I have a pair of 10x42 pures and am thinking about picking up a 15x Meostar.
Would I be better served to get rid of the 10’s and do to 8’s?
I would use the 8’s as more of a handheld option and the 15’s on a tripod.
I hunt southwest Colorado and southern Wyoming.
Anyone in Denver have NL 8’s I could look through?
Many thanks!
A lot really depends on the type and balance of landscape you'll be hunting, and the type of hunting you need to do...SW Co and Southern WY is a pretty big mix of type, but predominantly open, brushy, often hilly ground, isn't it? Does your SW CO mostly mean just the far SW, or does it also get up into the mountainous timber between Durango, Pagosa Springs, and Gunnison? How much are you on foot, and need to economize on weight?
NL 10s behave more like everyone else's 8s when it comes to hand-held glassing, in terms of how shaky you perceive the image to be, but the 10s also give an advantage over 8s from tripod. Same thing with NL 12s - they act more like everyone else's 10s. You can still hand-hold with 12s, esp with the forehead rest, but they still get shaky. Definitely the best choice of the three for tripod glassing though.
As a recommendation, if hunting a lot of timbered country, I'd go with the 8s, especially if you expect to do any archery or muzzleloader stalking closer in, and need one-handed glassing at all. If hunting a lot of wide-open or hilly desert/brush country, unifying your binos with just one set of 12 NLs would be solid. If doing a bunch of all of that, but expect to do a ton of tripod glassing too in some places, stick with the 10s and add 15s - but only if the 15s are of a high enough quality that glassing for hours doesn't cause eye strain.
