The ability to see far occasionally comes in handy. It's not vital, but handy. I like to carry some type of "optics" when I travel (enhancing appreciation of things I see), when I go out into the wilderness (for seeing the details of nature and birding), and I would most certainly have some optics on me when I go tactical. After futzing around with various designs, magnifications, sizes, weights, and extra features, I finally decided that the most practical utlity vs. weight-size ratio was in the 8 X 21 or 8 X 20 compact monocular design. Monocular because I have a very dominant eye, and it saved half the weight for about the same result, with less fuss. For me a mini-monocular is about the perfect balance of practicality and portability/deployability... afterall, you may have the best $1200 roof-prism, ruby-coated, armoured, range-finding Zeiss binoculars in the world, but if it's sitting in it's protective case in your backpack, well, it ain't doin' you any good. So it was for me I found. I hauled around various nice binoculars and spotting scopes over Creation for years, dutifully packed away in my pack. But the thing was, I never seemed to use them much. The hassle of taking off my pack, digging them out, taking them out of their protective case was just too much for just the occasional, casual glance through them that I wanted, and wearing a 3 lb anchor around my neck while hiking for the few times that I used them was not practical either. Through the years I downsized, and finally, I ended up with 8 X 20 monocular as my most practical solution.
With my monocular in a quickly accessible mini-pouch on my packstrap, I can whip out my optics in 3 seconds and be already focusing in whatever object caught my eye, while my friends are still digging around in packs for their binoculars or more often, not even bothering to take the trouble, and waiting for their turn to peek through mine. And just as quickly, I can put it back into it's case and be hiking. I'll tell you, it's made a world of difference to me.... seeing things more closely, at will, conveniently and quickly.
It's so fast and convenient to deploy, I use it on my vehicle Go bag, and I can whip it out at stoplights to read small script signs or check out interesting things in the distance. It surprises my traveling companions sometimes how I could be standing somewhere admiring a view and in the next instant they look back and I have my monocular out. Really, I have nothing against larger telecopes and full-sized binoculars, they work great, but I just find them too inconvenient to lug around. That's just me.
My particular monocular uses a series of right angle reflectors to shorten the overall linear length of the unit, while retaining its focal length. The entire unit fits into the palm of my hand, so, though the motion (scoping an object) is obvious, the actual monocular is not visible in my hand. It weighs less than 2 ounces, and though it is not built to be "rugged", mine has seen it's fair share of abuse in the field (drops, submersions) and still functions. I actually have two of these units (duplicate), and since I only use one of them, I part out the other one to keep my primary unit in top working order.
It used to be a much "bigger deal" back 20 years ago, but I was also one of the first people on my block... LOL... to have Night Vision. I learned the value of night-vision in the military and as soon as I could afford it, I bought myself a handy Russian-surplus scope. My first scope worked, but the image was not very sharp. My next generation Night Vision scope was better in that it collected more light and had it's own inexhaustible "dynamo" power supply. I do still carry that along sometimes when I know I might be operating at night or in the dark. It's also effective for stargazing BTW.
I do carry several magnifying glasses or "field lenses" on my person also. I suppose my primary is the 5X magnifier that is on my Swiss Army knife. It seems to work for most scientific and utility needs. It is also very effective for starting fires in a survival situation. Additonally, I carry a flat Fresnel lens in my "wallet". Ostensibly it is useful for reading small print, but it too can be part of a "survival" kit.
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