There seems to be a common trait here, those that want more power in their binoculars like lower power fixed scopes.
I don't know if that is a weakness or strength, but I do know I fall into the other camp with variable scopes and 8X...
^^^ totally agree, as I myself fall in the 8x camp. The more power is prevalent for sure. It is like Tim the tool man's famous call for more power. Well, sometimes more power is great and sometimes less is more.
And what is interesting to me in particular about John ( Mule Deer ) comments above is that all most 17-18 years ago I read an article by him extolling the virtues of lower power binoculars ( I think I still have it somewhat). Well anyways in the article he had a comment about some European optic company having an in office experiment between different optics. Some were 8x and some were 7x ( can you just imagine- only 7 power ;^). So they covered up the power symbols and had people look through them and say which one they liked the best. And... The consensus was the 7x was the winner by a large margin. The reason I found it interesting at the time was I was trying to decide between my first major optics purchase and was picking between a 7x and 8x Swarovski. And the store owner was trying to steer me towards the 7x- because he thought it was a better binocular for my needs, and my Brother in Law at the time said I should certainly get the 8x. Well, after reading the John Barsness article and thinking about it a while, I walked in and bought the 7x and never regretted it.
