Cameras and Lenses
Bins and scopes-myths and reality
I enjoy most of the threads on BF but the ones that stick in my craw are the ones relating to optics. As a fairly ordinary ability but not that experienced birder it strikes me that the optics you have have little influence on what we see or how we see it.
I have Nikon Monarch bins that cost about £100(low end) and a Nikon ED78 scope(mid/upper end) that cost around £500. Don't ask me why I bought them, I just did, whatever the influences were when I started out. Both suit their purpose just dandy.
My brother and I bought my mother an Opticrom minimidget (about £120)-she had started to go on trips with a local council run birding class.
Last winter we looked at waxwings a few hundred metres from her house
with both scopes-despite the distance the difference was not great-slightly lighter and greater field of view with my scope-but we could still see 50 or so waxwings clearlywith both scopes. A friend of mine has top of the range Swarowskis and I have tried them at our local area a couple of times-can't see much difference-again his are maybe a lttle brighter.
IMHO bins/scopes count for maybe 1% of what you see. Reality/fiction? If true why spend lots unless it gives you particular pleasure?
Not targeting the poster but I just can't get threads like 'Best glass for warblers' or threads about upgrading already decent scopes
So a case of 'the emperors new clothes' or just plain inverted snobbery when talking about buying new optics or upgrading what you have?
Discuss 
i've had a few friends that dont really get why i've spent so much on a pair of bins i use allmost every day and get so much enjoyment from, i often come across folk with a pair of £99.99 argos 20-100x25 super zoom bins hanging around there neck that are blown away with the brightness and clarity of my 8x42 opticrons. one friend had a look through them and my cheap bressers at home one day and just couldnt see what the differance was??? there just binoculars and they make things look bigger he said while looking out an upstairs window, i can see a cow in these... oh and i can see the same cow in these he remarked with little interest, i asked him if he could read the number plate on a car down the road without the bins... i could but he couldnt...still insisted his eyesight was fine.
nuff said i guess!
Hmmm, "just plain inverted snobbery". Don't you mean just regular old snobbery? I think your view might be called "inverted snobbery".
Have you ever looked through a really through a really good pair of bins and compared them to your £100 Nikon Monarch (that's a good deal - which model?) Seriously you'd see a difference. Even the naive viewer can tell the difference. The question around here (see the Promaster and Hawke ED threads) is how much you have to spend to get to that top end view: $2000 or $500.
Scopes are even tougher optically though that Nikon 78ED is better than OK. Did you push them both out to x60? That's where the cheap and no-ED scopes fall over.
Sure you can see they're Waxwings especially if you already know they're waxwings and that cool hair-do is a dead give away. That's Giss birding. But in your bins can you tell the females from the males? Can you see the broader yellow tip of the tail and the yellow edges and Vs on the primaries? What if you were doing a count (not just spotting the birds)? Differentiating species at the limit of your range is helped by good optics. Of course some of that good optics may not be fashionable: a good porro at a third the price of a top end roof. Another thing to your "must look through" list. It will be a revelation.
Same goes for warblers especially if they were one of many warblers you've not seen before. Can you get all the field marks? Low contrast ones?
BTW, there are many more New World Warblers in the US (something like 60ish breeding species) than the Old World Warblers UK (14 breeding species). Separating them out in spring and fall migration is a challenge that isn't quite the same as in the UK. All separated by subtlety different field marks on birds that are hopping around in the canopy 30m perhaps away from the observer). So a request for bins to optimize this is not too unusual.
But good optics doesn't make you a good birder and there are plenty more forums here for people who don't obsess about their optics and try to improve other aspects of their hobby. They buy good enough and pursue the hobby as much or as little as they wish.
But for a serious birder the cost of optics is a small fraction of the cost of birding if you start chasing the birds (the Scillies? The Farnes? Norfolk? A bit of a drive/flight from Scotland!). So when you arrive to see a new bird for the list you want to optimize your chances of seeing and IDing the bird.
Next time you get a chance look through some good mid range and alpha bins. Really you may change your mind.