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 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. 😀

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.

I like this monocular so much, I'm starting to carry it with me all the time. The close focus is especially handy. I'm able to check the small print on items on grocery store bottom shelves without getting down on my knees. Similarly, I can see items in store windows when they are closed. I've also found it useful for reading occasional small print on my computer screen without getting up to find a 'zoom-in' key. Plus, except in very dim light, it seems to do all things my regular 7X binoculars do for birdwatching, reading street signs, undersized PowerPoint presentations, etc. As expected, the closer the object, the more you have to crank the focus to get the image sharp. Distant objects focus quickly, however. The thick grease in the focus slows it down in cold weather. It has a decent enough eye relief for wearing glasses. And the field of view seems equal to my 7.5 degree 7X20 Pentax field binoculars and to my 8.6 degree7X35 Nikon's -- both which seem to overrate their stated fields of view. Simple construction. If a lens did break loose from a fall, it looks like something you could probably glue back together without much trouble. It was well packed with a soft belt case, cleaning cloth and lanyard. Since I wear it on my belt or keep it in my pocket, I replaced the neck lanyard with a much shorter loop off of small LED flashlight. It's light enough that using the lanyard is not annoying, but you may want to drop it in a shirt pocket to keep it from swinging around. Weight and size make it seem like a natural for backpacking or airplane travel. At this price think about buying two up front to save on the shipping, or to use as a gift.

I only do a review if a product is really bad or really good. Fortunately, the Carson CF-618 monocular is really good. It's the first monocular of several I've bought over the years that finally allows me to truly view items seriously close up--it's almost scary how close it lets you get. I'm 69 and out of curiosity decided I wanted to learn how to use a sewing machine just for the heck of it. Anyway, this CF-618 now lets me view the intricacies of the business end of the sewing machine where the needle gets threaded, the sewing foot gets changed out, and where the actual sewing of fabric occurs. So this review is a big shout out and thank you to Carson Optical for making this wonderful product available--BRAVO! It's nice that a carry case and small lens cloth are included. FYI, I would have been willing to pay extra if you also included an adapter that would allow this item to be used with an iPhone to take a picture or produce some video, esp. to include with this review. Finally, it would also be a plus if you could find a way to make this item in the USA.

I'll be darned. This monocular actually delivered as advertised. I think most of us know that when you purchase any optical instrument at very low price; chances are that somewhere along the way it will have problem. Another Carson product I purchased in the past (zoom microscope) was exactly like that. It was very difficult to focus, very narrow field-of-view and simply pain to use. This monocular, conversely had been opposite. As others have already noted, it really does do excellent job of extreme close focus. This monocular is so low priced that you don't have to baby it. If you lose it or break it then just buy another one. FYI in case you decide to purchase this. If you're sensitive to glue or plastic smell you may need to aerate it first because my monocular smelled when I first opened the box and used it. Also, people with extreme near-sight vision wearing glasses may have some problem focusing on certain objects like plants or forest. Update: 10/04/12 I lost my original monocular so I placed order for replacement. The new one unfortunately will not focus clearly. No matter how much I tried to adjust the focus, the object I am looking will not lose the blurry picture. Hence, I am dropping my ranking to two stars. Being that this monocular's low price tag, I am just going to toss it away.