Well; I would have like to have gotten a pair of Bushnell Legend, but they weren't available today. So, instead I bought a pair of Steiner Predator Pro 10x26. Small and compact. Easy to carry, and lightweight for continuous glassing. But a sacrifice on 'field of view'.
I've had lots of cheap binoculars of all sizes, but a few years ago Cabela's had a pair of 10x26's on sale that I got, and they were the best I've had up till now. They just didn't have the sharpness of view that I didn't know existed until I looked through a pair of Zies glasses.
So, this evening after 6 O'clock, I went out on the Deck with a pop and candy bar to snack on as I try these new binoculars out against the going down of the sun. Joining me were my wife with the pair of Cabela's binoculars, and my son with a pair of Bushnell low end compacts.
As we glassed over the sprawling field of round hay bales, these Steiner glasses seemed to bring the texture of the hay right out of the bales, where as the Cabela's lens seemed to smooth over the texture. As the cattle and horses began to merge into the picture, again the Steiner's Brought out their images in sharp contrast to the terrain. Whereas the Cablea's gave a good image, but not as crisp.
I was hoping to get some views of coyotes, but when the horses are out there, the coyotes keep their distance. So, nothing was going my way for the time being. Then as the sun finally set, and the dark shadows from the tree lines faded, my glasses picked up a faint flash on a hillside about 1200 yards out. Huh'Oh, I said, as my wife picked up her glasses and began to scan the hill as I described the area. Sure enough, out comes a large deer with a rack on his head. Then two more, of which one of them was surely a buck also. Man!; what a great sight. My wife was saying where, where?, and I kept giving her more points of location, but to no avail. When the deer stopped moving, I quickly took the Cabela's glasses and what I saw was a blurred hillside with all the obstacles merged together, making it very difficult for me to identify the deer in such low light, but I knew where to look, so maybe that's kind of like cheating. Because she couldn't even see them when they moved.
By now I was really enjoying these Steiner's. Wow, it was amazing how sharp their images were. The deer finally dropped off into a ravine heading away from us. Now it was getting close to 7:30p.m., and the mosquito's were attacking my wife to the point she finally had enough, and I was left alone , determned to see how much light these glasses would draw before I couldn't see. Well, no sooner had they went inside, I made one more sweep over the field still getting fair to good images of the cattle, depending on their color. Then I saw 3 deer coming across the field from about 600 yards out. As their bodies would be exposed to the west the glasses would transmit a crisp image of that side, but when their rears were pointing west and they were broadside to me their images were so dark I could barely make them out. That was fun. I'm really looking forward to glassing some yotes in low light next.
4B
