It appears that list messages are beginning to trickle through again. Weekend observing conditions were poor. Although crystal-clear skies looked promising around sundown, a persistant high haze and cirrus prevented a serious attempt to discern a difference in throughput between the Oberwerk and Bear binoculars. Just looking around, however, through the few "sucker holes", I could detect no difference at all in brightness between them. (Yes, I'm sure someone will tell me that it was crystal-clear at 3:30 am!) This tends to support my experience that one multi-coated surface among perhaps twelve (in these binoculars) doesn't increase throughput substantially enough to be noticed visually. Further testing is called for before I can really say with certainty "that's the way it is", due to the lousy seeing. Again I looked hard for a difference in field of view. This I can say with absolute certainty: There is no difference. The fields are exactly identical. I did feel a bit silly looking for this difference after I discovered that both have the same specification, by their respective distributors. I've been looking for differences between identical twins. These are the same binocular, made by the same manufacturer, but imported by different distributors. About the only difference so far, on my personal units, is that the Bear has ever-so-slightly less mechanical slop in the focusing mechanism. In practice, I could not see any negative effects of this with the Oberwerk. It felt fairly tight, just not as tight as the Bear. I'll keep comparing them as weather permits, and report any visual differences at all if I find any. In my opinion, and this what I want to stress, Bear owners have no reason to feel that they hold an inferior product to the Oberwerk. I'm still curious, Ron, as to whether you had a chance to repeat your comparison, and if you still stand by your pronouncement. If so, I would like to examine the same two units you used for your tests. I would be willing to drive to an OAS star-party for this, given enough notice. -Chuck __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com