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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kevin Purcell" data-source="post: 1311873" data-attributes="member: 68323">Not extreme just outside the limits of the cheaper bin: down the local park with a bit of woodland. A strange song. You find the bird is 20 meters away up a tree 20 degrees off from the setting sun behind him. You might get the shot with bins that control stray light well. For cheaper bins you might get a view if you walk around the tree. Then again he might fly off.An "extreme circumstance" perhaps. But location has little to do with it.These differences are also only going to be found if you spend some time with the bins an test them out (the sort of thing us optics nuts do so that you not-so-nutty-about-optics folks can make better buying decisions). Back to a previous comment I had about stray light. I wasn't saying it couldn't be measured. I've done QA and measured all sort of stuff a normal user would never measure to make sure the stuff works right. I'm saying it's not reported in any standard way except by reviewers. Same goes for a range of other features that don't appear on spec sheets: brightness/transmission, saturation, contrast (all related), sharpness, astigmatism, field curvature, flatness, veiling glare, flaring (loss of contrast) from on axis light, etc, etc. All areas were better designed (and often more expensive bins) excell but that are difficult for a "normal" user to determine epecially without using the bins for a day or two.That said, I agree fully with the Bushnell Excursion (perhaps a notch below a PC Monarch) user that that first time with a modern "decent" bin is often a eye-opening experience. And they're cheaper than ever before. Imagine taking a set of Bushnell ExcursionFor example, I have a pair of 8x32 roofs with on-axis flares (mediocre multilayer coatings), different aberrations in each tube (kwality!) and no PC (not as bright or sharp as they could be). They cost me $40 secondhand. But they have a OK 7.5 degree FOV and good eye relief. I gave them to my wife to use to show here a Coopers Hawk family I'd been watching. She has always had a terrible time with using bins: can't find the target. After a couple of minute of hints and a little proactise she could find birds without a problem. The bigger FOV made these the most usable bins she'd ever used. The sort that means she can find a bird easily.</blockquote>

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