Okay, you're headed out into the mountains on that big hunt and you want the most performance, especially for low light work, but you want to keep your
binocular as small and light as possible. Going to a 42mm or larger size binocular gets you all the performance you need, but those are always going to be fairly heavy.
Compact binoculars are great for carrying, but not a good choice for glassing those ridges for long hours and not the best binocular for really low light. What's the answer for a binocular that can do both? Traditionally, an 8x30 or 8x32 binocular is the
perfect blend of portability and performance in a mountain binocular and one of my favorite binocular sizes for all around binocular use, anyway. After that, it just a matter of how much you want to spend. Just remember, the difference between a cheap 8x32 binocular and the premium 8x32 binocular, is the headache you won't have after a long day of scanning with the premium binocular. If you go cheap on your binocular, don't forget to pack plenty of aspirin.