I spent a week bear hunting this spring that consisted of hours upon hours of glassing the shore line from a boat. At the end of our hunt, I was the only one that did not complain of eye strain. I was using a borrowed pair of Zeiss 10x40 binoculars. Compairing the Zeiss to my Steiner 8x30's Military/Marine's is like HDTV to regular TV. Seriously. The Zeiss are that good.

Using my friend's Zeiss binos made a believer out of me. I am seriously thinking about getting a pair of high quality binoculars (Zeiss, Swarovski, Leica, Kahles, etc.) before next year's hunting season. I probably won't buy top-of-the-line, but an $800 pair of the Zeiss Conquest models looks to be a good investment.

I rationalize it this way. I have a $500 video camera and a $750 digital SLR. The video camera will be junk in 4 or 5 years, and maybe less if I continue to take it outdoors, on the boat, in the woods, etc. I hope to get longer life out of my digital SLR, but I don't expect anything beyond about 10 years of service. On the other hand, a quality set of binoculars should last several decades, with resonable care.