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Message: <blockquote data-quote="henry link" data-source="post: 1533545" data-attributes="member: 6806">Ron,I just photographed a piece of graph paper through the objective end of two binoculars with different distortion characteristics. Both are 8x with nearly identical AFOV. On the left is a Fujinon 8x30 FMT-SX which has almost no rectilinear distortion (very slight pincushion) and on the right a Zeiss 8x56 FL which has obvious pincushion. Looking backwards through the binoculars in the photos, the Fujinon still looks almost distortion free (very slight barrel) and the Zeiss shows obvious barrel distortion. I think this method could be very useful for identifying the type and measuring comparative amounts of distortion in different binoculars. HenryEdit: Maybe I should mention that the Fujinon is not "better" because it has less rectilinear distortion. The pincushion was intentionally added to the Zeiss to reduce the "rolling globe" effect when panning. Some people will find panning with the Fujinon unpleasant.</blockquote>