Magnification	10x
Objective Size	20mm
Eye Relief	13.5mm claimed (10-12mm measured)
Actual Field of View	5.3 degrees
Apparent field of view	49.5 degrees
Close focus	~2.5m
Length	142mm
Weight	430g

Data from Canon/me.

Design and Build

The Canon IS range has no less than five different groups, though all share a similar design and look:

· A newer range of 32mm models featuring a different type of IS derived from their camera lenses, including a 10x32, a 12x32 and a 14x32

· Older 8x25, 10x30 and 12x36 models, sharing a similar non-waterproof design. These are light weight and fairly cheap. The 12x36s are a ScopeViews Best Buy for astronomy.

· Premium 10x42s which are fully waterproof, have special lenses and are intended to compete with ‘alpha’ birding binoculars from the premium brands

· Large, high-power binoculars of semi-waterproof design, with ED lenses: 15x50 and 18x50

· These 20mm-objective ‘pocket’ binoculars in 8x20 and 10x20 sizes

Body

These 10x20s share their body design and materials with other Canon models. Unlike most of the larger Canon models I’ve reviewed, they are made in Taiwan, not Japan, but build quality looks similarly good.

Instead of the whole body pivoting to accommodate different eye spacing, just the eyepieces pivot. The hinge-less plastic body has the appearance of an electronic gadget – more like a camera than fine optics.

Canon make no claims for water resistance. They are likely splash resistant, but wouldn’t survive immersion or even a long day in the rain. For birding this is a big disadvantage.

I’ve owned Canon IS binoculars for decades and they last well if handled carefully, but probably won’t be repairable like a pair of European ‘Alpha’ binos.

Canon claim a weight of 430g. That makes them heavier (as well as larger) than a pair of conventional pocket binoculars (shown next to a pair of Zeiss 8x32 FLs below for comparison).

Focuser

Focusing is achieved by moving the objectives as usual with Canons. The whole objective assembly moves in and out as you focus, complete with a long external baffle to kill stray light.

The focuser action is fairly smooth, well-weighted and accurate, but it doesn’t have the twirly fluid feel of the best.

Close focus runs down to about 2.5 metres. That’s close enough to enjoy butterflies and other insects, but I struggled to merge the image at that distance. From there to infinity is about 1.5 turns, so focusing is quite fast.

To adjust dioptre you just twist the right-hand eyepiece. The action is a little stiff and harder to use than a central wheel.

Optics - Prisms

All Canon’s IS binoculars use a type of porro-prism (not the roof prisms more commonly found on high-end binos), but their design looks nothing like other porros, partly because these are Abbe-Porros (Porro II).

Porro prisms have advantages over the roof prisms found in most modern birding binoculars:

1) Porro prisms don’t need mirror coatings, so they transmit more (and scatter less) light

2) Porro prisms don’t need special phase coatings to deliver high resolution

3) Porros typically deliver tighter star images with fewer ‘spikes’ than roofs, if astronomy is your use case

Optics - Objectives

These have triplet objectives, but no ED glass. Small apertures and modest powers don’t require ED glasses to reduce false colour fringing. Coatings are of high quality as you’d expect from Canon.

Optics - Eyepieces

These have fairly a simple 4-element eyepiece design, but like most Canons they incorporate effective field flatteners.

Canon claim 13.5mm, but eye relief measures about 10-12mm from the rim of the cups and that’s how it feels: just not enough if you view with your glasses on.

I dislike Canon’s folding rubber eyecups. It seems crazy you only get modern twist-up cups on the premium 10x42 model.

The rubber eyecups have just two positions. In most Canons these work fine, but not here. Folded out, they constrict the field of view for naked eye use. Folded in, they are still not really usable with glasses, but without glasses they are too short, leading to kidney-beaning and false colour.

On the plus side, they fold easily and the rubber seems thick and is likely to wear well.

Typical of small (and especially IS) binoculars, apparent field of view is quite narrow at 49.5°.

Optics – Image Stabilisation

Most Canon IS binos use a pair of AA cells that are widely and cheaply available. For compactness, these 10x20s employ a tiny CR123A camera battery that’s typically more expensive. Canon claim 12 hours of life in use.

Accessories

These ship with a basic soft case and thin strap.

In Use – Daytime

Ergonomics and Handling

Small and light, these are easy to carry and look unobtrusive when worn. Even so, you might want to replace the strap with something padded for long carry days.

The focuser wheel is large and falls nicely under a gloved finger, but the IS button is difficult to find and operate with gloves.

My only significant gripe is those eyecups. There just isn’t enough eye relief to use with glasses. Even without glasses, I had issues. Folded back I experienced blackouts and false colour. Folded out, the cups vignette the field. Perhaps my eyes and sockets are atypical, but try before you buy.

Image Stabilisation

Unlike the 32mm models, these have only one stabilisation mode activated by a small button on top. A long press keeps the stabilisation switched on until you release it. This is tiring and makes it hard to use the focuser. A short press leaves the IS enabled until you press again. This is much more convenient, but it’s easy to forget to switch it off!

