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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iveljay" data-source="post: 3560143" data-attributes="member: 37260">Birds came first as most were identifiable without bins, learning good fieldcraft from an early age was drummed in as bins were a bit of a luxury straight after WW2. Perversely my first bins were not used for birds as I pretty well had them covered (well enough for me). The numbers of ancient aircraft chugging around the skies at that time were far more difficult to identify.In the late 50's I used bins a lot around Harris and Lewis as everything was very different from the South and East of England, including the whales and sharks as well as birds. It was at this stage I discovered that one pair was not enough when trying to watch a soaring golden eagle above a mountain top with my 8x30s.It was much later that I fully realised that for such scenes it was often better to sit back and enjoy the scene from afar after finding my first scope wasn't much better that range and brought in the frustrations of atmospheric haze!As there is less wildlife around these days (even in darkest Witshire)  I don't even routinely carry an 8x30 unless specifically going out to see whats still out there and just drag along some Victory 8x20 or something similar in a pocket. Most of the time they are more than adequate. My bins are my luxuries, my cameras have always been tools - photography = effort (especially when everything was manual and you had to process every shot in a darkroom! or use a slow reversal film), watching birds = pleasure and always will be with or without bins.</blockquote>

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