Hi All,
Unacceptable sample variation is said to exist even in most expensive optical products. Fortunately many of the top manufacturers dutifully repair or even replace clearly defective products. But how about those samples which are within acceptable tolerances, but noticeably (eg. in star tests) out of what could be - or those samples that the manufacturer's local service has not always been able to repair. If we pay something like $1500-2500€ for the best possible optics, I know I would have hard time accepting that eg. the left barrel of the binos is slightly out of alignment - even though it would be within tolerances and I couldn't see it in birdwatching .
Now that we have some of the worlds best experts on optical repairs as forum members (Bill Cook, Antony Kay), it would be interesting to hear how many of those less than perfect (or even so-called "lemon") scopes or binoculars could be serviced into cherries? In the Forum's Resources list there is a link to Antony Kay's Optrep company, which offers full services for binoculars and telescopes for £30-50 including cleaning, collimation, lubrication, nitrogen purging etc. That sounds like a reasonable cost if it turns out that its optical elements are poorly assembled or knocked out of alignment.
It would also be nice to hear from members, who have used these kinds of services, have you been happy with the results.
Best regards,
Ilkka
Unacceptable sample variation is said to exist even in most expensive optical products. Fortunately many of the top manufacturers dutifully repair or even replace clearly defective products. But how about those samples which are within acceptable tolerances, but noticeably (eg. in star tests) out of what could be - or those samples that the manufacturer's local service has not always been able to repair. If we pay something like $1500-2500€ for the best possible optics, I know I would have hard time accepting that eg. the left barrel of the binos is slightly out of alignment - even though it would be within tolerances and I couldn't see it in birdwatching .
Now that we have some of the worlds best experts on optical repairs as forum members (Bill Cook, Antony Kay), it would be interesting to hear how many of those less than perfect (or even so-called "lemon") scopes or binoculars could be serviced into cherries? In the Forum's Resources list there is a link to Antony Kay's Optrep company, which offers full services for binoculars and telescopes for £30-50 including cleaning, collimation, lubrication, nitrogen purging etc. That sounds like a reasonable cost if it turns out that its optical elements are poorly assembled or knocked out of alignment.
It would also be nice to hear from members, who have used these kinds of services, have you been happy with the results.
Best regards,
Ilkka