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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kevin Purcell" data-source="post: 1540061" data-attributes="member: 68323">I think Frank is saying it doesn't have a 5mm exit pupil size which I think is required for a "overall best birding binocular".I actually had an interesting case of this when helping band some Cooper's Hawk's last week. I took my Zeiss FL 8x32 (small, light, bright, widish FOV ... everything I needed for looking for perching juvies). And I was surprised how dim it was at 6am on the western side of a hill in an overcast (1500 stratus marine layer ... typical Seattle ... not that thick and not that dark) under the trees. I think aside from twilight and post-twilight owling this is one for the few times I've actually seen a significant difference birding with a 32mm i.e. enough for me to think I should have brought the 8x42 Zen ED or the 7x42 FLs.I'm normally a skeptic of this 4mm versus 5mm difference (especially 1 hour after sunrise) but in this case (open forest, overcast and the wrong side of a hill for the sun). It quickly brightened up though and was decent by 6:30.So whilst I love the SE 8x32 and 10x42 they can just miss out on the best of all possible bins due to exit pupil size. Of course your mix of compromises will probably be different to mine. But this result surprised me a bit.</blockquote>