Fujinon TS-X 14x40 Review

 

Fuji’s 14x40s have been around for many years and were one of the first stabilised binocular designs to market. Since then, they’ve been revamped with this TS-X model. I’ve mostly stuck with Canon for high power stabilised bino’s, but I know some folks really rate the Fuji’s so I thought it was time for me to check them out …

 

At A Glance

Magnification	14x
Objective Size	40mm
Eye Relief	~7mm measured (13mm claimed)
Actual Field of View	4°
Apparent field of view	52.1°
Close focus	~4.5m
Transmissivity	? 90%
Length	180mm
Weight	1250g incl. 4xAA batteries

Data from Fuji/Me.

 

 

Design and Build

These 14x40s are Fujinon’s biggest-aperture (and so most useful for astronomy at least) stabilised binoculars. They also make cheaper 12x28 and 16x28 models with a different body.

 

Like Fujinon’s FMT-SX models, these are still proudly Made in Japan. Does that make a difference? Maybe. As we will see, Fujinon clearly wanted to go beyond showroom appeal and build something of real quality that lasts.

 

The latest (2025) TS-X model on review here looks different from the original and Fuji’s sales blurb suggests that performance is improved too.

 

The Competition

Stabilised binoculars have been around for a couple of decades now, but the major competitor here remains Canon. Their offerings closest to Fujinon’s 14x40s are the 15x50s (reviewed here) and more recent 14x32s (here); perhaps their lower-powered 12x36 (here) or 12x32 (here) models too.

 

Swarovski recently replaced their premium 12x50 EL hunting/birding binocular with a 14x52 version of their NL Pure (below). It’s not stabilised, but at the same power makes an interesting comparison for this review.

 

You might ask why stabilised binoculars aren’t (yet) available from the ‘Alpha’ birding brands – Swarovski, Zeiss & Leica? It may be that development is difficult and expensive, or perhaps stabilisation imposes too many optical constraints.

 

I compare Fujinon’s 14x40s with Swarovski’s latest 14x52 NL Pures throughout this review.

 

Body

Even more than Canon’s IS models, these Fujis don’t even look like binoculars. The optics and electronics are housed in a large ovoid of engineering plastic covered in fairly thin smooth armour with ridges on the bottom. The objectives are set close and housed in extension on the front. The eyepieces swivel to change IPD – just like Canon’s.

 

The unusual shape and design may be due to the bulk of the gimballing-prism stabilisation system these employ (see below). That system may also explain why these are a heavy binocular for their spec’ at 1250g on my scales.

 

External build quality is very good, but internally it’s some of the highest I’ve seen, with a definite mil-spec vibe. I reckon these would take a lot of use and abuse.

The battery compartment is just plain odd – look at the photos. But it’s effective and easy to use with a very positive and robust closure.

 

Fuji claim water resistance for these and they seem well sealed. I used them on a long wet day walk (see photos) and they were fine.

 

 

 

Focuser

The focuser is a small ridged plastic wheel set into the right side of the body behind the right eyepiece. The action is precise enough, but it feels a bit stiff and dry, just doesn’t have the fluid, intuitive feel of the best (i.e. those NL Pures). My main actual gripe is some play when changing direction.

 

The focusing mechanism is unusual. Here, the objectives are fixed (unlike most Canons). Instead, a lens behind the objectives moves in and out, like normal roofs. But instead of moving on a carriage, the focusing lenses rotate on a helical mechanism. I guess this system is extra rugged.

 

Twisting the right eyepiece adjusts dioptre as usual, but again the action is stiff and vague with nothing to tell you where neutral is. I found it hard to get perfect dioptre adjustment.

 

Close focus is good for high-power binos – I measured about 4.5m.

 

 

 

Optics - Prisms

I guess these use porro prisms, as opposed to Schmidt-Pechan (a.k.a. Roof) or Abbe-König prisms. That’s good for transmission because porros don’t need mirror or phase coatings.

 

Optics - Objectives

The laser suggests these have a conventional binocular triplet objective with a single focusing lens behind. False colour is low, at levels typical of a single-ED element, so I assume the central element in the triplet is ED glass, though Fuji don’t mention it.

 

Internal quality looks very rugged, almost as if they were intended for military use: the prisms are held in massive finely-finished castings, fixed with big hex screws and with no cement anywhere. This remind me strongly of Fuji’s mil-spec 7x50 MTR-SX binoculars.

 

There is no flat black painting internally, but they have a single knife-edge baffle behind the objectives and another in front of the focusing lens to stop stray light. The objectives are held in by threaded rings and have micro-ridge baffles in front of them.

