Brock,
Yes, I have not been here in a while.
The 10x30s sit in the dining room, where they can be grabbed to check out the feeder. They don't seem to leave the house much. (The 10x30s originally belonged to Sue's dad.) Sue actually uses the 18x50s a bit for birding, although they are mostly for astronomy.
I don't find the smaller field of the 12x36s much of a impediment to spotting birds. What is sometimes an issue - as I was reminded during a woodland walk the other day - is their lack of close focus. (I have a pair of 8x32s which I should carry when I am in the woods.) To me, the big advantage of the IS is the ability to use higher powers, which allow for easier identifications and better views, and this is the main reason I picked the 12x36s over the 10x30s.
The CA has never bothered me. If I look carefully at high contrast edges, I can see it, but I just don't notice it while birding. I have noticed that getting the wrong IPD can produce more obvious, detracting color fringing - but that is easily solved.
Clear skies, Alan
Alan,
I figured Sue would go for high power. With little white fuzzies light years away, the bigger, the better. Plus, weight is less of an issue if your lying in a lawn chair, as opposed to carrying the bins around your neck all day and lifting them repeatedly in front of you.
I haven't tried the 10x42 IS L but since you and dennis found them to be too heavy, that's good enough for me.
I think I'm more sensitive to CA than you. I remember looking at Jupiter low in the sky and comparing the view through a Celestron 10x50 ED and a 10x30 IS. The Celestron showed a nice round ball with no color fringing. The IS showed what appeared to be an egg shaped scoop of Neapolitan ice cream - chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.
Not bad during the day until the winter where gray skies bring out the worst in any non-ED bin.
CA bothered me in the 12x50 SE while I find level of CA in the 8x and 10x SEs more than tolerable, but 12x was pushing it. I'm hoping that Canon will come out with a 12x36 IS L with a timer button. That would solve two pet peeves.
The other issue is after trying two different 10x30 IS samples (the guy I bought mine from actually had 5 of them and sold me the best of the bunch, then later bought it back), I found that there's "sample variation" in how well the IS mechanism works.
So it might take more than one sample to get one with enough correction for me to keep the moon from "swimming" and swallows from "streaking". But sample variation can also happen with non-IS bins. Took buying two Nikon 8x32 LXs to get one with a focuser that wasn't too loose.
If Canon ever does come out with a 12x36 IS L, and it doesn't weigh more than a couple ounces extra and doesn't cost more than the 10x42, I might jump on board.
Say hello to Sue for me, and tell her Jack said to remind her to: Keep Looking Up.
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