Hi BW,
That’s an interesting photograph!
From the appearance of the binoculars:
A) The wear to the edges of the exposed magnesium is the same as on other EL’s that have had heavy use
It’s consistent with rubbing/ friction from handling (and perhaps aggravated by wearing coarse textured gloves?)
B) And the smoothing of the texture on parts of the RA is also consistent with this
C) However, other wear on the RA is clearly from sharp edged pressure (and in places it extends from the RA across the magnesium)
And there is also clearly the effects of scratching/ scoring at various places, including on the inboard portion of the left barrel near the torn area
D) Finally, the tearing seems to be the result of an extreme form of C)
Obviously individuals treat their gear with varying degrees of care. However if just shown the photo and told that it was a 3 year old unit,
my first thought would be that it spent much of it’s time in a bag along with other items, sliding and bouncing around in the back of a vehicle
As to ‘They've had a lot of use . . . but no abuse’, will Swarovski see it that way?
- at worst you’ll have to pay for the RA replacement
John
And you'd be wrong on all counts.
The underside of the binoculars, the side that rubs against clothing and other stuff is almost like new. I've just been photgraphing it. I've noticed also that the right hand barrel is starting to go the same way. One of the cracks on the left barrel is on the inside of the barrel in an area that comes into contact with nothing, yet it's expanded, come loose and cracked. The cracks (or tears) appeared only in early September a few days after I noticed that the plastic was feeling loose under my fingers. During that time I was in Spain on raptor migration. I sat in the side of my vehicle awaiting birds with my camera, the binoculars lay on the adjacent seat, occasionally picked up to identify aprroaching birds, before being put back down. At the end of each day they were carried from the car to the cottage and placed on a table. No impact, no piercing.
The side that routinely faces the sunlight has deteriorated. The side that lies in the shade and rubs against my body has not.
When I'm out with them I'm wearing them, otherwise they lie on the upholstery of the passenger seat alongside me - never 'bouncing about in a bag on the back seat'.
If anything these binoculars have had lighter used than my previous ones.
I've spent the morning doing some statistics.
The binoculars that these replaced were a pair of Opticron DBAs that I bought for myself as a birthday present in 2000. After over 12 years of heavier use than these Swarovskis, the rubber armour was starting to show its age and I had it replaced. It looked a bit like the armour on this pair, but worn on the underside also, and in black rather than green.
I used those binoculars until June 2016 when I bought the Swaros and gave the Opticrons to my son.
I've been looking at my usage over the past years going back to 2015, when I was using the Opticrons, and before the welcome arrival of a grandchild who is partly the reason I have less time birding these days. The other is an incrreasing lack of enthusiasm. I don't keep a record of my birding trips, but I rarely go out without taking photos of the birds, my main aim these days, so I do have a record of every photo.
Some numbers:
In 2015 I was in the UK for 307 days. Of these I was out with my bins (Opticron) and camera on 103 days, ie 33.6% of the available days. I would say that this was fairly representative of the previous years, although maybe on the low side, between 2004 and 2016.
In 2016 I was in the UK for 307 days. I was out taking photos on 62 of them (the grandchild effect), or only 20.2% of the available time. 5 months of that time was spent with the Opticrons 25 days out of 115, at a rate of 21.7% of the available time. I used the Swarovski's on only 37 of the remaining 192 days that year, (19.3%).
In 2017 I was in the UK for 328 days and birded on 78 of them, (23.8%).
In 2018 I was in the UK for 312 days and birded 56 of them (17.9%).
Now we have just completed 9 months of 2019. I've been in the UK 221 days and birded only 31 of them (14.0%).
So all in all I had over 12 years use with my old Opticrons, cost about £550 before they needed new armour and they were in use for something over 33% of the days I was in the UK, based on 2015 usage.
Since I've had the Swarovskis I've been in the UK 1,053 days and used them on 199 of them. Only 18.9 % on average from June 2016 to today.
And I've been treating them like a baby. After all they cost 2,000 quid, a lot of money, not the £550 of the Opticrons whose armour lasted 4 times as long.
