Springs are not that great unless you are pretty darned clever in mounting them to keep them reasonably consistent in their tension over the range of motion that the mount will be used in. Counter-weights are very simple, easy to adjust, and can adjusted if you should decide to mount a simple spotter on your mount to facilitate finding fields more easily.
As an option to tripod mounts, here is a binocular mount that I made. I was tired of getting a stiff neck when looking at objects high in the sky and settling for shaky views when my arms and neck got fatigued. Plus, it was hard to show people what I was looking at when they asked. Here is the solution, using an adjustable 12" x 12" front-surface silvered mirror from an ophthomologist's/optometrist's exam room. I found the mirror at an insurance-salvage place nearby. You may be able to get one from an outfit that salvages and resells medical equipment. Ask your eye doctor and he or she may be able to tell you where to get one, or they may even have an unused one kicking around. The metal uprights are cut from a 12x12 shelf bracket. I fount metal tabs to hold the wooden platform and used bolts washers and wingnuts to make the platform pivot friction adjustable.
I put two strips of felt on the platform to protect the binos, and installed two dowels that are spaced so that the bino's objective tubes cannot slide backward should the platform be tipped backward, not can the binos slip out of the bungie and slide toward the mirror. All you have to do is set the mount/mirror base/binos on a picnic table, adjust the mirror angle to acquire the area you want, aim and focus. It's nice - you can sit comfortably at a table and look down at the reflected image, like using a microscope. No more "kinks" in the neck, and if someone wants to know what you are oohing and aahing about, just back off and let them take a look through the eyepieces.
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