Kowa. I once did a few days of birding at Point Pelee NP with a British twitcher who had pretty ordinary binos but also carried a Kowa spotting scope that had been specially made for the shooting events at the previous Olympic Games. If there is a group of people who know their optics, it's birdwatchers, and when he brought it out of his pack and set it up, that scope garnered big admiration "Do you know what we're looking through here, Martha? It's a frigging Kowa ###!" (I don't remember the exact model name). Myself, I was so impressed by its quality images that the first thing I did in the way of optics after that was to save up my pennies and get myself what I guess was a more ordinary Kowa, still a very good one mind you. The trick is to also buy the best eyepiece for your purpose, those are not where you want to save money.
