Hi Russ, I had the chance to compare a lot of makes at one time. I agree that the top 4 or 5 are very good but pretty expensive for some folk. I finally settled on a pair of Minox 7x42. Value for money these are excellent, well worth a look. One thing Russ, try to get a few to try in a failing light situation, I was amazed at the performance differential between makes. I watched a log in a corner of a field about 300 yards away as night fell, switching between makes, the last binos to pick it out were the Minox, hence my choice. Cheers.