My buddy and I were at cabelas recently and looked through a bunch of binos including those 2. looked at animals in the light, shadows, targets with bullet holes, and the heat pipes painted brown crinkle in both light and shadow. They had some Zeiss Conquests 10x42 that were clearer and brighter. I was not real impressed with the Vortex at all. We also looked through the $2k Swaros and Zeiss and they were really impressive but hard to see over a $1k difference. Those cheap Zeiss Terras were impressive too.