Nikon 16x56 Monarch 5 Review (2024)

Nikon Monarch 5 16x56 HD Review

Nikon’s big Chinese-made Monarch 5sare one of the few quality options in a powerful big-eye binocular that doesn’t cost a fortune. But does the competitive price andoutsourced manufacturing mean they’ve cut corners withthe view?

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People periodically ask me to recommend a sensibly-priced hand-heldastronomy binocular. The answer was once a knee-jerk reaction: Nikon’s 12x50 SEevery time. Sadly, the 12x50 SE is years out of production and they no longerseem to come up used (no surprise there). So is therean alternative?

Though many think 10x or 12x ideal for astronomy, I find thathigher powers and larger objectives have a definite advantage when it comes tofinding and enjoying DSOs, as long as you can holdthem steady. And one obvious mid-market option is Nikon’s 16x56 Monarch 5s.

So, I bought a pair to try them out on the night sky and seeif they made a recommendable alternative to the 12x50 SEs, also to compare themwith two of their rivals from the European-made ‘Alpha’ segment: Zeiss’ 15x56Conquest HDs and Swarovski’s 15x56 SLC HDs.

At A Glance

Data from Nikon/Me.

What’s in the Box?

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Design and Build

Nikon have lots of Monarch models (too many models ingeneral, in my opinion). These are the older Monarch 5s; the bigger objectivedesigns aren’t available in the latest Monarch 7s(yet). However, these have all the latest technology, with HD lenses to curefalse colour a notable advantage at this price.

The 16x56 Monarch 5s are made in China, but don’t seem to be a re-branded generic model. Nikon also makean 8x56 and a (very niche, I would have thought) 20x56 version, but oddly theideal-for-astronomy 10x56 has been discontinued.

Body and Ergonomics

These have the typical Monarch look, which is to say they’re externally well made, with nice armour and qualitycomponents. There’s no sense that these are a cheapbinocular in terms of look and feel.

These are compact for a 56mm design – as compact asSwarovski’s 15x56 SLC HDs and more so than Zeiss’ 56mm Conquest HDs. Weight isjust a little more than the SLC HDs and about the same as the Conquests, mostlythanks to a fibreglass-reinforced polycarbonate body that also makes themwarmer to hold.

That black armour is grippy and slightly sticky - like thestuff they use for racing tyres and rock boot soles - but it does mark up morethan, say, Swarovski’s and is a real magnet for dust and fluff. It smellsslightly rubbery too.

Externally these are deeply sculpted on the back and fallnicely to hand as we’ll see.

Nikon claim the big Monarchs are fully waterproof, though atone metre for five minutes it’s not at the same levelas the Zeiss or Swarovskis.

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Left toright: Swarovski 15x56 SLC HD, Zeiss 15x56 Conquest HD, Nikon Monarch 5 16x56.

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Monarch16x56 HDs have heavily contoured body for a comfortable hold.

Focuser

The focuser is the main area where the build quality falls down. The focuser is stiff and sometimes sticky.Worse, the best focus point is hard to find because it shifts slightly as youfocus in and out.

Part of the problem may be its speed – little more than halfa turn from close focus to infinity is seriously rapid.

The dioptre adjustment is via the conventional ring under theright eyepiece. There is no locking mechanism and no click-stops either (these aren’t Nikon’s HGs).

Optics - Prisms

These have conventional Schmidt-Pechanroof prisms. Nikon claim the latest dielectric coatings for the mirrors.

Optics - Objectives

Nikon don’t publicise the lensdesign, but these include the latest low-dispersion ED glass that helps correctfalse colour fringing (chromatic aberration), hence the ‘HD’ tag.

The coatings are greenish tinged and of a high quality, butthey are a little more reflective than the best (i.e.Zeiss T* coatings). Dim reflections suggest all the internal glass elements arefully coated – no corner cutting there.

Internal build quality looks excellent – well finished andbaffled with solid, rugged-looking mechanicals.

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NikonMonarch’s coatings are just a little more reflective than premium models’. Internals are well baffled.

Optics - Eyepieces

The eyepieces have large eye lenses and are doubtless amodern multi-element design. They deliver a true field width of 4.1° which equates to an apparent FOV of 59.6°. That’s a decent, but not world-beating field of view (thoughmuch better than the smaller Monarch 5 10x42s).

Nikon claim higheye relief, but measured from the edge of the cup it is 12-13mm - a lot lessthan the claimed 16.4mm and too tight for specs wearers. Eye relief is one ofthe few areas these binoculars really disappoint.

The exit pupilslook properly round and un-vignetted; internal reflections are well suppressed.

The eye cups havethree extended positions. They’re smooth in action, but chunkier than they needto be which is a problem if your eyes are close set like mine (they squash mynose).

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Threeposition eye cups – more travel than required for the short eye relief.

Accessories

The Monarch 16x56s come with a Corduracase, strap, band-on objective caps and a rather loose eyepiece cap.

