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Message: <blockquote data-quote="james holdsworth" data-source="post: 3420498" data-attributes="member: 79864">Without reopening a can of worms that has long since been picked clean and discarded in the rubbish bin.....I do my own version of resolution / sharpness testing, mostly in line with what I need my binoculars to do in the field - all manner of bird surveys, butterfly and dragonfly surveys etc.I have good reference binoculars for comparison - many BGAT/P's, FL, HT, Conquest HD. My HT is sharper [can resolve smaller and finer details] than any of the others I have tried - this includes direct testing in a fixed position with various sizes of print. Informally, I perceive greater sharpness from the HT than what I get from an SV - some of this might be transmission and contrast though.Some of my best field tests [not bench tests] involve insects. Looking for wing scales on butterflies or wing veins and clasper / cerci shapes is extremely demanding in terms of resolving minute details. I know this isn't the same thing as boosted testing but it's what tells me just how sharp an image my binocular forms.For birds, my tests would be - just how well does the shape of a bird hold-up at distance? Like a Turkey Vulture vs. Eagle sp. at 5 km or trying to ID swallow species at the visual limit, where you need body / tail shape to stand up over distance. Completely unscientific but it's what I need my binoculars to do. With very little effort, I can tell if a binocular can keep the splayed primaries of a raptor crisp, well-resolved and separated - many cannot at any reasonable distance. Maybe it comes down to my 'average'-level unaided vision, but [to me] the HT is perfectly sharp - that might change with a better reference for comparison but, so far, I haven't found it - and, no, I have not compared the HT to the 8x56 FL either....It shouldn't be ignored that Tobias thought the HT to be the sharpest compared to the other alphas, tripod mounted. It may just be that none match up to the 8x56 FL</blockquote>

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