I have always thought they were decent binoculars...well made and a nice design overall. Their only drawback in the past was the lack of phase coating on the roof prisms. Other bins in their price range featured phase coating thus improving the contrast and brightness. However, I just noticed in the spring Cabelas catalog that Leupold has now added phase coating to both the Cascades and the Katmais. In addition, they have now introduced a porro prism version of the Cascades with internal focus. I look forward to seeing how these changes upgrade the image quality