[300winmag]

The other good news is that we now have a set of *really* *really* nice Fujinon big-eyes for the tripod. I've always wished I'd gone with Fujinon in the first place. They are a couple of orders of magnitude better optics than the Celestron set. Very bright and clear.

Ah, binocular talk. The next best thing to rifle scopes for satisfying my optics lust.

[Wneighbor]

Hi Trini!!!

a little bird told me that you're too busy to post but you lurk!!! :-)

[Ramius]

Ah, yes... optics...

I would hope that you'd back me up on my Fujinon fetish. Sure, I'd like to have Swarovski or Zeiss, but I can't afford it. But in my mind, Fujinon is right up there with Nikon or maybe a little better.

The guy at Captain's Nautical (name is Bill Hall) is the same guy I used to deal with back when I was a Coastie. A couple of times I brought all of the binocs from the cutter all the way from Oregon up to Captain's to have Bill Hall work his magic on them. It takes special facilities to re-align the optics and then nitrogen-fill and re-seal them. Some of our older 10x50 binocs were WW2 vintage, but he did a wonderful job on them. They're probably still in service.

The guy is a craftsman, and I'm sure he's forgotten more about optics than I will ever know. So... I was an easy sell. I also got a new set of 10x50's today. I wanted to spend a little more but he pointed me to a set of Minolta (of all things) that were brighter and clearer than others that were two or three times the price. I'm not one to argue with an expert. :-)

[Ramius]

Another thing on the optical topic:

Down at Captain's Nautical Supplies, they are now manufacturing their own telescope, and it is a thing to behold. They make the whole thing. Solid brass, and machined brass at that. None of that extruded crap here. They grind the optics. They make the tripod. The whole thing is hand made by probably the best optics people on the west coast.

[sigh]

Check this out:

Really nice stuff. But dang... over $3K and my eyes just sorta glaze over. :-)