So what if tiny bits of stuff can be seen inside binoculars? (1 Viewer)

[John Dracon]

I'm sure to step on some toes with this topic. In various threads comments are made about looking into the objective ends of binoculars and seeing (horrors) bits and pieces of tiny debris stuck or floating around. Or the worst possible scenario, suspected fungus.

At one time I was not immune to this kind of adolescent hysteria. In fact it took me a long time to grow up. Consider this letter written to the Zeiss repair people 22 years ago when I was 58. I would say this was prolonged adolescence at best.

The letter began after the Dear Sir, "Please inspect the left barrel of my 10x40 binoculars for some sort of "gunk" which shows in the field at 10 o'clock. This is the second time these binoculars have been sent to you folks at Zeiss..." My letter then went on to state that I owned a number of Zeiss binoculars, blah, blah, blah, as if this had any thing to do with any thing except to tell Zeiss I was an esteemed customer. Is it any wonder that Zeiss reports a high turnover of repair folks each year?

This letter is not made up. I found it in my Zeiss archives the other day. I'm finally coming to grips, that when it comes to binocular information, I'm a hoarder, with clippings and brochures collected over the last 50 years. An article by Jack O'Connor on binoculars for the hunter. Top ten best binoculars made in 1948. What's new in optics this year, etc., etc.

And for many years I obsessed knowing that a particular binocular of mine had some foreign bit of whatever floating around inside. It was only obvious when on the focal plane, which wasn't often. Something big enough to be on a prism seemed to show up in the field. But anything else really bothered me.

I believe I was suffering from what I call the Mallory complex. Unless you are British, or a mountain climber, but not a millennial, the name Mallory may be meaningful. George Mallory was a famous mountain climber in the early 1920s, who disappeared in 1924 attempting to be the first man to climb Mount Everest. His body was discovered in 2013, thoroughly desiccated at around 27,000 feet.

When questioned by the curious newspaper reporters of his day as to what motivated him to climb Everest, Mallory famously replied, "Because it is there."

Think, now. How many of you posters out there in Bird Forum land, while peering into the objective end (many times with a flashlight), discover a tiny bit of something floating around inside? And how many of you start obsessing immediately with that knowledge, even though when looking through your binoculars nothing shows up except the gorgeous bird you have discovered? And how many of you depending on what you paid for your binocular have an immediate impulse to call the 911 of the maker? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you likely are suffering from the Mallory complex.

Is there a cure? Probably not. A ten or twelve step program to plunk yourself into? No. Instead take a deep breath and tell yourself, if I can't see it, then it isn't there. Or repeat what is now becoming a famous utterance of an American lady politician, "What difference does it make?"

A footnote on my Zeiss 10x40 binocular which survived two trips to Zeiss only to find the "gunk" had moved to another place. Out of frustration I smacked the guilty barrel with the heel of my hand, and guess what, it has never reappeared again.

John

 

[John Dracon]

How do I get rid of this post. Evidently, hit enter twice while editing.

 

[Binastro]

Hi John,
It depends where the bits of dust or material are.
With Kelner eyepieces and some others, if the dust is, I think, on the field lens, it shows up clearly when you look through the binocular or telescope.
With terrestrial drawtube telescopes, the ones with erector lenses, then these often have very troublesome amounts of dust sitting on the surface of the lens elements. This is in focus and sometimes difficult to remove.
The better telescopes just unscrew, but even here you may have to delve a long way into the tube to get at the offending material.
I also have a very good telescope where fungus is sitting on these lens elements, and I haven't yet been able to remove it.

Then there are other positions within binoculars where material sitting on lens surfaces is very distracting even though not quite in focus. It may also depend on whether the user is shortsighted or longsighted and by how much, as to whether the offending material is in focus are not.

But where material is on the objective lens in small amounts it cannot be seen, and the same applies to many other positions within the binocular.

So if you cannot see any material when looking through the binocular normally that is fine, but if it really distracts you and it should be dealt with.

Of some relevance to this is the following.

