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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Josh Exmoor" data-source="post: 3260600" data-attributes="member: 114379">No, the members of the gear forums over here are not very representative of the wider birding community. My general experience is that birding doesn't attract a crowd of "gear heads" in general. Most birders I know have one pair of bins and a scope. They may have purchased them 5, 10, 20, or 30 years ago. They probably haven't spent much time thinking about replacing them since they bought them unless they're lost or stolen or they had enough money to make a significant upgrade. Nothing wrong with that, truthfully, but I tend to see advice spouted from some of these people on listservs and Facebook that I wouldn't agree with. When new/upgrading birders ask for advice I typically see two recommendations. The first is Nikon Monarch's. Nothing wrong with Monarchs of course, but there are like 8 different models (3/5/7 in 8x42 and 10x42 plus the 8/10x30's) with different strengths. They're a "safe" choice, but if given $475 to spend on bins I doubt most of the members of this forum would end up with Monarch 7's. The other advice (and IMHO the most misguided) is that any money spent on sub-alpha's is wasted. Despite the fact that most of these folks haven't looked through anything but their own pair of Swaro's (and it's damn near always Swaro's that they own) they will happily imply that you'll have trouble even identifying a Song Sparrow with sub-$2000 pair of binoculars. Again, nothing wrong with Swaro's or any other alpha, but a lot of birders money, especially folks newer to the hobby, would be better spent on mid-range spotting scope, books, camera gear or gasoline. Fortunately this forum is full of people who will happily debate the merits of lower price optics.</blockquote>

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