If we only need a binocular for the yard and drives through the national parks, do we really need to spend the money over the $100-ish Yosemites?
Are they as sharp?
F7A,
I bought my 8x30 Sams for day hiking in National Parks and they have proved to be an excellent choice. They offer optical performance that match my Pentax 8x32 DCF-WPs in key respects and provide a better 3D image. The focus knob can be noisy by some reports. Mine exhibits some stiction which is simply a minor annoyance. Because of their relatively inexpensive price, were they were to get damaged or lost it wouldn't hurt as much as it would with my more expensive bins.
Keep in mind that the DCF-WP series is said to be essentially the same optically as the newer SP series. There is a very minor improvement with the later. The SPs main improvements were in the hardness of the improved lens coatings as opposed to the image quality. Both the WP and SP series have been lauded as offering performance very close to alpha bins for a fraction of the cost. So comparing the Sams to the Pentax (FrankD among others has also made a similar observation) is high praise indeed. Do a search here on BF and you'll find a lot of very positive comments about both the 6x30 and 8x30 Yosemites aka "Sams."
--Bob
Go for the Yosemite. I have seen the 6x, but I hear the 8x is OK if that is what you need.