There was a Zeiss 75 cm F/6.3 Telikon aerial lens, which came from a 1930s Zeiss survey camera that used 30 cm x 30 cm film, either with a vacuum back or positive pressure back, I cannot remember.
This was sitting on the top of the container full of sharp metal scrap items. Iron girders and similar.
The front surface of the lens had very many very deep gouges all over the surface and covering approximately 50% of the area of the front of the lens.

I was given this lens for nothing when I asked about it.

Out of curiosity I tested this visually and was quite amazed at how good the resolution of this lens was, even though the contrast was very poor.
I also had another perfect example of this lens and the accuracy of the figure of the lens components was quite amazing. These survey cameras were the best that could be made in the 1930s. They were also enormously heavy. And this was their downfall when it came to using them for aerial photography later on.
They came with either 20 cm Topogon wide-angle, 50 cm Tessar, or the 75 cm Telikon lenses. The 75 cm was most unusual in that it had a much larger rear element than front element and an internal Venetian blind shutter.

The above illustrates that even an enormous amount of front surface damage may not much effect resolution.
With a single scratch the best thing is to fill it in with black paint.

 

[perterra]

LOL, even though it's before noon I think I'll get a beer and keep an eye on this in case it explodes.


I agree completely, but it's something that infects more than optics users.

 

[perterra]

Hi John,
It depends where the bits of dust or material are.
With Kelner eyepieces and some others, if the dust is, I think, on the field lens, it shows up clearly when you look through the binocular or telescope.
With terrestrial drawtube telescopes, the ones with erector lenses, then these often have very troublesome amounts of dust sitting on the surface of the lens elements. This is in focus and sometimes difficult to remove.
The better telescopes just unscrew, but even here you may have to delve a long way into the tube to get at the offending material.
I also have a very good telescope where fungus is sitting on these lens elements, and I haven't yet been able to remove it.

Then there are other positions within binoculars where material sitting on lens surfaces is very distracting even though not quite in focus. It may also depend on whether the user is shortsighted or longsighted and by how much, as to whether the offending material is in focus are not.

But where material is on the objective lens in small amounts it cannot be seen, and the same applies to many other positions within the binocular.

So if you cannot see any material when looking through the binocular normally that is fine, but if it really distracts you and it should be dealt with.

Of some relevance to this is the following.

There was a Zeiss 75 cm F/6.3 Telikon aerial lens, which came from a 1930s Zeiss survey camera that used 30 cm x 30 cm film, either with a vacuum back or positive pressure back, I cannot remember.
This was sitting on the top of the container full of sharp metal scrap items. Iron girders and similar.
The front surface of the lens had very many very deep gouges all over the surface and covering approximately 50% of the area of the front of the lens.

I was given this lens for nothing when I asked about it.

Out of curiosity I tested this visually and was quite amazed at how good the resolution of this lens was, even though the contrast was very poor.
I also had another perfect example of this lens and the accuracy of the figure of the lens components was quite amazing. These survey cameras were the best that could be made in the 1930s. They were also enormously heavy. And this was their downfall when it came to using them for aerial photography later on.
They came with either 20 cm Topogon wide-angle, 50 cm Tessar, or the 75 cm Telikon lenses. The 75 cm was most unusual in that it had a much larger rear element than front element and an internal Venetian blind shutter.

The above illustrates that even an enormous amount of front surface damage may not much effect resolution.
With a single scratch the best thing is to fill it in with black paint.

I have to agree with John in the respect that if you cant see it when viewing thru the binocular, and there is no degradation in view, then does it really matter?

I have a Canon DSLR zoom lens that is full of specks after a camping trip to the Monahans Sandhills when a storm blew through with 50 mph winds. Stinks because you dont notice them unless you are zoomed out, still use it, though it sounds like an old hand crank coffee grinder when it focuses. :-O

 

[Binastro]

I agree that if you cannot see anything when you look through the binocular and it doesn't degrade the view then leave it alone.