 

The 14x40s feature Fujinon’s proprietary electron beam (EBC) coatings, same as their FMT-SX models. The coatings are excellent and appear to be the same on every glass surface which is unusual (no uncoated prisms or internal lenses here). They seem better than Canon’s, but perhaps slightly more reflective than Swarovski’s latest (see above).

 

Fujinon’s EBC coatings seem better than Canon’s latest 12x36 ISIIIs.

Fujinon 14x40 internals look super-rugged.

 

Optics - Eyepieces

Fuji claim these use a six element eyepiece (same as the NL Pures), but I’m not really sure why because they don’t offer a wide field, good eye relief or even perfect field-edge correction.

 

Fuji quote eye relief at 13mm, but that’s doubtless from the glass. However, the eyelenses are recessed by almost 5mm below the rim of the rubber eyecups. Sure enough, I measured around 7mm from the rim of the eye cup.

 

Given that to see the whole field with glasses generally needs 16mm+ of eye relief, just 7mm relief renders these binoculars almost unsable with glasses.

The eyecups have two twist-out out positions. They’re solid (not squidgy like some) and smooth operating with positive click-stops, but completely redundant for me: there isn’t enough eye relief to need them, even without glasses.

 

The field of view at just 4° actual and 52.1° is narrow. By comparison, Canon’s 15x50s have half a degree extra despite their higher power. This may be the price you pay for the method of stabilisation used (see below).

 

Blackouts (caused by spherical aberration of the exit pupil) aren’t bad, but moving your eyes around the view can cause them.

 

 

Twist-up eyecups have several click-stops (two shown) and work well, but there’s not enough eye relief to need them.

 

Optics - Stabilisation

Canon’s original stabilisation system – found in their 15x50s and 12x36s, for example - employs a deformable optical element to counteract movement. Their latest system – used on the 14x32s and 12x32s – changes the offset between two lenses.

 

These Fujinons use a different system again: the prism housings are gimballed, constantly pivoting under computer/gyroscopic control to achieve stabilisation. This is similar to the purely-mechanical stabilisation on Zeiss ultra-expensive 20x60s. Crucially, they claim a better-than-the-rest +/- 6° correction angle (and from my experience I can believe it – see below).

 

Most Canon IS models use two AA batteries; these need four. They need to be new and fresh too. If the batteries are partly worn out, the power led will blink and the stabilisation will activate for just a second or two (if at all).

 

The system has two buttons. One is for power, the other for stabilisation. To activate stabilisation, you first push the power button and then the stabilisation, same in reverse to power off. But why, though? This seems to me like the ‘Start’ button in some EVs: completely redundant. I often forgot to turn off the power when I’d finished viewing.

 

There’s no sound when you power on, but you’ll know when stabilisation activates or deactivates because they make a loud whirring sound (presumably when those gimballed prisms unpark/park). In use the system is silent, though.

 

The four AA cells for the stabilisation go in an odd but functional removable battery compartment.

Fujinon 14x40s have separate power and stabilisation buttons.

 

Accessories

The case is a semi-rigid Cordura item with a lid and Velcro close. It’s a good basic design, easy to use and likely to be rugged. The strap is a conventional neoprene one, but it’s frustratingly hard to thread through slots in the body.

 

A standard rubber eyepiece cap is provided, but the press-on cover for the objectives doesn’t even have a way to attach it and I never used it.

 

 

 

 

In Use – Daytime

Ergonomics, Handling and Stabilisation

These are noticeably heavy compared to ‘normal’ bino’s. I Initially found that ovoid body uncomfortably thick to hold too. It’s true my hands aren’t big, but I can easily stretch over an octave, so they’re not that small. I did get used to it in the end, but those with small hands should try before they buy.

 

The focuser wheel is small, lightly ridged and inset into the body – it’s hard to operate with gloves on. Ditto the stabilisation buttons, which are well positioned but too flush with the body to find easily, even without gloves (Canon’s are much more defined, with a ridge and indent). Again, I learned to find them eventually, but not with gloves on.

 

There just isn’t enough eye relief to see anything more than a narrow portion of the field with my glasses on. If you need to view with spec’s – due to astigmatism or whatever - consider a different pair. Without spec’s they’re fine, but blackouts as you move your eyes around are more noticeable than with the NL Pures for example.

 

After the initial whirr on start-up, the stabilisation is silent, unobtrusive and highly effective – the best I’ve tried. These have fewer artefacts – jazzing and shifting and vibrating in the view – than I recall from Canon’s 15x50s, a little less even than the excellent 12x36s. What’s more, they hold the view very steady, with no drifting or shifting. Panning is very smooth and natural: the trick is to do it fairly slowly.

