Casey,
I keep comparing all sorts of binoculars, and have been writing about such comparisons for over 25 years now both in articles and books. But apparently many people on this thread keep missing what I said in this post--that for the last 25 years optics have been in a state of constant flux. Which is why, after my first optics book appeared in 1999, I turned down a deal to write another book that would supposedly compare just about any hunting optics made.
My first book did have some comparisons, based on tests made by DEVA, the quasi--governmental German organization that tested a bunch of scopes. But any such comparison would be invalid "next year," the reason I turned the deal down. They talked somebody else into doing it, and the book immediately disappeared.
Instead, my first book described ways to test optics yourself, so hunters could go into a big sporting good store and make valid comparisons, other than what name was on the outside of the binocular. Which is why that book kept selling for years, though 15 years later I published another, to catch up with recent trends.
Yes, Japanese camera lenses vary in quality, as do binoculars with the same brand name on the outside. Which is exactly what I pointed out to others on this thread already. But apparently many simply can't comprehend that point, or choose to believe that even the most mediocre optics with a certain name on the outside are far better than anything else. Or the opposite, that anything NOT made by certain optics companies can't possibly be worth buying.