The point about the Venetian blind shutter in the Zeiss survey camera is that it is within the lens. It obstructs the light path through the lens. The slats are painted black and rotate 90°. When the shutter is open, the slats are seen edge on. But they do still obstruct about 10% of the area within the lens.
This was in one of the world's best survey cameras, so that Zeiss were quite happy with this arrangement.
It means a light loss of 10% and care must be taken that there are no reflections caused by the slats.

I also sometimes use binoculars that have internal faults, but I must say that I prefer immaculate optics where possible.

 

[Pinewood]

Hello John,

Are you trying to write that many of us on BF are obsessive? How can that be?

Happy bird watching,
Arthur :hi:

 

[perterra]

I agree that if you cannot see anything when you look through the binocular and it doesn't degrade the view then leave it alone.

The point about the Venetian blind shutter in the Zeiss survey camera is that it is within the lens. It obstructs the light path through the lens. The slats are painted black and rotate 90°. When the shutter is open, the slats are seen edge on. But they do still obstruct about 10% of the area within the lens.
This was in one of the world's best survey cameras, so that Zeiss were quite happy with this arrangement.
It means a light loss of 10% and care must be taken that there are no reflections caused by the slats.

I also sometimes use binoculars that have internal faults, but I must say that I prefer immaculate optics where possible.

I'm not trying to be a smart ass (hard to believe I know) but really for me optics, if they are good are secondary to ergonomics. Which probably explains why I use the Leupold Yosemites more than any. Now if I was going to a region where the views are once in a lifetime, I would leave the Yosemites at home and take the Conquest. But for me, if something happens, I just walk in the house and pick up another pair of binocs.

 

[John Dracon]

Agree a 100% about the ergonomics of a good but not superb binocular trumping a better binocular. That little Yosemite is a constant companion. It shouldn't be that good, but somehow it is. My twenty dollar Bushnell 6x30 Banner is another. My wife prefers it over her Leicas.

Yes, Arthur, many of us are obsessive about optics. I may be one of the leaders of the pack.

 

[OPTIC_NUT]

" My twenty dollar Bushnell 6x30 Banner is another. My wife prefers it over her Leicas."
Gotta love the way those sculpted Featherweight bodies fit the hands!
The field is sweet as well, of course.

 

[Troubador]

John

You absolutely hit the button plumb dead centre with this one.

And its not just bits of dust or fluff or other similar items of gunk. Its slightly brighter surfaces or corners, or a shadow that might be a stain, or something.

Up here in the north of England we call someone who continually worries about, well, anything, a whittler. To worry is to whittle.

Anyone who is a whittler is advised to never shine a light up the objectives (or indeed up anything ) because there, madness lies.

If it doesn't affect the view, leave it alone, and preferably don't look for it in the first place.

Lee

 

[John Dracon]

Lee - It is always good to discover new idioms in our mother language. I had never heard of "whittler" before. Am curious if its derivation is the same as the word "whining", like condensation on a glass surface

American English is so bastardized and with the increasing use of acronyms, even on Bird Forum, each sentence seems replete with FOV, BF, IPD, BTW, etc., etc. The American government is the worst manufacturer of acronyms and works overtime to deconstruct our common language. Euphemisms will soon turn into acronyms, e.g., the killing of innocent men, women, and children during a bombing is called "collateral damage" or CD in reports.

Stay away from high humidity lest it fog your lens ought to be our battle cry. The other day the relative humidity here in White Sulphur Springs was reported to be 10%. I tried to breathe on my binoculars but they wouldn't fog up. You might tell DC both lens behaved the same.

Cheers, and stay away from whittlers.

John

 

[perterra]

Lee - It is always good to discover new idioms in our mother language. I had never heard of "whittler" before. Am curious if its derivation is the same as the word "whining", like condensation on a glass surface

American English is so bastardized and with the increasing use of acronyms, even on Bird Forum, each sentence seems replete with FOV, BF, IPD, BTW, etc., etc. The American government is the worst manufacturer of acronyms and works overtime to deconstruct our common language. Euphemisms will soon turn into acronyms, e.g., the killing of innocent men, women, and children during a bombing is called "collateral damage" or CD in reports.

