At Upland Optics, discounting isn't something we believe in, or ever do. You'll never see our products go on sale, as long as we control our pricing. However, when a member of our armed forces reached out to ask if we had a military discount program, we knew immediately that we were going to create an exception.

The members of the United States Military are our heroes, our defenders, and we owe them an unpayable debt of gratitude for their service. Many service members are also hunters, and they need gear. While we know it isn't even close to enough, we hope that by offering a 10% discount on our products to all active duty service men and women that they understand our true appreciation for what they do for us.

If you are an active duty member of our military, please reach out and we will create a personal coupon code that you can use to purchase anything on our site. Thank you all for your service!

We knew before we began designing the Perception HD binoculars that it would be difficult to stand out from the crowd. After all, a search for "binoculars" on Amazon yields 94,502 results. And it wasn't just the sheer number of competitors that intimidated us, but the fact that the established players had been in the game for decades, and had millions of dollars to spend on product development.

It seemed like an impossible task, until we realized something very crucial: There are very few binoculars made specifically for hunters. Most optics companies manufacture a wide range of multipurpose binoculars, along with hundreds of other products that fall into the sporting optics category. While it is true that many of them are suitable for hunting, few (if any) are designed with that exclusive purpose in mind. Once we realized that, our purpose was simple: Craft the best pair of binoculars a hunter could ever dream of using.

The result of months of effort, the Perception HD is something that we are truly proud of and use ourselves in the field.

Fit for the Hunt

We knew that while it would be nice to have a pair of binoculars with 15x magnification and 70mm objective lenses when scanning the hills on a big hunt, it is absolutely no fun to haul them around. At the same time, a pair of 6x21mm binos isn't going to help you find many animals. We settled on a 42mm objective lens, because we knew it was the ideal balance between size and power. We started with 10x zoom, and will soon be launching an 8x zoom model as well.

Outside of the basic specs, lots of other factors go into making these binoculars ideal for hunting, such as waterproofing and, many hunter's favorite feature, lens cups that don't detach completely from the binoculars.

Incredible Glass

When it comes to glass, we knew there was only one way to go: Extra Low Dispersion glass, or ED glass. It is used not only in high end binoculars and sporting optics, but also in photography, and other fields that required extremely clear glass with minimal light dispersion. For an explanation of dispersion and what makes ED glass so special, check out this article.

Ruggedness

Let's face facts, there is nothing gentle about hunting. You wake up early in the morning, climb a mountain with a heavy pack, almost always miles away from the nearest man made trail, climbing over rivers and rocks and downed trees. Your binoculars need to be able to handle the stresses that go along with territory. Many binoculars use glass that is hardly any sturdier than your average window pane, and breaks with the lightest of bumps. We designed the Perception HD binoculars to meet the toughest of quality standards, and used the most durable of materials. And if that wasn't enough, they are also covered by our excellent lifetime warranty policy!

Value

It is absolutely shocking the range in prices you will see in binoculars. On one end, you'll see a pair for around $20 that almost make it harder to see and fall apart at the slightest bump. On the other, a pair for well over $2,000 that have incredible optical clarity, but you wouldn't dare risk bringing in the field. We sought to seek the middle ground, a price that the average hunter wouldn't lose sleep over, but still allowed us to use high end materials.

We also have embraced lean business practices, operating with extremely low overhead. This means lower costs for both us as a company, and for you the consumer. Instead of paying for some executive's high rise office building and gold watch, you're getting top quality binoculars at an incredibly low price.

Buy the Perception HD Now

Available from Amazon.com and directly from us.

Extra-low-dispersion glass, also known as ED glass, is widely used in optics applications where clarity of vision and accuracy are important. It's found in high-end camera lenses, binoculars, sights, scopes, rangefinders and countless other devices that depend on precise image quality.

Upland Optics uses ED glass exclusively in all of its products because we know that the added optical clarity is well worth the additional cost.

The physics behind ED glass products are complex. This simple guide will help you gain a solid understanding of what makes ED glass sporting optics so effective.

A Quick Primer on Optics

Light is an electromagnetic waveform. As it travels through media like air, glass or water, its phase velocity changes depending on its frequency. This is known as dispersion.

To simplify this concept, consider the way a prism splits white light into different colors. The original beam that appeared white was actually composed of many waves of colors all corresponding to particular frequencies. Dispersion essentially means that because the different frequency wave crests propagate at unique rates through the prism, they become distinct from one another. It's sort of like how individual swimmers in the same pool start to spread out as they travel at varied speeds. It may also help to remember that dispersion is sometimes referred to as chromatic dispersion because of how it relates to color.

Dispersion and Refraction

Refraction is a phenomenon where light bends due to its propagation velocity changing. In the prism example, the velocity change is induced as the light transitions from traveling through air to traveling through glass. Dispersion acts in conjunction with refraction because the amount of directional change depends on the color of the light.

Dispersion in Optics

So now that we've covered most of the physics, how does chromatic dispersion impact glass, and why is extra-low-dispersion glass necessary? In short, no glass is perfect. Although traditional lenses and other optics are designed to minimize distortion, almost all exhibit some form of chromatic dispersion. In cameras, binoculars and other optics, the phenomenon is commonly known as chromatic aberration, or CA. As we'll discover later, ED lenses are fabricated to minimize CA as much as possible.

The Visible Disadvantages of CA

Because distinct colors refract differently as they traverse optical components, CA often results in lenses being unable to focus multiple hues uniformly. For instance, you might take what you think is a great sports photo only to discover that the edges of objects display rainbow blurs or fringes.

With binoculars and other lenses designed for real-time use, CA isn't just annoying. It can hinder your ability to enjoy your viewing or perform because you're looking at a distorted image. At higher magnification, the fact that light is being refracted at even sharper angles may make the effect even more pronounced.

A Viable Solution

Low-dispersion glass is specifically designed to minimize chromatic dispersion. Traditionally, it was manufactured by combining two glass elements into a single unit called an achromatic lens, or achromatic doublet. If one element had a high dispersion characteristic and the other was accordingly low, they would ideally cancel out. In some applications, manufacturers coated lenses with substances designed to produce similar effects.

Of course, these solutions depend on finding different types of glass, coatings and lens combinations with suitable dispersion effects. In their search, scientists created a host of materials that further pushed the boundaries of what sporting optics could do.

How Is ED Glass Made?

By combining different minerals and manufacturing techniques, scientists created products that minimized CA and produced sharper, brighter images. Modern ED glass fabrication employs tested material choices and precise quality control to create products with specific physical and optical characteristics. Unlike in decades past, manufacturers can use automation techniques and computer control to maintain furnace temperatures, consistent cooling flows and exact substrate mixing for highly consistent results.

The Benefits of Extra-Low-Dispersion Glass

Older achromatic doublets and similar solutions weren't ideal because it's hard to create perfectly matched materials and lens sets. Adding multiple components to objects like binoculars and telephoto lenses can also increase their weight until usage becomes uncomfortable.

Sustainable Improved Usage

ED glass is specifically designed to have minimal CA characteristics inside sporting optics and other devices. One interesting side effect of the manufacturing process that grants ED glass its unique optical qualities is that it's resistant to the temperature changes that had a major impact on prior lens variants. This increases imaging consistency in exposed environments and ensures users can rely on what they see to be accurate.

Many ED glasses are manufactured to produce improved quality over a specific range of colors. As a result, it's much easier for consumers to source purpose-designed optics that fit their intended applications.

In conclusion, ED glass is the way to go when it comes to sporting optics. That's why we build every one of our products with it at the center.