Etudiant ..... Thanks for taking the time post about your experience with Canon Service. Hopefully I will not have to use it anytime soon but it good to know they did a good job.
Have you noticed any improvements after the repair compared to how things were before the failure? There have been reports of improvements over time so I was curious if you noticed anything. One of the items you mentioned that was being repaired was the I S unit. I think that is an area that may have been upgraded.
Did they provide detailed listing of everything that was done?
The listing was not very detailed unfortunately.
The IS lens assembly was replaced, as well as the eye cups. The latter were not billed separately.
The initial acknowledgement of the product receipt included the estimated cost, which was also the final total. I don't think any work had been done at that point. so there is probably a set fee for IS binoculars. My guess is that if there is a more problematic situation, the fee could rise, as there was a second time that I got a 'verifying credit card' message after the glass had been there for four days.
The glass was cleaned, which was a nice surprise. My Canon had accumulated a lot of grime in various difficult to access areas, that was fixed.
There was no obvious change in optical performance.
The IS unit seems much as before, it snaps on and releases once the glass is lowered. Just before the failure it had been slow to engage and to release, but it always worked when engaged.
The stabilization element has always seemed seamless to me, whereas others have remarked on a swimming sensation in the view. I've not had that and was again pleased with the IS. The limited DoF of the 10x42 allows one to gradually peel through a shrub to focus selectively on the birds sharing that shelter, while the IS makes it easy to ignore the leaves and branches in the way.
Collimation was spot on, as mentioned before. That is fortunately easily checked and I thought it essential, as the shipping box had gotten distorted in transit. Canon did pack the glass into a large enough box to allow 3+ inches of padding on all sides, so no harm was done afaict.
I did make a change in the diopter adjustment, but suspect that was simply because I was fine tuning the glass against my new glasses, not because Canon changed some of the internal optics.
I did not check the size of the exit pupils before, but they now appear to be around 4.2mm, so presumably any internal obstructions were brought up to date. I could not tell any difference in the field however.
Overall, the Canon 10x42 remains the best birding glass I know of. It is too big, too heavy and far from beautiful, but it performs spectacularly. Why it has not found more acceptance among birders is puzzling to me. Perhaps because of that, none of the other producers have stepped up to offer a competitive alternative. That is our loss.