Stay away from high humidity lest it fog your lens ought to be our battle cry. The other day the relative humidity here in White Sulphur Springs was reported to be 10%. I tried to breathe on my binoculars but they wouldn't fog up. You might tell DC both lens behaved the same.

Cheers, and stay away from whittlers.

John

IDK John, IMO people havent used that many acronyms, AFAIK though it could be a problem in the future. (YMMV)

 

[John Dracon]

The future is already here. BTW, it is really dry & hot in Montana. How goes it in the Lone Star State?
Perhaps one of these days we will have a key board to stroke in popular acronyms? Now it takes longer to type some of them in.

 

[perterra]

The future is already here. BTW, it is really dry & hot in Montana. How goes it in the Lone Star State?
Perhaps one of these days we will have a key board to stroke in popular acronyms? Now it takes longer to type some of them in.

Takes me half an hour just to figure them out sometimes.


Hot and dry here, 104º three days ago, then a cool front put us into the upper 90's, but today back up to 100 with 103's and 104's forecast for the next 10 days. I dont enjoy the dog days of summer as much as I used to.

 

[John Dracon]

Not many places in Montana reach 100 F, but the nights will cool down. The birds are already flocking up. This started over a week ago. Heading somewhere. This has been a strange weather year here. The big fear here are the forest fires. Once they get started, man is pretty puny to put them out. Over in the Flathead valley in western Montana, they are having a bumper peach crop in spite of record drought. The fuel load, as they put it, is at a record high.

Our usual visits from our migrant birds have been spotty at our feeders. Gophers are everywhere, and the bald and golden eagles perch on power poles along the highways are waiting for their demise. They tolerate cars whizzing by, but as soon as one stops for a better look, off they go.

You mention Dog Days. I haven't heard that term used in years. As a kid in Wisconsin when things turned hot, we would flock to pools, rivers, and lakes to stay cool. But back in the forties, Polio was the scourge, and our mothers wouldn't let us go swimming. This was the time of the iron lung, and pictures of some unfortunate youngster with his head sticking out of the machine was all mothers had to show their children to win the debate. We didn't have home air conditioning back then. Some had swamp coolers in their bedroom windows.

Fortunately for where I live, we have a clear stream flowing by and the birds have access to cool water.

 

[perterra]

Lately here John, coolest we see is about 80 at night. Drags on you, but nothing can be done but tolerate it and know that in 60 days it will be cooler. I put the lawn sprinkler out yesterday morning and by 10 am there were all sorts of mockingbirds, cardinals and jays hopping around in it. We had a very wet spring, but I suspect the birds knew what was coming because they all bailed out pretty quick. Havent seen many hanging around other than a couple of cardinals that made a nest in the wifes hanging basket. Best I can tell they fledged ok.

Wood peckers all left this year, last year they were around all summer and winter.

 

[Troubador]

Lee - It is always good to discover new idioms in our mother language. I had never heard of "whittler" before. Am curious if its derivation is the same as the word "whining", like condensation on a glass surface

American English is so bastardized and with the increasing use of acronyms, even on Bird Forum, each sentence seems replete with FOV, BF, IPD, BTW, etc., etc. The American government is the worst manufacturer of acronyms and works overtime to deconstruct our common language. Euphemisms will soon turn into acronyms, e.g., the killing of innocent men, women, and children during a bombing is called "collateral damage" or CD in reports.

Stay away from high humidity lest it fog your lens ought to be our battle cry. The other day the relative humidity here in White Sulphur Springs was reported to be 10%. I tried to breathe on my binoculars but they wouldn't fog up. You might tell DC both lens behaved the same.

Cheers, and stay away from whittlers.

John

John

There seems to be a concensus that whittling (meaning to continually worry) evolved from whittling as in to whitle a piece of wood, that is, to cut tiny pieces of wood off, one at a time and over a long length of time to achieve the desired shape. The connection seems to derive from the idea of worrying a tiny bit, every minute or so, in the same way as one removes tiny bits of wood. Whittling a piece of wood apparently comes from a corruption of the word thwittle which was a smalll pocket knife in the Middle Ages and which was an all-purpose knife used amongst other things for shaping small pieces of wood.