 

I like the fact that you don’t have to keep the IS button pushed while viewing, same as the larger Canons. But the button on the Canon 15x50s is much easier to find and offers a choice, between one-click or hold, that the Fujinon 14x40s don’t.

 

Overall, though, the Fujinon 14x40s have the best stabilisation I’ve tested.

 

The Fujis are ugly. Menswear Man on X wouldn’t approve (of me or my clothes either, probably):

 

 

 

The View

It takes a second or so of whirring for the stabilisation to activate and another few to steady, but thereafter the view is incredibly sharp and high resolution.

No, these don’t have the wide and beautiful, perfect to the field-stop view of the NL Pures. The field blurs a bit towards the edge and seems slightly less bright and vivid too, perhaps due to lower transmission and/or older coatings. But optical fabrication quality seems similarly outstanding. These have the same pin-sharp detail and focus snap.

 

Then there’s the resolution the stabilisation allows. I check out a bright orange light 20 miles away that I’ve often tried to figure out with ordinary binos. Now it’/s obviously a gas flare – I can see the hot air and the flicker and belch of the flame.

 

That wader way out on the bright sands of the Bay could be anything, but the Fuji’s immediately show it’s a Curlew, very different from a nearby Oyster Catcher.

I look at a speck at the end of a vapour trail in the airway high above. It’s a British Airways A320. I suspect another plane, much further away, is a fighter on a training run (common around here), but no: the Fujis show it’s a four-engined airliner.

 

Overall, the aesthetics of the view – width, flatness, false colour, that indefinable sense of crystal clarity - are behind the best regular birding bino’s like the NL Pures. But if its resolved detail you’re after - that bird ID, or plane; the name of that ship way out at sea - then no unstabilised binoculars come close unless mounted.

 

The field looks well corrected by day, but stars reveal some minor astigmatism towards the field stop.

 

Flat field?

The outer third of the field has minor astigmatism that’s most evident on stars and can’t be focused away. Viewing a ruler, the markings are slightly blurred at the edge, but still readable. In normal use by day, though, the field looks flat and well-corrected all the way across.

 

Chromatic Aberration

False colour is present, but not usually intrusive: less than Canon’s 18x50s or 12x36s, for example. I mainly noticed it when viewing birds on bright water. At night it’s never a problem.

 

Stray Light and Ghosting

Viewing bright lights or the Moon at night generates just a few faint off-axis ghosts. Put a brilliant LED security light in the field, though, and two bright sharp horizontal spikes cross the field of view. This is an artificially harsh test, but one the very best (like the 14x52 NL Pures) pass.

Working around streetlamps does cause some veiling flare, but at good normal levels (avoiding it would probably require recessing the objectives more and making the binos larger).

 

In Use – Dusk

The Fujis don’t penetrate dusk shadows nearly as well as the 14x52s NL Pures – their smaller objectives grab less light and their transmission is likely lower too (see note on coatings above).

 

In Use – Observing the Night Sky

As noted above, the FOV of 4° is narrow for binoculars – slightly less than a 60mm F6 telescope with a 32mm 1.25” eyepiece, for example. With my spec’s on, it’s smaller still at maybe just 2° or less. This doesn’t matter for the Moon or most DSOs, but it makes finding things harder and is less appealing for star-field sweeping.

The Fujis have simply the best stabilisation, though. Once it settles, it’s almost as steady as a scope, even (on one night) in a howling gale. Panning around is very smooth and natural if you keep it slow: again, much like panning a scope. For astronomy, I can’t see any of the usual stabilisation artefacts – flickering, jazzing or focus drift - at all.

 

The Moon

Quick looks at the Moon, to enjoy and explore its rugged landscapes when you don’t have time to whip out your scope, are an obvious use case for stabilised binoculars. I often use my 12x36 Canons for this if I spot the Moon through a window between clouds.

 

These Fuji 14x40s show real, explorable detail, if not at the compelling level of Canon’s 18x50s. On a last quarter Moon early one morning, I can identify the central peaks in crater Copernicus, the arc of craters in Clavius, the bright extended rays of Tycho, strangely elongate Schiller. I could make out much more real detail than through the 14x52 NL Pures, simply due to the stable view.

 

Focusing through the limb reveals minor false colour – proper apple and blueberry hues – but you don’t notice much in normal use.

 

Planets

Venus shows just a little false colour, but it’s a super-crisp view and I can make out its gibbous phase.

Jupiter is a clean view too, with no spikes and just a touch of flare. The view is so steady that if the optics would reveal the equatorial belts, I’d see them, but there’s just too much stray light over the disk for that.

