oetzi
Well-known member
The thought is indeed absurd.
As absurd as the fact that Leixa buries its head in the sand and is not willing to make a statement.
IMO thats the only reason for them deserving the thrashing they get.
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Endurance test of binoculars (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter R.B.
- Start date
The thought is indeed absurd.
As absurd as the fact that Leixa buries its head in the sand and is not willing to make a statement.
IMO thats the only reason for them deserving the thrashing they get.
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
re #314. Anyone who has been caught outside during the monsoon knows it's a trifle more than a bit of rain. The amount of water sluicing off you ( and I carefully chose that word ) is little different to standing under a waterfall and is, IMO, easily classifiable as Grade 7. There seems to be two camps at work here - those that have field test knowledge and those that will only rely on lab testing and firmly refuse to accept that people with many years of experience can possibly know what they are talking about. Taking the test results as indicative of the waterproof abilities of the bins in question and allowing for the high purchase price of Leica binoculars I would have expected at least one person to have posted a damning report about how they'd been ripped off. Instead - nothing. As for Grade 8 - 'continuous immersion' - they are binoculars, not SCUBA gear. You might as well include dipping in liquid nitrogen and immolation to test the effectiveness to temperature change. It's put on the scale for completeness sake and for those very few specialist binoculars - such as special forces bins - that could, possibly, be totally immersed for any length of time.
Chris
Chris
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
elkcub
Silicon Valley, California
Chris, I simply love plain talk. :t:
oetzi
Well-known member
Good point.
Submerging a bino in 50cm of stagnant water is a doddle compared to the pressure a torrential rain puts on a seal.
dalat
...
I quote my own post above:
This simple calculation shows that every day life already exposes binoculars to pressure gradients that are higher, even much higher if you go the mountains from time to time, than this allbinos test did. So if seals are defective in a binocular, the changing pressure would constantly suck out or press in air. Humid air. Very humid air if you live in the tropics. And this would, at least after a couple of years of use, cause problems such as fungus growth or internal fogging. Eliminating these problems is one of the reasons, if not the main reason, why bincoculars are made waterproof.
The fact that we hear relatively little about such problems in a forum full of people obsessed about minute issues in binoculars tells me that these problems are of rare occurance, in expensive and cheap binoculars alike.
The allbinos test conclusion suggests the contrary. I am sure the Readers can assess that fact properly on their own
Ps: I brought a non-sealed porro to Vietnam when living there, after one year it developped fungus inside. I did not expose it to rain, humidity just got in the way I described above.
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Mark9473
Well-known member
Intuitively, I would tend to agree.
But explain to me then why resisting to a 100 liter per minute stream of water get's you a JIS Grade 6 rating, and half a meter into still water results in Grade 7?
I think someone has mixed up waterproofing classifications here. The list appears to be for IP ratings, mostly used for electronics. Level 6, the high pressure hose test permits limited water ingress; 7 and 8 are waterproof for short and long durations. Other schemes including JIS are different, but I haven't checked the details.
David
PS. A correction. I just had a quick look and the JIS and IEC at least look essentially the same as IP. If there is a relevant DIN standard I couldn't find it.
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brownpelican1
Well-known member
Indeed! Why such Pileatus angst over one brand??
A couple of guys in Poland drop some Leica's in a pail of water and find that they leak and you get your shorts in a knot.
We've heard from the statisticians and the scientific crowd giving us various reasons why these "Leaky Leica's" are insignificant and/or irrelevant and the test itself is nothing but a pile of perogies. OK! You guys have a point. We can't take the torture test at Allbinos too seriously. Arek and his pals had some fun bashing some bins around but lets not act like the results were a pronouncement from MIT or Cal Tech. If we're talking stats and scientific method then Allbinos is Allwet. I GET IT!!!
But man, you're talking sabotage and chain of custody (CoC!!). You want to know who had access to the Leica's and when??? Where's the video tape??? Your strident conspiracy theory is wearing a bit thin. What's next? Send a CSI team over to Poland?
Come on! Allbinos doesn't deserve this. Their tests have been a well regarded staple at BF for a long time. They're not perfect but I think the general consensus here on BF is that they are honorable. I think that the issue with some of their editorial comment can be blamed on two things. One is the inherent difficulty in conveying just the right meaning when going from one language to another. The other is more subtle but also more problematic. That is the cultural/emotional baggage that words carry. A word that might be provocative or offensive in English may not have the same connotations in Polish.
