As the rather distinct color presentation of each became apparent it made me appreciate the different qualities and character of the views I found in each of them. Certain beautiful images from each are burned in my mind from the few outings at the park in town.
GG - your comment absolutely struck a chord! Most of my targets are often just a distant silhouette against empty sky, and I'm also almost always looking over the urban jungle - so I don't get to see much of the beautiful colours of nature that others do. I did, however, have the opportunity to use the 8x32FL in the Botanic Gardens in Singapore a couple months back. Watching brown-throated and olive-backed sunbirds at short distances (5 to 20m) in a large bed of heliconia flowers in bright tropical sun truly was a most enjoyable experience. I noted the following to my brother later that day;
"The 8x32FL really wowed me today at the Botanic Gardens by the way. It was just working really well for me. Super light and handy, focus speed was excellent, and the image quality... OK, it wasn't dark, and there were lots of flowers, but the colour rendition was really excellent... stunning wouldn't be too extreme a description, frankly, and the sharpness and sweet spot were incredible at that sort of close distance. You really get the impression you're looking straight at the bird rather than through glass... amazing really. And the detail it showed on the sunbirds, most satisfying...
Yes... at the risk of sounding like I read too much Birdforum, all those greens especially showed a "superbly washed clean" image... It's quite hard to describe cleanness in an image, but the FL definitely has that... I was really impressed... Although I suppose looking over masses of heliconias with sunbirds in decent sunlight would have flattered any binocular... and one needs to remember binoculars are probably tuned to work best at that sort of distance than at half a km or more...
A fast focus speed does work well in close I think. Not essential though. At that distance it was real easy to get the FL super sharp, and its sweet spot was ecellent. Generous field of view worked well too. Can't imagine anything being much better, tbh..."
I feel a bit uncomfortable re-reading it as I sound like such a fanboy! I spend a fair amount of time looking through binoculars (something like 11 hours the weekend before last), but they are almost always a device that allows me to search for distant targets rather than for enjoying "the beauty of nature".
I snapped this photo of a very obliging male olive-backed sunbird that day, which hopefully will give you an idea of the colours I was seeing - but though that is not a bad pic, it's not as spectacular as what the human eye can see through a good pair of binoculars.