Mars showed a fairly clean tiny disk with just a little flare.

Overall, the Fuji 14x40s showed a little more flare and minor spikes, a little more false colour, than the outstanding Swarovski 14x52s on planets.

 

 

Deep Sky

Sweeping for clusters in and around Auriga, M35 was a mass of stars. M36 and M38 fully resolved with direct vision and showed off their characteristic shapes. Only M37’s stardust needed some averted vision to resolve it. The 14x40s actually resolved more than the 14x52 SWs here due to the stable view.

 

The view of M42 in Orion was exceptional: just so steady, with the sweeping arms and central spike of nebulosity, the four Trapezium stars easily resolved.

I found the Crab Nebula supernova remnant (M1) with a little averted vision, the stabilisation helping. Staying in Taurus, the Fujis gave a perfectly stable and sparkly view of the Pleiades.

 

The view of galaxy M31 was decent, with some sense of the cutoff caused by the dust lane, but here the lack of aperture compared to the SW 14x52s was noticeable and I found it harder to see the galaxy’s full extent and the companion galaxy, M101.

 

The Owl Cluster in Cassiopea revealed its twin glowing eyes. Nearby, the Double Cluster and Stock2 were less magnificently star-strewn than through the 14x52s, though, and I struggled to see the Heart and Soul nebulae – again due to relative lack of aperture.

 

In general, though, I found the Fuji 14x40s a very satisfying way to enjoy a dark sky.

 

Fujinon 14x40 vs Canon 12x36

·       The 12x36s are much lighter, more compact and way more conventional and comfortable to hold

·       The 12x36s have much more eye relief, so are very usable with glasses (the Fuji 14x40s just aren’t)

·       In terms of stabilisation, the Canons are excellent, but the Fujis are better – more stable, less artefacts

·       The Canons suffer significant false colour, the Fuji’s very little

·       The Fuji’s higher magnification is noticeable but not compellingly so for most things

·       Japanese build quality on both is high, but the Fuji’s have a mil-spec vibe the Canons don’t and might well prove more robust

·       The Canons are about 25% cheaper at the time of writing

If you try these binoculars for yourself, you’ll immediately prefer the Canons. But hang on, because if you view a lot over bright water or snow, you’ll appreciate the Fuji’s better false colour suppression. Over extended use, you’ll also notice the stabilisation works just a little better too. But if you view with glasses, the Fujis are a non-starter.

 

Fujinon 14x40 vs Swarovski 14x52 NL Pure

This is not a fair comparison – the SWs cost about three times as much – but it’s an interesting one, because the NL Pures are the current state-of-the-art in higher-power binocular optics.

 

I don’t need to go through their merits feature by feature, because the NL Pures are way better in all respects … except their lack of a button on top. But the Fujis do highlight how much the shakes limit a fine unstabilised high-power binocular.

 

If you want the most pleasing, wide and beautiful view, the Swarovskis win every time. But if it’s resolvable detail you’re after – whether of a distant wader, a plane flying miles away, the Moon’s craters, or even the stars in that cluster – the Fujis will reveal it when the Swarovskis just won’t unless you put them on a tripod.

 

Summary

Reviewing these followed a pattern I’m getting used to with high-power stabilised binoculars. First there’s a nasty shock – at the weight, the hold, the focuser feel, the lack of eye relief, the narrow field.

 

Then comes the gradual realisation that as a functional distance viewer these work astoundingly well and those initial downers start to fade. Views of birds and wildlife, planes or whatever by day, are exceptionally detailed and stable. At night, they are somewhat limited by their small objectives, but views of the Moon and brighter DSOs are scope-like.

 

I’ll say it again: no ordinary hand-held binoculars, however refined optically and mechanically (e.g. the 14x52 NL Pures), will resolve the fine detail that these will.

The Fuji 14x40s are not an expensive binocular by modern premium standards either. At the time of review (early 2025) you could buy almost three pairs of these for one of the wonderful 14x52 Swarovski NL Pures you see in the photos.

 

Would I recommend them? My old favourites, Canon’s 12x36 ISIIIs are lighter, have loads more eye relief, a wider field and are just plain easier to use. But the Fuji’s stabilisation simply works better - steadier, less obtrusive, more comfortable to pan – and that’s a big deal.

 

The Fujinon 14x40s are good average premium binoculars in all respects but one: their stabilisation is simply the best and that alone makes them highly recommendable.

 

 

You can buy Fujinon's 14x40 TS-X from Wex and give ScopeViews a little commission towards new content:

 

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