Feathers are the bomb....they work very well, are indeed light weight, and they look really cool! Feathers are also much more forgiving of contact with anything, they merely collapse upon the contact and bounce back to shape after....And they don't kick the arrow around when they straighten back out.

BUT, vanes have their advantages as well. The new Blazer vanes stabilize just as good, and weigh ALMOST as little as feathers. Unless I'm mistaken, which has happened here before, 5" feathers weigh 3 grains/each....Blazers are 5/each....The BIGGEST advantage is wet weather. Feathers don't like to be wet...Yes, there are precautions you can take, but me, I just use Blazers and forget about it.