8x32mm are ideal for glassing in hunting situations. Unfortunatley if you go smaller you'll be giving brightness, by saving weight. Take a look at the new Leupold offerings. If you weren't completely satisfied with Steiner then I'm not sure what to tell ya. Steiner are pretty good for the money, though I think they have a pretty poor field-of-view for their respective power magnifications.

If you want to spend more for clarity and brightness, look at the Zeiss compact models.

I've been glassing with a pair of Zeiss 10x42 Victory binos since about for the last 6 years or so. I love the clarity and brightness of these, but have found them to be a bit heavy and maybe 10X is a bit too much magnification for scouting and glassing. They are not really large of bulky. I'd call these a mid sized binocular. The only thing that prevents me from buying a pair of 8x32's is the fact that my Zeiss despite being 10x42's have a field-of-view that equals or exceeds every other 8x32's I've seen from other brands. Usually an average 8x32 should have a better FOV than 10x42's. Zeiss really knows what they're doing when it comes to optics. I could go buy a pair of Zeiss 8x32's, but just don't want to fork out the cash. Hey optics are expensive and besided you should only need one good pair anyway.

For low light conditions 7 x 50 is the best choice with a relative brightness of 7.1
(magnification diveded by objective lens diameter)
I like Bushnell or Tasco, but they certainly can't compete with Zeiss.
really depends on how much you need them and what you can afford.

Check out the Pentax 8x32 DCF SP's. Great glass in a smaller bino. If money is not an issue for sure look at the Leica Ultravid 8x32 BR

Of the 5 pair of binocs and two spotting scopes I use. My favorite is a combination of a pair of relatively light/small 7x-15x 35mm porro prism binocs with multi-coated glass and a compact 12x-24x 50mm porro prism scope with multicoated glass.
I wear the binocs and carry the scope in my bag.

Both work very well under any light conditions with very good clarity. Binocs up to 10x and the scope up to 15x in very low light.

Redrider-

How about getting a good bino carry harness like the Slide and Flex? I use one for my Nikon 10x42s and you hardly notice you're even wearing them it's so comfortable. Just a thought. I gave up on compacts years ago because they just don't work for long range glassing.

Carl

Thanks Carl Good Idea?