I get it. Your favorite bins got dissed by Arek and company and you don't like it one bit. You'd love to give Allbinos a black eye. Like I said, I get it but isn't it time to just leave it be? Two Leica's leaked. Interesting but not earth shaking. Let's grab our Leica's and go birding in the rain.
And oh, by the way....."Two Leica's Leaked"............wasn't that a Dr Seuss title??
You missed my point. I am not attacking scientific inquiry here or denigrating it. I am talking history, politics, journalism which, like science, are also things that make the world the place we live in. We are seeing it here in microcosm. Opinions are controlling this discourse. Your statement above leads me to suspect that you are trying to argue against them without understanding that. You know as well as I do that the history of science is replete with opinion overruling scientific discovery only to have scientific inquiry triumph in the end. Galileo is the most obvious example.
Bob
Their tests have been blindly accepted because people are addicted to a steady flow of "reviews" with declared winners and losers. There's no way of knowing how their point determinations are made because criteria is generalized and sometimes vague. What dictates a 7.5 versus a 9.0? I'm quite sure you can't tell me.
A few knowledgeable posters dispelled their obsession with so-called distortions and illuminated exit pupils but few listened. They consistently confuse quality with value and the bias clearly shows up in their conclusions.
They do deserve criticism, positive or negative. When you publish material that unequivocally condemns a storied company you better have your facts, figures and methodologies lined up for scrutiny. A sample of one is as dumb as it gets, something any fledgling statistician is aware of. Heck, they can't begin to tell you what the Ultravid population size is, much less determine an effective sampling. Neither can you. And because one cannot afford to procure a reasonable sample size does not entitle one to change the rules. Opinion, in this case, is BS. Facts matter.
Why the Leicas leaked is unknown. The reviewer concluded they leaked because Leica doesn't seal them AND, therefore, Leica is lying. That is patently absurd and indicative of BIAS. Did someone at the hunting shop introduce a fault? Did someone at Allbinos? Many on this forum appear to assume the bins were delivered in unsealed boxes, fresh from the Leica factory. I assume they were not and that fact alone raises many unanswered questions. They could have been cooked in a warehouse for all I know. Remember, three sinkers came from the same hunting shop.
I don't use my Leica very much so I really don't care about the success or failure of any Leica-related tests. I'm only interested in the psychology of a group of people eager to accept the simplistic conclusion of a poorly designed, pseudo-scientific evaluation whose conclusions are clearly biased. Had they simply reported the Leicas leaked and left it at that I would have said nothing about it.
As I said, I'm not sure the endurance test would pass muster as a HS science project. I'm sure others will disagree.
eitanaltman
Well-known member
My sentiments exactly.
I understand your point but would offer that one can be of the opinion that a disciplined scientific approach is the better tool. In my opinion, that is the wiser path.
PS
Thankfully, this is my last post on this topic. It's been interesting...many thanks to all.
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Lyrebird79
Well-known member
Sorry allbinos but Pileatus does raise some valid points above.
NDhunter
Experienced observer
Pelican:
I agree with your take on the review. I do not think there was any sabotage,
there were 5 binoculars out of 20 in the test that leaked, and were not found
fully waterproof. With a lot of testing, I am thinking that percentage would
be true across a wide range of binoculars.
Pileatus: You have viewed your opinion of the review, and so be it.
I don't agree with you, I agree with the Allbinos review.
Jerry
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Lyrebird79
Well-known member
For me it's got nothing to do with my favourite brand getting dissed. I don't own anything by Leica. I agree with Pileatus that the allbinos test was dodgy. Also Arek's comments about Leica were quite amazing. They didn't even know that it is normal for the Leica diopter to fill with water.
Yes. That is a good idea. I think I will move on too. FWIW I have concluded that one can't come to any conclusion about the overall reliability of Leica binoculars from this test.
What I have tried to do is explain why some people have concluded from it that they are flawed Ab initio. And I'm not alone. Others here have also tried to explain why this should be. Even those who have approached it from a scientific approach (and a historical approach is not necessarily unscientific) have had indifferent success in changing minds.
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