My Journey to High End Optics:
It’s amazing how such a small piece of equipment can change the way you hunt. Optics were never something I cared to spend big money on, rather opting for a low-middle ground. Cutting my teeth as a waterfowler, it wasn’t the most critical piece of gear in my blind bag. Once I transitioned into the big game hunting world, my notions were flipped upside down.
To exasperate the problem, I was not only hunting the dense woods of the Midwest, but the open plains of the Dakotas. Lack of clarity, vignetting, and low light performance continually burnt me the first year dedicating myself to the Whitetail.
I was hooked on high end optics from the second I peered through them!
It wasn’t until the summer of 2014, when I pressed my eyes against a pair of Zeiss binos, that I realized the error of my ways. Gung-ho, I got to the computer credit card in hand ready to add them to the arsenal. I knew it would be an investment, but you would have needed a skid loader to get my jaw off of the keyboard when I saw the price tag. I’m sure a lot of you are probably just snickering, but I had no clue $2,000 plus was the going rate for that Zeiss glass.
I had to have the optical quality but there’s no way I could afford the price tag. I looked at reviews of all the major players, but the numbers following the dollar sign hardly came down.
This is when I ran across the upstart company out of Lander, Wyoming. Maven Built optics was based around creating fully customizable binocular in terms of fit and finish but what caught my eye was the similarity to the Brunton’s Epoch binocular, which sported a price tag of 1,600+. I quickly shot through their online binocular builder, caring little about fancy colors, I wanted to see the price tag for Maven’s Japanese glass. Bingo, the price tag tallied out at just over $900 bucks! I was intrigued but there wasn’t much on the old interwebs regarding the young company. However, I did see they had plans to attend Game Fair in Ramsey, Minnesota.
Perfect, I could spend a couple weekends working Game Fair and pick up some binos! Clearly, I was getting ahead of myself, I needed to see them first.
The lowlight attributes of high end binoculars are worth the price alone!
Once I had them up to my eyes, it gave me the exact same experience as I had earlier that summer! Granted the conditions didn’t really test the optics, the depth of field and clarity astounded me. The last piece of the puzzle I had learned to look for is light transmission, which turns out to now be one of my largest factors when looking at optics.
At a 92% light transmission rate, I was sold, within 1 to 3 percent lower than the absolute highest end optics on the market.
Now it was a race against the clock before the August Opener in North Dakota.
A few days later I happily headed west with my new pair of Mavens in tow.
Maven 10×42 B1 Review
I wanted to wait through a full hunting season so I had the chance to hunt a bunch of different species, in a number of different conditions before I came to a conclusion. The one thing I had mixed feelings about when looking at reviews was the highly technical jargon. A lot of the time I could pretty much look at the technical specs and skip the person’s reviews. I wanted to give a more real life application perspective to the review.
The first thing which jumped out and essentially punched me directly between the eyes was the amazing low light capabilities of these binoculars compared to the $200-$500 pairs I had used in the past. It may only mean the difference of a few minutes in the morning or in the evening but often times those minutes are the most important. This was immediately apparent when you’re glassing over miles of 
country.
If you’ve ever used a pair of Zeiss, Leica, or Swarovski optics you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Another aspect I never really could appreciate was the depth of field these binoculars touted. I could set my focus ring somewhere in the mid-ground and just focus with my eyes over a wide swath of ground with ease. When I was glassing multiple ridge lines over through sparse timber here in the midwest, it made searching for game much easier as I was able to pick up deer which weren’t right in the middle of my focus area.
As expected with the associated price range, the clarity plays right up there with the big boys. Edge to edge there is no vignetting, and it doesn’t get soft along the edges. Eye relief is great, and provides little eye strain. With an eye relief of almost 19mm, it’s excellent for those who wear glasses.
Weight wise it is not too much to handle by any means but it’s not like a compact pair of binoculars, you’ll definitely want to use some type of harness when carrying them into the field. As a comparison the Zeiss Victory 8x42mm weight 2 ounces less than the Maven B1’s.
The only thing I didn’t much care for was when glassing for longer periods of time the eye pieces would start to twist back to the down position. It was minor but could be a little frustrating after glassing for a few hours.
The fit and finish is quite amazing on the Maven’s. When I say fully customizable, I mean it. You can do pretty much any color scheme you’d like, engraving is even available. All in all I can say I am extremely happy with my purchase and highly recommend them to anybody looking for high end optics at a mid range price point!