An aside: I remember back in 2000 on a safari in Tanzania. Various brands of binoculars, but one woman had Leica. The difference in brightness and clarity was astonishing. Our native guide borrowed them once and did a literal double take. Hide told me after that he didn't know the such things even existed.
There is pertinent advice here: don't look through Leicas. On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Peter Jordan <[email protected]> wrote: > I have a Pentax spotting scope and the reaction of other birders with more > "popular" brands is to come over and have a look, then go "Holy cr@p that's > good". > > I had a top of the range Nikon scope and wanted to change to something with > more light gathering power and looked at a bunch of 80mm scopes and the > Pentax beat them all hands down, at least IMHO. > > Peter > > > On 17 Apr 2011, at 04:25, Stan Halpin wrote: > >> Meg and I will probably be buying at least one pair of binoculars for >> birding. Something in the $250-500 range - i.e., quite a bit better than the >> $40-50 compact everyday binocs we have now, but not anything in the $1000+ >> "serious birder" category. >> >> My inclination to brand loyalty tells me to buy Pentax, all other things >> equal. But the few reviews I have found (e.g., in Cornell's birding >> magazine) put Pentax toward the bottom of the list. And I don't want to buy >> a clearly inferior product just for the Pentax name. >> >> So, anyone here with experience with Pentax binoculars? Can you provide any >> comparisons with other brands in the same price range? Can you convince me >> that I should (or should not) go for a Pentax? Note that I am not that >> concerned with the price as long as it is in my general price range; if >> there is a Pentax model that costs $499 that is equivalent in features and >> performance to something else that costs $349, I would probably buy Pentax. >> I just don't want to pay the same or more for the Pentax if it is clearly >> inferior. And I don't have any local stores where I can go and see and try >> out any of those I am thinking about. >> >> I am also toying with the notion of a spotting scope, and Pentax has an >> eyepiece adapter that converts their scopes to a 780mm or 1000mm f/12 >> K-mount lens. But, again, the reviews put Pentax spotting scopes toward the >> bottom of the list. Anyone here with experience with this class of product? >> >> Any information, opinions (informed or otherwise), pointers to good web >> resources, etc. would be greatly appreciated! >> >> stan >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- Steve Desjardins -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
