On Jul 10, 2011, at 3:56 PM, Morris Galloway wrote: > Got an E-Mail a few minutes ago. > > Hammacher Schlemmer (An old-line mail-order place for the idle rich > originally out of the Bowery, NYC, USA) has recently dubbed the Pentax UCF > Zoom the "Best Compact Zoom Binoculars." Can't hurt Pentax, and so it can't > hurt us! Now 30 million customers might get acquainted with our obsession. >
One of those good-news/bad-news stories. Good to help associate the Pentax name with a Best Of . . . rating in any category. Bad news is that the category they are referring to is zoom binoculars. In my recent research on binoculars for birding and other uses, one consistent recommendation from many trusted sources was to never purchase zoom binoculars for any reason or intended use. Unlike modern zoom lenses on cameras, zoom binocs are apparently still in the cute-but-worthless-gadget class of products. So I can foresee a scenario wherein throngs of the idle rich buy the Pentax UCF Zoom; they quickly become dissatisfied, discard the binocs, and drop the notion of replacing their Canon full frame cameras and $10,000 lenses with better cheaper equipment from Pentax. So you can see, every silver lining has a cloud wrapped around it. stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.