Can I go off-piste here and telll you a wee story of great good birdwatching fortune? This has nothing to do with whittling but the incident has been bouncing around inside my bonce for a week or so and it needs to come out. Way back in the 1970's, Troubadoris and me were holidaying in the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland on our BMW motorcycle. We had seen many goodies including Crested Tit, Crossbill and Black Grouse, all by diligent searching. Then, one day while cruising along next to a loch (Scots for lake) we both felt the need to answer a call of nature. Rather than whittle about it for the next umpteen miles we parked our bike at the top of a bank and scrambled down it to the lochside and obtained the necessary relief under cover of a drooping willow that formed a curtain around us. The curtain extended in an arc over a small portion of the loch and to our amazement there came, swimming through the willow fronds a Horned Grebe (we call them Slavonian Grebe). It swam past us, no more than a couple of yards away, then swam through the fronds on the other side of the tree and disappeared from view.

What a stunning beauty. What a coincidence that it should swim by just as we were there to witness it. Sometimes a bit of luck, a bit of magic dust, is all you need.

Lee

 

[Rathaus]

I'm sure to step on some toes with this topic. In various threads comments are made about looking into the objective ends of binoculars and seeing (horrors) bits and pieces of tiny debris stuck or floating around. Or the worst possible scenario, suspected fungus.

At one time I was not immune to this kind of adolescent hysteria. In fact it took me a long time to grow up. Consider this letter written to the Zeiss repair people 22 years ago when I was 58. I would say this was prolonged adolescence at best.

The letter began after the Dear Sir, "Please inspect the left barrel of my 10x40 binoculars for some sort of "gunk" which shows in the field at 10 o'clock. This is the second time these binoculars have been sent to you folks at Zeiss..." My letter then went on to state that I owned a number of Zeiss binoculars, blah, blah, blah, as if this had any thing to do with any thing except to tell Zeiss I was an esteemed customer. Is it any wonder that Zeiss reports a high turnover of repair folks each year?

This letter is not made up. I found it in my Zeiss archives the other day. I'm finally coming to grips, that when it comes to binocular information, I'm a hoarder, with clippings and brochures collected over the last 50 years. An article by Jack O'Connor on binoculars for the hunter. Top ten best binoculars made in 1948. What's new in optics this year, etc., etc.

And for many years I obsessed knowing that a particular binocular of mine had some foreign bit of whatever floating around inside. It was only obvious when on the focal plane, which wasn't often. Something big enough to be on a prism seemed to show up in the field. But anything else really bothered me.

I believe I was suffering from what I call the Mallory complex. Unless you are British, or a mountain climber, but not a millennial, the name Mallory may be meaningful. George Mallory was a famous mountain climber in the early 1920s, who disappeared in 1924 attempting to be the first man to climb Mount Everest. His body was discovered in 2013, thoroughly desiccated at around 27,000 feet.

When questioned by the curious newspaper reporters of his day as to what motivated him to climb Everest, Mallory famously replied, "Because it is there."

Think, now. How many of you posters out there in Bird Forum land, while peering into the objective end (many times with a flashlight), discover a tiny bit of something floating around inside? And how many of you start obsessing immediately with that knowledge, even though when looking through your binoculars nothing shows up except the gorgeous bird you have discovered? And how many of you depending on what you paid for your binocular have an immediate impulse to call the 911 of the maker? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you likely are suffering from the Mallory complex.

Is there a cure? Probably not. A ten or twelve step program to plunk yourself into? No. Instead take a deep breath and tell yourself, if I can't see it, then it isn't there. Or repeat what is now becoming a famous utterance of an American lady politician, "What difference does it make?"

A footnote on my Zeiss 10x40 binocular which survived two trips to Zeiss only to find the "gunk" had moved to another place. Out of frustration I smacked the guilty barrel with the heel of my hand, and guess what, it has never reappeared again.

