...Right now, I think you get way more for your money from optics in asia and the minute differences (if they exist at all) between leitz/cz stuff are hardly worth the brand premium.
I tend to agree with this statement for the most part. Mid-level optics today are far superior to mid-level optics of 20 years or more ago...at least optically. Certainly, a $300 binocular is probably providing an image that is within a few percentage points of a $3000 unit, going by the numbers. The advantage of the ultra models would be more visible in low light, which of course is when we as hunters tend to need them the most. Is the difference "worth it"? Good question; I vividly recall comparing two ultra models, one Zeiss and one Leica, side by side several years ago. After swapping back and forth several times, peering into dark corners and comparing the flare when observing an object that was heavily backlit, I pronounced one to be visibly superior. The salesman disagreed with me, but admitted that virtually every customer who compared them carefully as I had done had come to the same conclusion. So to me, the difference between two top-line models was worth it...the much more noticeable difference between either of these and any entry-level unit was a no-brainer. Like anything else, if you are going to use a binocular seriously, then you will come to demand and appreciate every minute advantage.
Once you spend a considerable amount of time glassing, you and your eyes will realize very quickly how bad Chinese binoculars actually are. I'm talking hours/day on a continuous basis.
For a quick peek now and then, they'll suffice, but once you've looked through high end binoculars, it's very annoying to go back to even mediocre quality.
Now this is the real bone of contention, the feature that separates the men from the boys, optically speaking.
Collimation, the degree to which the two barrels of a binocular are aligned with each other to produce a single image, is what really matters for long periods of glassing. If the two images are even slightly misaligned, an inexperienced user may not even be aware of it...the brain will compensate for the misalignment by merging the two images into one. The brain will then repay you for forcing it do this hard work by giving you a headache that must be experienced to be believed. This isn't even an optical property...a cheap bino can produce two relatively clear, bright and excellent images, but if they are not perfectly aligned, you will suffer for it. This is simply a matter of construction quality, and it is the area where the cheapos fall flat. Want evidence? Compare three or four examples of a high-end binocular model in the store...I defy you to see a difference between them; they will all be perfect. Now look through 3 or 4 examples of a cheap model. I'll bet a couple of them are badly collimated right out of the box, and I will further bet that the others will go out of collimation within a few months or years.
I bought a Steiner 8x30 binocular a few years ago...nice and light, waterproof, maybe $250 or so. It was purchased online, so no chance to cherry-pick a nice specimen. I got it specifically because I thought that the individual focus eyepieces would be good for extreme-cold-weather glassing, requiring little or no focus adjustment once set. The collimation of this POS was so bad, right out of the box, that it was unusable. Holding it up to your eyes, the two separate images were painfully obvious, and the effort required to merge the images with your own eyes was unbearable. Individual focusing eyepieces came to the rescue: the left barrel now lives in the glove box of my Honda, and the right barrel resides in the console of my truck. Voila: two fairly decent monoculars...but a total disaster as a binocular. Who would have thought that you could do precision optical construction work with a hacksaw?
So...do cheaper binoculars give you more value for your dollar? In a strict sense, yes, they do. But are they
worth it? For anything other than occasional casual use...sorry, no.
