I'm still looking for a good pair of binos for under $300, but preferably closer to $200. I have decided on the 8x40-ish size for general hand held use and narrowed my options down to these:
Olympus EXPS I 8x42, $206 from centre.net.au
Minolta Activa 8x40, $??? from Michael's Camera in Melbourne
Pentax PCL WP II 8x40, $215 from centre.net.au
Apart from the FOV they all have pretty similar specs, and all have full multi-coating. The Pentax has the narrowest FOV at 6.3 deg, followed by the Olympus at 6.5, and the Minolta is a more comfy 8.2 but I assume not so sharp at the edges.
Besides manufacturer's info, I haven't been able to find out much about the Minolta and even less about the Olympus, but the EXPS is the top of the Olympus range and has 2mm less eye relief (ER) than the Pentax, which is a plus. Most binos have too much ER for my liking. I tried a pair of Olympus 7x35 DSP I the other day and they have only 12mm of ER and that was perfect for me. The wider FOV of the Minolta also sounds tempting but it might be useless if it's just more long winged seagulls. I managed to try a 12x50 in this range, but I found I couldn't look at the edge of field directly because I got blackening every time I tried to look to the side. But I expect the 8x40 would be quite different. Argh, decisions, decisions.
BTW. I went to Chadstone today, naively thinking that the largest shopping centre in the hemisphere must have a decent selection of binoculars. Yeah right! Around 400 shops of useless crap! You can't even find any half decent powertools.
What a waste of space!