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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ronh" data-source="post: 1645774" data-attributes="member: 55514">Patrick,All the strap discussion may have distracted attention from your comment at the beginning, "I've tried a number of binoculars (Zeiss, Swarovski, Leica, Steiner, Kowa, Kamakura, Nikon, Meopta) in the last week and think Kowa Prominar 8.5x44 XD has the best optics of all." What a week you had, and what an interesting conclusion. This Kowa has been complained about some here for its weight, it's perfect rectilearity/"rolling globe effect", and some focus smoothness quibbles. But the basic optical quality seems to wow everybody. Holger Merlitz, in every one of his many reviews, says some kind of boilerplate statement like "all properly made binoculars appear sharp at the center of the image", except for his review of the Prominar, which really got his attention in this very important respect. I'd love to try one. If you end up getting one, Patrick, tell us all about it.Ron</blockquote>