Three binoculars

[jackg]

I started stalking in Feb 2008.
To start I bought Zeiss Dekarem 10x50 off the bay, the older ones without the multi coatings.
These are great to get going especially as I did not have anything else.
After a while I realised about the later ones having multi coatings and bought a pair on the the bay.
I could tell a difference in clarity and colour rendition, but it was not that great.

About month ago I bought a pair of Ace Avian F 8x42 from Ace Cameras.
In the shop I thought they were very slightly better than the later Dekarems.
In use there was very little difference in optical quality.
It can be a little tricky to compare 10x50 with 8x42 though.
The Ace Avians were on a 14 day sale or return.
They are very nice to use and much smaller than the Dekarems, but I could not justify the cost with little or no improvement optically.
So I took them back and had a look on the net to see what to try next.

I bought a pair of Zeiss 7x42 DIALYT T*P* about 6 years old, and I am really impressed, they are very good, decent eye reilef, not too big and not too heavy the optics are well worth the investment.
T* indicates the latest and best multilayer coating of optics.
P* indicates phase correction coatings of the prism.
I would have prefered 8x56 but I could not find any apart from new at £930 which is a bit much to spend.
It does speak volumes about the quality of the Dekarems though, they are very good.