Kowa Genesis 22 Prominar XD 8×22 Binoculars: Our Review

At A Glance

PROS:

• Very bright, sharp image
• Good detail even with glare or backlighting
• Very good field of view and close focus

CONS:

• Difficult to focus precisely
• Focus wheel covering can slip
• Double-hinge design is compact but needs frequent readjustment

STATS:

• Price: $799 MSRP at press time. Prices often fluctuate, so check with retailers
• Close focus: Listed as 4.9 feet (150 cm). In tests, we could focus these binoculars down to about 3.7 feet (114 cm)
• Field of view: 7.5° (394 feet at 1,000 yards). More about field of view 
• Weight: 11.3 oz (321 g)—that’s about 0.7 oz (19 g) heavier than the average for pocket binoculars in our review
• Eye relief: 15 mm

Viewing Experience: These are petite binoculars that have very good optics, though we had persistent problems with the focus wheel. Once focused, they provide an impressively bright and sharp image despite their smaller objective lenses (22 mm vs. the more standard 25 mm). A little Northern Parula foraging among white-oak leaves was a colorful dusty blue on the back giving way to an orange throat and rusty red chest band. The crisp image highlighted the bird’s short, sharp bill as it picked at oak catkins. The close focus is among the best of any binoculars we’ve ever tested: at less than 4 feet you can get great views of close, stationary items such as insects and flowers. However, recurring difficulties with the focus wheel made it difficult to get a sharp view of birds or to focus on them in flight. It often seemed difficult to get the two barrels in focus at the same time, requiring us to spend a lot of time readusting the diopter or to dial the focus in and out repeatedly while viewing a bird. On our test model, the focus wheel sometimes kept spinning at either end of the focus range, and the outer housing sometimes slipped free of the wheel itself.

Feel and Build: These binoculars are among the smallest and most compact in our review, with a solid feel and attractive olive green barrels set off by black eyecups. The barrels are armored in a firm, thin layer of grippy plastic that preserves their slim outline. The comfortable eyecups are just large enough to fit around the eyes (not always the case with pocket binoculars), and they dial out to three preset positions. The double-hinge design allows the binoculars to fold into a very small package, but they can require frequent readjustments. The wide, padded neck strap makes carrying these small binoculars comfortable.

This article is one in a series of mini-reviews. To see how these binoculars compare to others we’ve tested, see our full review of pocket binoculars.