BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="peatmoss" data-source="post: 3367055" data-attributes="member: 119647">Steve, if that's the case, then I apologize for the comment.  I suppose I'm just sore that many of us were deprived of our favorite parlor game: "Guess The OEM".James, personally, I don't necessarily see innovation being closely tied to manufacturers being able to sell sports optics.  Consider Nikon.  Their digital camera imaging divisions dwarf their sports optics division.  If we see any improvements in the glass or coatings in their binoculars, chances are the innovations were made on behalf of their camera divisions, and just happened to trickle down to the sports optics division as a matter of availability (historic note: Nikon began multicoating their camera lenses in 1969, but didn't start multicoating their binoculars until about a decade later).  Or, if Canon improved the IS on their binoculars, its a pretty good bet that the innovation originated from efforts to improve the IS in their telephoto lenses.  Similarly, Carl Zeiss has a massive optical business outside of sports optics and I'd expect that innovation would continue at the company even if they did not sell binoculars.  That's not to say that companies don't occasionally innovate specifically for their sports optics, but that by and large, it seems to me that sports optics benefit from innovations intended for other products and applications.</blockquote>