apexpredator

Leupold Cascades 8x42, very bright.

SouthDakotaHunter

I would get 10x...

The Nikon Monarchs are pretty good. I actually bought some Alpen's - Shasta 's I believe. I spent 20 minutes outside the sporting goods store comparing the two. Felt the Alpens had a bit better glass and they were a bit cheaper so I went with them...

I've absolutly beat the crap out of them the last 3 years and they are still working great...

skeeter 7MM

I have a pair of bushnell legend 9x25's that I won at a DU function, the optics are pretty good but as mentioned due to the compact design they are not very useful in low light situations. I have not looked through any of the other legends though, so this not a knock on that model just simply affirmation that compacts in this class of optics aren't a great all purpose choice.

I use Pentax DCF SP's for the majority of my field work. While these are out of your budget range I wanted to say Iswitched from 10X to 8X's. IMHO 8x40ish is a good place to be with field glasses, as the small gain in power doesn't compensate enough for losses that come with the higher power - mainly low light performance/light transmission.If you need more then a spotting scope isthe step to take not more power.

In your price range look at the Nikon Monarch's, I have been impressed with my partners8x42's.

PikeHunter1868

Anything made by Steiner is great. I have the auto-focus model and will never buy another set until I lose these!

skeeter 7MM

FWIW, I was at a shop in town today and was able to compare the Nikon monarch 8 and 10x's. To my eyes the 10x didn't even compare, they showed colour infringing anddistorted around the edges. The 8x's appeared like a different glass as the were sharper, appeared alot clearer and brighter then their counter part 10's. I also compared the alpen shasta to the monarchs and between the 10x they were a clear winner. In regards to the 8x's Monarchsand 10x alpenswere pretty close. While the Nikons sported a slightly brighter image, the alpens had better edge to edge sharpness and slightly better overall clarity. Just my take based on a 15 - 20minute side x side though.

I also had a chance to look through the Wind River line up this week, I was dissapointed in the Pinnacle models. Olympics were decent. Cascades best bang for the dollar. The Wind Rivers were at a different store then the others so unfortunately I couldn't compare them directly.Though my impressions were the8x42 cascades, 8x42 monarchs and 10x42 alpen shasta were pretty darn close within this range of bins. Just my 2 cents which maybe worthless to others,so pleaselet your eyes do the talking before you buy! G/L