I found the stabilisation works well, but I noticed a little more flicker and jerkiness than some other Canons I’ve tried.

The View

The view is surprisingly excellent. Surprising why?

Many 20mm bino’s are pretty awful – dim and fuzzy. These aren’t like that at all. The daytime view is crisp and bright and sharp, with excellent colour rendition.

A magnification of just 10x is quite low by IS bino standards, but resolution is outstanding. From my local Lakeland hilltop, I can easily read the time on Cartmel Priory clock a mile distant. I feel like I could identify people I know walking the village streets. Planes in the airway high overhead are easily identified by type and airline. A tiny bird in a distant tree resolves to a Christmas Robin when I press the magic button.

No ‘normal’ binocular will show you anything like this level of detail unless you rest them on something to kill the shakes.

All this goodness is due to the effective stabilisation, which is typical of Canon and certainly no gimmick. But it does also speak to outstanding basic optical quality too.

Like most IS models, these have a fairly narrow apparent field of view. At 10x magnification finding birds on the wing isn’t the challenge it can be with Canon’s 18x50s. But it does mean the view feels more constricted than many modern binoculars.

Flat field?

These have field flattener lenses built in and by day the field appears flat to the edge. Only when critically viewing a star can you see a trace of astigmatism in the last 20% or so.

Chromatic Aberration

There is some false colour on high-contrast parts of the view, mostly from the eyepieces.

Stray Light and Ghosting

The objective lenses are recessed deep within the barrels and there is no significant issue with veiling flare, even when working around streetlights at night.

Viewing a bright LED streetlight threw up no spikes and only a trace of ghosting – impressive.

In Use – Dusk

At dusk, the limitations of a 20mm aperture become obvious. These just don’t work into deep twilight the way Canon’s 10x30s do, for example.

In Use – Observing the Night Sky

The stabilisation can be a bit jerky when panning through star fields, but works well for static views.

The field is flat – stars are nicely pinpoint and remain so almost to the field stop, with just a trace of astigmatism at the very edge, as noted.

Star images are very tight and notably lack the little spikes you often get with roof prisms.

The Moon

The moon shows good, crisp detail when the stabilisation settles. Some clear nights leading up to first quarter showed the highlights, including good views of the Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catherina crater group.

However, I struggled a bit with focus shift when viewing the moon with IS enabled. I also noted a fair bit of false colour on the moon, mostly from the eyepieces.

Planets

Jupiter showed a clean disk with no spikes or significant flare. The Galilean moons were surprisingly easy to spot (pocket binos often struggle to reveal them at all).

Saturn revealed its pinkish cream hue and oval shape.

Deep Sky

On a dark Christmas Eve night with patchy cloud, I wandered down the prom’ and found most of the winter deep sky highlights easily and enjoyably.

I quickly found M35 and tracked up into Auriga, spotting M36, 37 and 38: just fuzzy blobs of differing size, but easy to find.

M31 was very easy to find too and I was surprised by its brightness and extent at this aperture.

The three main stars of Orion’s belt very easily fitted in the field with no distortion. The Orion nebula was surprisingly bright – revealing its central bright spike, extended curving arms and dark cutoff with a little help from averted vision.

The Pleiades weren’t as sparkly as they are at bigger apertures, but an enjoyable view nonetheless. The Double Cluster likewise wasn’t as populous as it is with bigger bino’s, but easy to find and still enjoyable.

As with other Canon IS binoculars I’ve reviewed, these punch above their aperture for deep sky, due to the IS.

Canon 10x20IS vs Swarovski 7x21 Curio

Swarovski’s expensive Curios are my current favourite pocket bino. They have a wonderful, bright sharp view, superb mechanicals, lots of eye relief for glasses wearers with proper twist-up eye cups. They are fully waterproof, smaller and lighter and optically better than the Canons in most respects. The Curios are made in Austria and repairable (unlike almost any other bino in this class).

BUT … If you want maximum resolution, then the little Canons will show you more due to their stabilisation. This is true of almost every comparison like this. A fine birding bino gives a wider more immersive, more beautiful view; but IS simply reveals more detail.

Summary

Canon’s 10x20 IS pocket binoculars were better than I expected. Unlike many pocket binos, they work superbly with outstanding optics and good stabilisation.

As usual with Canon binos, their Achilles Heel is poor eye relief and eye cups. They probably aren’t suitable if you need to wear glasses to view. Their small objectives also limit their use in dusk conditions and for astronomy. If you don’t need the compact size, I would suggest the 10x30 model instead.

Build quality appears excellent and experience with other Canons suggests these should be rugged and last well. But they are not waterproof and would require careful use for birding.

If you want a pocket-sized distance viewer with maximum resolution and you don’t need full waterproofing, these are easy to recommend. But not if you wear glasses to view.

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