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Tripod Adapter

The 16x56 Monarchs come with aslightly flimsy looking, but perfectly serviceable, tripod adapter that screws into the front of thehinge once you’ve un-threaded the blanking plate. The bottom of the adapterfits a standard ¼-20 photo tripod and helpfully has four different positions soyou can get balance right.

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The hingecap unscrews to reveal thread for tripod adapter

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In Use – Daytime

Ergonomics and Handling

The deeply sculpted body is very comfortable to hold. Somedislike that sticky armour, but it feels both warm and secure to me. Balance isjust right and the focuser falls easily to finger. Basic handling is ideal forme and much better than some premium big-eye designs I could name.

The focuser is not up to premium standards: it’s a bit stiff and vague. More seriously, perfect focus isn’t quite the same focusing through and then reversing back.This is a pain for me because I habitually focus that way and I get caught outevery time because the perfect focus point isn’t thereanymore when I back out.

The dioptre adjustment – by the conventional ring under theright eyepiece – isn’t too stiff, but the slightlysoft focus made it harder to use than the best. I also noticed it adjustedslightly off centre, even though my eyes are perfectly corrected with specs on.

Eye relief, unusually for Nikon who pioneered good eye reliefon their HG and SE ranges, is very tight. Once again, the problem is the eyecups – the eye lenses are deeply recessed within them, reducing the ER to thepoint where I can see perhaps only half the field or less with specs on.Without specs, I can most comfortably use these with the eye cups fullyretracted – all that extra click-stop travel just isn’tneeded.

The eye relief is just too little togive a decent field of view with my glasses on. If you wear glasses whenobserving these might not be for you. The eyepieces are comfortably free from kidney-beanblackouts, though.

The thick eye cups mean these aren’tideal for those (like me) with a narrow inter-pupillary distance. If your eyesare set quite close or you have a smallish face, try before you buy.

These don’t look enormous hangingaround my neck, unlike some big-eye binos, but Imight get a few snigg*rs from the local birders if I took them down the prom’to watch the Egrets on a Sunday afternoon.

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Testing the Monarchs on a typically wet Lakeland day.

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Monarchs don’t look too huge hanging around my neck.

The View

The daytime view is reasonable: slightly dimmer thanSwarovski’s 15x56 SLC HDs and a little less sharp and contrasty too. Coloursare little less bright than the best. The biggest problem with the view,though, is getting best focus …

The depth of field is shallow (as are all binosof this power), but that means constant re-focusing and unfortunately thatsomewhat vague and rough focuser becomes a pain when panning around. The opticsthemselves don’t quite snap to focus like the besteither and all too often you find yourself viewing with slightly imperfectfocus, which does no favours for the view.

Only the very finest high-powerbinoculars give a really excellent daytime view and thesearen’t among them, but the daytime view is serviceable with no obvious faultsapart from the vague best focus point.

Flat field?

One strong point of these is that the field is reasonablyflat. It does in fact curve very gently towards the edge, but this isn’t too obvious during the day. Other aberrations – comaand astigmatism – are virtually absent.

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Sharp viewcentre field drops off towards the edge.

Chromatic Aberration

The HD lenses mean that chromatic aberration is very wellcontrolled centre field. Despite the very high power and big lenses (both ofwhich mean more chromatic aberration, all other things being equal), the levelof false colour is typical of a first-generation premium HD birding binocular –an excellent result.

False colour is most obvious when focusing through highcontrast areas, or when panning through high branches and does increasesubstantially off-axis. Chimneys and roof lines have a faint fringe of purpleyou don’t get with the best HD optics.

False colour correction is good, butit is not quite up to the latest premium HD models such as the SLC HDs.

In Use – Dusk

Those big lenses start to come into play as my pupils dilateat dusk and twilight performance is very good. I generally prefer 10x56s atdusk, no matter what the twilight rating number says, but these penetrate deepinto dark dusk shadows.

I watched a pair of deer in my neighbours’ drive on Christmasnight (Rudolph, where’s Santa?) that were quite invisible to the naked eye.

In Use – The Night Sky

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Nighttesting the Monarch 16x56s in strong Moonlight.

This isn’t the first big-eyebinocular to give decent, but slightly lack-lustre daytime views, only to betransformed on the night sky. At night, finding perfect focus on a star is easyand once found you can just keep it that way, so the focuser is no longer aproblem. Having done so, you realise the optics are in fact very good indeed.

The field, which appears quite flat during the day, is infact slightly curved towards the edge: you have to re-focus stars in the last80% of the field to get them perfectly sharp. But other off-axis aberrationsare well suppressed and stars never bloat or stretch due to coma and astigmatismthe way they do with some binoculars, even at the field stop.

A full Moon generates only the mildest trace of ghosts, butno spikes or other nastiness. Veiling flare when working around a bright Moon isn’t a problem either.

However, looking at a bright security light produced asnow-storm of dim ghosts and a few faint, long spikestoo. This is an area where these binoculars can’tcompete with the best – Swaro’s 15x56 SLC HDs showedno ghosts or spikes at all on the same light.

In general, stars are tight and bright. Star colours arequite strong and stars remain pin-point across almost the whole field.

