With plane spotting you see people divide in two groups: you like it or you don’t. It’s as simple as that, and when you don’t it is hard to understant why some people do. But one thing is for sure: with a bad binocular the change that you will like it is very small. You will never recognize the small details to know wich type of aircraft you’re looking at! Because I saw a lot of questions about it, I wrote down what for me is the most important in good plane watcher binoculars.

A plane watcher binocular used for airplane spotting,  must meet many conflicting requirements:
- A wide angle is needed so you can find the planes you are looking for.
- you will want a higher magnification than other binoculars as the distance is further. And to be able to recognize the plane you need to see it in detail.
- You don’t want a very heavy binocular. You don’t have to walk with it, but remember, you ‘ll have to keep it up to the sky a  lot.
- The coating of the lenses niet to be specialized for blue or grey, the colors of the sky. The green/ brown coatings for hiking and hunting will not help you a lot.

So why are these conflicting?  Follows.

Extra features you might like:
- Nowadays a lot of plane spotters use a digital camera binocular, this hybrid is a digital camera and a binocular in one. It allows to take pictures with a high magnification.

- Zoom binoculars. You need the wide angle to find the plane but after that it is real fun to see the aircraft in close up.
- Image stabilizer: if you need this depends on your own stability. Are your muscles rapidly fatiguing? Are your hands quick to tremble? Than an image stabilzer will be a good but expensive.
- And last but not least, are you planning to use the binocular only when the weather is good or do you also want to do some dramitic weather spottings? If so you will need a good waterproof and anti fog binocular.