So after a couple months I’m on the fence about them, they seem to be a bit more finicky to get behind than my Vipers which is my only real complaint. That being said for as small and light as they are they seem to be optically better than the Vipers which is pretty impressive considering the difference in objective size and exit pupil.
I’ll have to spend some time with them in the woods this fall, I’ve been using my Vioers for 4 years now so the new binoculars will probably take some getting used to. If nothing else the wife enjoys them so they may become her binoculars when we go on walks.
Also on the sales, points and cash back side, after everything was said and done they cost me $6.63.
I too struggled a bit with the finicky eye box when I first picked up the 8x32 UHDs. Coming from Viper 10x42s, the 8x32s were definitely more picky about how I placed my binoculars to my face / eyes.
Normally I would run my 10x42 Vipers with the eye cups all the way out, pressed into my eye sockets. Doing that on the UHD 8x32s didn't work quite as well at first, causing me to have kidney beaning (blackout) issues. But, after speaking to a few people about it, including a couple of people at Vortex, I tried a few of their techniques which helped dramatically.
The main thing that helped me was learning the method of keeping the eye cups more in, 1-2 clicks up only, and then resting only the top of the eye cups against the lower part of my eye brows. From there, I almost am looking downward ever so slightly into the binoculars which was what a Vortex member told to do. That immediately gave me the full image without as many kidney beaning issues.
After working with them for a couple of weeks, glassing every morning, every evening, and during the middle of the day off of my back deck, I noticed myself getting more muscle memory for how to place my eyes. I even got to where I could comfortably glass with the eye cups all the way in which as a non-glasses wearer seemed very foreign to me. But let me tell you, when you get that down, it opens up a whole new world of glassing with these binos as you no longer feel like your looking down a barrel and instead are getting a completely full image which almost magnifies the entire 472' field of view. Learning to glass like that with these binoculars has completely changed how I view FOV and how I glass as a whole.
Now that I've worked with them for a couple of weeks, I not only feel really comfortable with them, but I also feel like I have learned how to more properly look through binoculars as a whole. When picking up my 10x42 Vipers now, I back the eye cups down and get a much more immersive experience even with them. It's almost like the 8x32s forced me to learn how to properly use binoculars.
In the end, I not only decided to keep the 8x32 UHDs, I also now feel confident that I don't need anything else on me other than these chest binos, a good spotting scope, and a compact range finder. The 8x chest binos to find game, the spotting scope for details, and the rangefinder to help me make the shot. I don't feel like I'm losing much magnification compared to to my 10x42s (I could see the same barn and count the same number of bails of hay that are 1.3 miles away from my deck with both), but the field of view advantage compared to 10x42s is massive.
Also, for lowlight, these do very well. I compared them to not only my 10x42 Vipers, but also a pair of 8x42 Razor HDs that I borrowed for a week. The 8x32s beat the Viper 10x42s out in lowlight which I'm sure is due to better glass and the fact that the 8x32s aren't far behind in exit pupil size (4 on the 8x32s and 4.2 on the 10x42s). Compared to the 8x42 Razor HDs, the 8x32 UHDs definitely have better glass, and the field of view difference between the two is almost laughable which in some ways makes the 8x32s feel better in lowlight simply because you're seeing so much more.
That said, there was a point right after legal shooting light ended that I could pick up some beams on my neighbor's pole barn that's across a pasture with the 8x42s, but I couldn't see them at all with the 8x32s. But, that was a bit after legal shooting light (30 minutes after sunset) had ended. I've found in real world use that I could still see deer from my deck up until about 10 minutes after legal shooting time with the 8x32s which is great.
I'm sure a pair of larger binoculars, such as 8x42 UHDs, would give me the ability to see into dark timber at the beginning and end of an archery hunt a little better than the 8x32s, but the 8x32s are still good in my opinion in those situations, and the massive FOV you gain, along with the size and weight savings, make them much better to work with throughout a hunt or scouting trip than a larger set of 8x42s or 10x42s. They aren't NL Pures, but they sure are hard to beat when compared to anything under the $2K price point. I think they are a winner.
