I choose $100 as a starting point for different reasons. One of them is that you might lose interest in this hobby, considering this, $100 is not a great loss. However, if you still are into this hobby after a few weeks or months you will soon find out that you made a great investment and that one of those binoculars was your stepping stone into searching for even better ones. And some day you might even use the Swarovski EL 8×32, in my opinion, one of the best binoculars out there. To find the best birding binoculars read more here: Best birding binoculars under $100