There are four key steps to focusing your binoculars correctly:
- Set eye oculars the right distance apart
- Eye cups up or down? Or in between?
- Focus left eye with main focus wheel
- Focus right eye with right ocular focus wheel
Step 1
Bend the two sides of your binoculars either closer together or farther apart until each of your eyes can easily look through their respective oculars (the part you look through). You should be seeing an image in a single circle.
Step 2
All good binoculars come with adjustable eye cups on the oculars. If you don’t wear eye glasses, twist the eye cups so they are up. If you do wear eye glasses make sure the eye cups are twisted down. If your view doesn’t show the image in a single circle, adjust the eye cups up some.
Step 3
Focusing is done in two steps. The first step is to adjust the main focus circle in the center of the binoculars. To do this, initially close your right eye (or cover the right objective with your hand) and look through just your left eye and turn the central focus wheel until the image is sharp. It is useful to select something to view that has lots of details such as a sign with lettering.
Step 4
The second step to focusing your binoculars is to set the difference between your two eyes. To do that, locate the ring that is located on the right ocular below the eye cup. It is usually ribbed and has reference marks on it. (Your left ocular does not have this ring.) Twist the ocular focus ring back and forth to make sure it will easily move when you use it. (In some binoculars this ocular focus ring is initially stiff to move.)
Here’s a video that shows these four steps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkPzl-VPmo4