Restabilization is, however, considerably faster in these conditions than it is when you first turn stabilization on. There are conditions where stabilization does degrade the image almost to the point where it is useless. If there is a lot of random movement in the image, as in a still bird against a background of wind tossed foliage, the stabilization seems to have difficulty. I found that putting the bird above or below center gave me a much more satisfactory view. Finally, if there is a lot of air motion, as in looking long distances across marsh or open water where convection currents are rising, the stabilization introduces all kinds of artifacts.
Image contrast drops drastically.
Colors become smeared at the edges, and fine detail is lost. It's not pretty. At the same time, open water brings out one of the real strengths of these binoculars. The times when most birders would need the extra power would easily be offset by greatly increased ease of use in the field. I also expect that the stabilization artifacts would be much less noticeable in 8x binoculars than they are in 12x.