John

John

From what you write, your epiphany and moment of enlightenment regarding 'the likely insignificance of internal binocular debris' did not occur until you were at least 58. Through your post, Are you attempting to assist or educate those of us willing (and indeed I am, to a degree).... so that we may find peace with our slightly imperfect but highly functioning binoculars somewhat sooner than you were able to?
Shared wisdom is a good thing,

Regards, Rathaus

 

[John Dracon]

Pert, Lee, and Rath - I really enjoy your posts and stories. Pert, that is a wonderful picture of the Cardinals newly hatched. Am curious if we could coax Gilmore Girl out of her gentle tantrum to realize that not all of posters on BF are knuckle draggers, as self congratulating as that sounds, and that many of us are "enthralled" with both birds and binoculars in all aspects. Humor, however, does have a place, even in the sometimes droll commentary on the birds and the other B which appear on this site.

By now readers of my duff know that I'm a great tease, particularly of the few technocrats and permanently fixated adolescents who make comment on BF. I'll share a story later about another bird fancier, really a kind of stuffed shirt sort of fellow.

The picture of the Cardinals show how different life is, even among birds. These are helpless little creatures awaiting food from mom and dad. They are naked and not anything like what they will become. A fawn deer, slips out and is a miniature waiting to grow bigger. My Canadian goslings from the moment they break out of their shells have feathers and are ready to go into their brave new world and find something to eat.

Lee, going to relieve oneself and seeing a Grebe at the same time is a special moment. I can understand why it is part of your recall. When birds do that anywhere, we consider that is just part of nature. If we do that in almost any kind of public setting, we are charged with indecent exposure. We are part of nature's grand design, and in spite of our vaunted sense of superiority, we have much to learn from birds. They enjoy so much freedom.

Rath -Attempting to educate you? Yes and no. All of us have been educated from past generations of the world and our own learning opportunities from both formal and informal parts of our life. The real question to me is whether we will educate ourselves, independent from all the trappings of outside knowledge. My observation of humans is that all of us retain some of our adolescent behaviors throughout life. It is whether we give into those young impulses continually that makes a difference.

When you reach the point in life where you are coming to grips with your own mortality, things take on different meanings. Almost all my classmates and old friends are dead. Our governments lie to us and deceive us without concern. Thomas Jefferson in 1774 stated, "...The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest..." We in the States have become silent witnesses to the slaughter of people in other countries by our own hands, and then wonder why they hate us.

Many of our young people engage in behaviors never anticipated nor foreseen - piercings, tattoos, and the coarsening of language and music is unparalleled. The "f" word is hurled around like it really has an appropriate meaning. These are to become the future leaders of our world? I liken the Internet to two streams flowing side by side. One is from the mountains, pure and pristine. The other is from a sewer. Eventually, they merge and become murky. Every gain has a downside.

In all this, are our birds, and they all are like canaries in cages trying to tell us something, if we will listen and learn.

On to my story about a bird fancier. My wife and I took our diesel pickup and pulled our boat from Oregon to Florida one early winter. Our destination was Key West and perhaps the Tortugas and Fort Jefferson, weather permitting. The weather was cold and seas rough. So we bought tickets on a big commercial catamaran to the Fort, covering about 60 miles of open water. Among the twenty odd passenger was a commercial bird guide.

Many are easy to spot. Like a Russian general covered with metals. Or an Eagle Scout with sash and merit badges sewn on from top to bottom. This fellow was wearing a wrinkled tan vest with various emblems indicating that he was a guide.

We got to talking about birds and binoculars. He was using a well worn Swarovski 10x42 circa 2000. I brought with me what I thought was the best made then, a Nikon 8x42 destined to be called the LX. It was and still is a good binocular, although it was a little heavy. When I showed it to him, he was not interested in it.

Once we got to the fort, the bird watching began. Soon inside where various birds were roosting, we ran into one another, and I offered my glass to him. One look and he handed me his, and left. I didn't see him again until we were ready to leave the fort that afternoon. He was reluctant to give me back the Nikons and remarked that in the shadows the Nikon was superior. I was a little bit smug, because I knew that would be the case. I don't believe I made a convert of him, but one never knows. Swarovski and Zeiss simply have better name recognition among those who rent guides.

John