I have been envolved in birding and birdwatching since 1985 and in that period i have used a number of different makes and models from different manufacturers from Zeis, Pentax and Leica.

I usually always take my photographic equipment and heavy weight tripod and don't really worry about the weight of the binoculars. I  find that the clarity and light gathering of the binoculars are by far the most important factors in selecting optics for birding.

We were introduced to Vortex optics at the Rutland Bird fair in August 2008 and was very impressed by the range as a whole. We spoke with Shamus Terry from Vortex about how impressive the quality of the optics and asked whether we could use some of the range in our day to day birding activities.

In July we received a pair of Vortex Viper HD, Vortex Razor HD, Razor HD spoting Scope and a pair of Vortex Diamondback. It was like christmas all over again. The optics were all unpacked and we started comparing with our current Binoculars.

We couldn't believe the quality of all the equpment from the top of the range Razors to bottom of the range Diamondbacks.