School me on binoculars

[Little Dutch]

I?ve never had a good set of binoculars. No one I hunt with has a good set of binoculars. I’ve been hunting with an inexpensive set of Nikon binos for the last 8 or 10 years. I think they were $100 at the time. They aren’t cross eyed or anything, and are serviceable still. They are 10x42 porro prism, and barely fit in my chest rig sideways. I’d like to upgrade, and switch to a roof prism.

When I looked through the roof prism binoculars at Sportsmans last weekend I found the 50mm objectives wouldn’t close enough to be comfortable for me to look through, They were marginally too wide. I didn’t think I had particularly close set eyes, but … maybe? Maybe it was just the brand I tried. I’m pretty sure they were Vortex, I don’t recall the model. Either way it lead me to think I need to stick with 10x42’s in the roof style.

I’ve got a severely tight budget right now. We are still trying to buy a house, and the market is stupid. With all that, is there a set of binoculars in the $500 and under range that are worth looking at, or should I suck it up and use my Nikons for another season and hope I have a better budget for next year?