The bins arrived yesterday! The box was supposed to have been damaged, I could only see one small area (1/8 x 3/8) near the bottom of the box that was scuffed. I could see no damage or blemishes on the bins or the bin case.
My first impression was that the are very nice well built binoculars. I only have two other cheap bins to campare these to, old Bushnell 8X40 insta focus & Steiner 8X30 auto focus. I have to say the Bushnells are very clear/sharp and have good true color but the focus is extremely touchy--to the point that they are just a pain to use and they are quite heavy.
I've been using the Steiners for my hunting bins for a couple years and I really like the autofocus feature cause it is really fast in hunting situations. I love the eyecups on these bins and I really liked these----until I looked through the ZR bins!
What I noticed: The ZR 10X43 ED bins are very, very crisp/clear and color really "pops" when looking through these. Compared to the Bushnells, the clarity and color are very close, but the ZR is slightly better and the depth of field is noticeably better. Ease of focus is no contest, the ZR is much easier and faster to focus.
When compared to the Steiner I couldn't believe how BLUE the Steiner makes things. I really had not noticed this before. The image brightness is much much better than the Steiner, probably in part to the 13mm larger lenses. While I would say the Steiners are good, they really cant compare to the ZR, as the ZR really is in a different class.
There were two things I don't like about the ZR. One is that the diopter adjustment doesn't lock on this model, but it does lock on the cheaper ZR Summit. The other thing I really don't care for at all is the eyecups, in my opinion the Steiner eyecups are superior but maybe I wouldn't feel that way if I wore glasses.
I do not and most likely will never own a 700.00 pair of binoculars to compare with the ZR. But for the 300.00 I paid, I am very happy and can't wait to try them out this weekend.....Scott