There is so much discussion in this forum about opinions regarding binoculars that I wonder if and how the forum might poll the members to see what is actually being used. I think it would be interesting to see which brands and models are owned and used regulary.
How would the questionaire by developed? Could it be emailed? Is this just too big of a task to attempt? Should it be ongoing or annual?
There are many problems to solve regarding such a poll.
Are there members who have expertise in gathering such information who would be willing to take this question and find a way to develop our input into a survey?
When a test is done like the Cornell Labs surveys, there are always complaints that certain bins are not tested or rated. The BF survey should be open and list all bins that have a certain number of votes and are currently available either new or still obtainable on the used market.
I think a poll of our forum members, if it can be done, would be much more useful and creditable than any I can think of.
OK...who has a thought on this?
There have been quite a few threads on this general topic, which to me seems little different than asking for opinions of which 8x42 or 10x42 is best or opinions of the top 5 binos of all time as previous threads have done. But maybe there is something different about asking what binos members of BF actually use (well, that's kind of been done in various ways too). In general, the answer to that question may not be so interesting or informative with respect to making your own choices, because for many, the binos they use are as much or more a reflection of accidents of history (model availability), and/or budget constraints than deliberate choice--and frequently, when "choosing" among models, the comparisons are made very quickly and under a limited range of conditions in comparison to the arena in which the binoculars are actually used. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of users who happily tell others about how stupendous whatever binocular they bought is, even though they have practically no comparative experience with other models (and thus, in my opinion, have no basis on which to judge the relative merits of the model they are touting). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when we look at the choices of folks who HAVE actually rigorously compared various models to one another, we see that there is no concensus as to which model is the best--it appears that there are significant personal differences such that different binos fit different people better or worse than others.
And that is, perhaps, the most interesting, and least systematically (though frequently tangentially or erratically) discussed angle to this overall topic. I do find it kind of interesting to see which binos a reviewer picks over others in direct comparison, especially when they share enough about themselves through their descriptions or their choices over time, that one can wonder about the consistancies that underlie their evaluations. These sort of reviews might even be informative for guiding one's own choices, kind of like when you get to know a particular movie or restaurant reviewer well enough that even if you have different tastes, you can tell from their review whether or not you would enjoy the movie or restaurant yourself. That is what was interesting about reading Better View Desired. Even when my own tastes differed from those of Steve Ingraham, I found his "reference set" interesting because I knew what models he had chosen among, and because many members of the reference set held that status for quite a while despite the fact that Mr. Ingraham was constantly reevaluating his choices. Likewise, I find it somewhat interesting that Luca (on this forum), having apparently owned nearly every premium binocular under the sun and given the choice of any of them, selected the Swarovski 8x32 EL and Leica 10x42 Ultravid to keep/use when he decided to do away with his collection.
So I guess what I would suggest, as a means of seeing just how personal bino selection is with respect to which models win out over others, is that respondants list their own "reference set"--the set of binos that they think are the best models in the binocular configurations that they regularly use (choice of these configurations being itself a matter of great personal difference). Next, they should list the binoculars that they actually own and regularly use in each configuration (if not the same as the model that they are convinced is best in that configuration). Finally, they should list the models that they own (or owned for an extended period) but DO NOT regularly use, so we can see what they are actually choosing (in the full sense of the word) among in their selection of models to use.
Again, to me, it's more interesting to know what binoculars a person DOES USE when I know what they COULD use but instead leave on the shelf at home.
--AP