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I'd be able to budget maybe $400 for my bino's in this case and the 10x30's fit squarely into that, which makes me wonder whether the 10x that's stabilized with 30mm of aperture would trump the non-stabilized 10x42's in the same price range.

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I own both the IS 10x30s and 10x50s, and I've hardly used the 10x50s since buying the 10x30s. Yes, the extra 20 mm of aperture does make a difference for viewing faint fuzzies at the edge of visibility, but the difference is much smaller than people who haven't actually compared them expect.

For daytime use, of course, your pupils are smaller than 3 mm, so there's effectively no advantage at all to 10x42s.

And yes, IS makes a huge difference even at 10X. That's especially true for astronomy, but it's true for everything that I view. But one nice thing about the IS 10x30s is that they're still great binos even if the batteries run out.

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Tony Flanders

eyeglasses
6x15 and 8x32 monoculars
8x25, 7x35, 10x30 IS, 10x50, and 15x70 binoculars
70mm and 100mm achromatic refractors
4.5", 7", and 12.5" Dobs

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