Steiner 2210 8x 22mm Safari UltraSharp Binocular, Earth Tone Brown with Black (Sports)

The Steiner 8x22 Safari binocular is a nice size, fits well in the hand, and appears to be well made. The first viewing impression is that the image is sharp and saturated. But then as you begin to pan, the image rolls across as though you were looking through the convex bottom of a bottle. This binocular has what I would call severe barrel distortion. It is bad enough to be distracting, when trying to follow something moving. I emailed the company (Steiner) via their "contact us" link on their Web site, wondering if this distortion is a characteristic of this particular binocular design, or if the pair I received was defective. After a week, I still hadn't gotten a reply, so I emailed again. Still no reply. So we are returning this pair to Amazon, and offering a warning to all who read this review.In the meantime, we have purchased another brand from REI.