The Moon

The Moon looks really good throughthese binoculars – crisp and sharp. No, it isn’t aswhite and contrasty as the very best, but a lot of detail is visible and falsecolour is no problem. The Moon comes to perfect focus in both barrels, unlikethe Minox 15x58s where one barrel remained slightly‘soft’.

Using the tripod adapter, I could make out further detail andthe view was similar to that through a smallrefractor. That extra power (16x vs the more usual 15x) is quiteobvious. All you need to add is a Lunar app or atlas and a basic phototripod and you could enjoy exploring the Moon’s main features with thesebinoculars straight out of the box. The high power is the absolute maximum Icould hand-hold, but it really works on a tripod giving these a handy dual usefor astronomy.

Venus

Venus showed little flare spiking or false colour – animpressive performance from a mid-market binocular.

Jupiter

The view of Jupiter was as good as I have seen with binos, period. There was no flare or spiking beyond theplanetary disk at all and only very modest chromatic aberration; just a littlebloat within the confines of the planet that all prismatic optics give and thatmake seeing the equatorial clouds belts difficult.

The Galilean moons were very easy to pick out and showedtheir different brightness well. I was easily able to split Ganymede and Europawhich were in close-ish conjunction (around 18” apart)early on Christmas morning – a sure sign of the excellent optical quality.

Deep Sky

Using the tripod adapter, I got a superb view of Orion’ssword region with masses of pin-point stars across the field and extendednebulosity from the nebula. I was able to split the Trapezium. The view waswonderfully comfortable, relaxed and aberration-free, one of the best binocularviews of Orion that I’ve had.

The Pleiades also looked excellent with lots of diamond-dustfaint white stars set among the Seven Sisters and the two orange central starsclear and bright.

The 4.1° true field is quite narrow, butstill plenty for most open clusters and I had good views of the StarfishCluster in Auriga and nearby M35.

Albireo, my favourite binocular double, looked cleanly splitand brilliantly coloured with the high magnification and light-gathering powerreally helping out.

Overall astronomy performance ofthese binoculars is very strong by any standards and especially so for theprice.

Nikon Monarch 5 16x56 vs Swarovski15x56 SLC HD

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I ended up reviewing these at the same time, so a comparisonis interesting, though of course the Swarovskis are adifferent class and price of instrument.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>Thedaytime view through the Swaros is better – brighter,sharper, more detailed and higher in contrast.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>Thenight-sky view is better in the Swaros too, but notby the same margin.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>TheSwaros control false colour a bit better across thefield, but especially off-axis.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>Bothhave low off-axis aberrations, but field curvature is even less in the Swarovskis.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>TheNikon’s focuser isn’t worthy of the rest of thebinoculars. The Swaro focuser is top notch.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>Handlingis very similar; I think I prefer the Nikons, which are very comfortable tohold.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>TheNikons just don’t have enough eye relief.

<![if !supportLists]>·<![endif]>TheSwarovskis cost about three times as much in the realworld, about double the list price.

If you are a perfectionist like me who loves a perfect viewand wants a binocular for the long haul that you can get fixed or serviced infifteen years, save up for the Swarovskis. Otherwise…

Summary

My first impression of Nikon’s 16x56 Monarch 5s was negativelyinfluenced by the lack of eye relief and the slightly vague and stiff focuser.But the more time I spent using them the more impressed I became, especiallyfor astronomy.

The daytime view is actually verydecent with a wide, flat field that’s bright enough and quite detailed withminimal false colour in the centre, but nowhere near as good as the Swarovski’s15x56 SLC HDs (obviously, for the price). At night, though, they come quiteclose to the SLC HDs, which I was testing alongside them. The high power andlarge-aperture, good-quality optics and good stray light suppression give really superb night sky views that get even better when youuse the included tripod adapter. Everything I pointed them at looked great –the Moon full of sharp detail with no false colour; Jupiter sharply definedwith no nasty flare; wide star fields full of pin-point stars; nebulae withlots of bright detail.

The binoculars are actually wellmade too and quite compact and very comfortable to hold for their size. Theonly real downsides are the vague focuser (these would be little use forraptors – an obvious application otherwise - as the result), lack of eye reliefand a possible problem for people with close-set eyes due to the heftyeye-cups.

So, are Nikon’s Monarch 16x56s a new budget astronomybinocular best buy to replace the 12x50 SE, then?Maybe: if you can stand their weight and power. The SEs were much more ‘perfect’and gave much ‘nicer’ daytime views, but the higher power and larger objectivesmean these actually show you more for less cost whenit comes to astronomy. Consider that even a pair of Zeiss Conquest 15x56s wouldcost well over twice as much and these seem great value.

Given their really excellentastronomy performance, good build quality, low discounted price and includedtripod adapter, these are very highly recommended for astronomy; less so duringthe day when the focuser is a problem. But just make sure they work with youreyes/spectacles.

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Nikon’s Monarch 5 15x56 – price/performance comparesfavourably with similar models from Zeiss and Swarovski.

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