover a larger area more quickly than the scope. It’s true that the lower magnification didn’t reach as far out to sea, but that was mostly compensated for by the fact that the binoculars offered a much brighter image. This was because of their lower magnification that let more light through to my eyes, and because of the extremely sharp image that the HGs produced. Especially at the low light levels of dawn and dusk, I often was able to pinpoint and identify birds more easily with the binoculars than with the scope. On the first morning, for instance (see our post “Birding Victoria, BC”), I had much better luck identifying birds on a set of islands about a quarter-mile offshore by using my binoculars. In my next post, I’ll share another experience during which the HGs helped me discover an especially heart-thumping species.

One thing that makes Nikon optics so good is that they use low dispersion (ED) glass elements on many of their models. This reduces common distortion and chromatic aberration—light separating into different colors—around images. Coatings on the internal prisms ensure that the maximum amount of light passes all the way through the binoculars to your eyes. The company’s less expensive M5 binoculars, also have many of these features—begging the question, “Why should I spring for the more expensive HGs?” After all, as I write this the HGs run just short of $1,000 while the M5s can be had for about a quarter of that price. Furthermore, the brightness of the two models struck me as similar.

My answer is in two parts. Part I is that if your budget lies in the $2-300 range, you will probably be perfectly happy with the M5s. Part II is that, as mentioned, the HGs have a closer focal distance and wider field of view, enhanced with Nikon’s field flattener lens technology. However, many of the HG’s advantages lie in things you can’t see, such as the quality of the build, the effectiveness of waterproofing and anti-fogging features, and basic durability. The Nikon rep neatly summarized it as “more advanced optics and tougher shell.” If you are ready to invest a bit more into your birding equipment and performance, these features make the HGs a wonderful choice—even if you don’t run them over with a Jeep!

The HGs are not perfect. As with my Monarch 5s, the front rubber flaps designed to protect the objective lenses fall out almost as soon as you snap them in, rendering them pretty useless. This is not an insurmountable technical problem to solve, and I hope that Nikon’s engineers take time to figure it out. This is a relatively minor issue, however, and did little to lessen my enthusiasm for these outstanding, well-priced binoculars.

Overall Rating (on a scale of cool birds): Harlequin Duck (highest)

Diopter ring note: For those unfamiliar with it, the diopter ring allows one to adjust each of a binocular’s tubes for the different vision in a person’s eyes. You do this by using the central focusing knob to focus on an object while looking through the side without the diopter ring, and while keeping the other eye closed. Then, you open only the eye on the side with the diopter ring and adjust the ring until that tube also comes into focus. From then on, the central focusing knob alone will keep an image in focus for both eyes. Many cheaper binoculars, however, do not come with a diopter adjustment ring, while many of those that do won’t allow you to lock it in place for your eyes—meaning that it can easily slip. That can be a pain out in the field, and having that “dual focus” locked in can prevent a lot of frustration later on!