I've never really looked through any expensive binos but I needed a pair and was reading threads on here about it and got curious. I went to a store about 15 mins before dark and asked if I could look through premium and mid-range binos to see if my eye could really tell the difference.

I've really always just thought that the premium optics marginal difference in quality wasn't enough to justify the price difference, but I'm a believer now.

It may just be my eyes, but we were looking at a pine tree behind a tree line about 200 yards away as a target. The $600 Vortex optics I thought were decent, but when I switched over to Leupold and another pair that was $1.7K I could see way more detail than I could on the cheaper optics. We stayed out there until dark and I was really surprised at how noticeable the difference was, seeing as id never really done a side by side comparison in the field before.

I get why people really like those premium tier optics now. I ended up getting some Leupold BX-4 PRO GUIDES IN 12x50 and really like them. I didn't have the money for the Swaros.