I have been wanting to buy a new pair of binoculars and recently had a chance to compare several different ones at an indoor boat show. It was in a dome (TWA dome, home of the Rams - no Ram's bashing please) so as part of the comparison I tried to read the seat numbers at the top where there was little light. I Looked through several different models in the $250 to $400 price range including a Pentax DCF WP, Nikon Monarch, Minolta Activa, Olympus EXWP I, etc, all 8X and 10X. After spending a fair amount of time playing with them I narrowed it down to the Pentax and Olympus. Then the person working the booth handed me a pair of Canon 10X30 IS. The IS stands for image stabilization which is a technology they developed for use in their video cameras. Next to the center focus dial is a button you push that activates the IS feature (uses a couple of batteries). Eager to try something new I focused on some seats that I could barely read with the other binoculars and pushed the magic button. HOLY SMOKES!! Those minute jitters that we all have when looking through binoculars vanished and the blurred numbers suddenly were sharp and clear. I couldn't believe how much improvement there was, everything was much sharper looking through the Canons.
Now everything is not perfect with them. A funky shape that I'm not sure I like. They are only water resistant rather than waterproof. Not sure how durable they are and I'm sure the IS feature would be very expensive to repair. At 10X30 I doubt they would perform as well in low light as the 8X42 Pentax or Olympus.
Anyone else have any experience with the Canon IS in actual everyday field use? If you haven't ever tried a pair you owe it to yourself to check it out.