Brock,
Which of the Oberwerk 15x70s do you mean. The Lightweights (under various badges) decollimate if you sneeze on them:
http://www.bigbinoculars.com/1570.htm
Or the 5.5lb Ultras?
http://www.bigbinoculars.com/ultra70.htm
The Mariners are very solid, claimed to survive a 5m drop.
http://www.binocularschina.com/binoculars/Marine.html
On my IFs you can access the alignment screws.... just in case you try it.
David
David,
They were both 15x70 LWs. In addition to arriving out of collimation, the right diopter was messed up. The markings showed 4 + or - diopters but I could barely reach focus, and I usually only need an adjustment of +1 diopter on most binoculars.
I apparently turned it too far and the eyecups housing came apart in my hands. It consisted of a rubber covering and underneath instead of metal housing like the Vixen 7x50 Foresta has, the tube under the rubber was made of cardboard! I couldn't believe it. Of course, they only cost $149, so you can't expect the best materials at that price point, but I never imagined the eyecup housing would be made of cardboard. Decent optics, poor mechanics.
I haven't tried the Mariner, it certainly looks well built, huge prism housings, but if there's truth to a rough IPD adjustment knocking them out of collimation, they are not as robust internally as they seem on the outside. Marine bins are supposed to be "Built Ford Tough."
I wrote a thread on CN many moons ago, titled "Haute Chinese," about the coming age when Chinese bins would have a better build quality than what was offered by Obie, and we do have better made Chinese bins today, but Obie keeps churning out the same cheaply made stuff year after year, so I guess there's a market for them, and enough people who don't mind having to collimate their binoculars.
They did introduce a series of roofs - Sport RP Series - which by virtue of them being roofs should be more robust, but looking at the prices, I have to wonder. They are as cheap as the LW porros, and no phase coatings:
Sport RP Series
Obies turned me off to Chinese bins. Then I took a chance and bought a Minolta 7x35 Activa WP FP. One eyecup was "floppy," but the ergonomics were very well done and the images in the center 2/3 of the field were sharp and bright, and the outer third was mostly field curvature. Those would have been keepers, but my aunt from Florida was a budding birder, so when she came up to visit, I gave them to her. I thought I could always buy another sometime, but then Minolta got absorbed into Konica, and they stopped making sport optics.
I've since tried ZRs, Hawkes, Promasters, and Nikon Monarchs, and they are all better than Obie LWs, but they are also more expensive and all roofs.
Chinese bins have definitely made strides, but they still have a way to go to catch up to Japanese optics, which up until the tsunami and the recent demise of the late, great Superior Es, offered the best bang for the buck.
Brock