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Opticron Eyecups (1 Viewer)

Troubador

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I have just realised that I overlooked a small feature of the eyecups of the two Imagics and the Traveller 8x32, which, as a spectacles-wearer I have found very helpful

All three have eyecups with 4 available positions which means I (as a specs-wearer) can use a postion a little up from the fully-down position, which I find perfect. Folks who don't wear glasses have two positions available too.

I find this arrangement far more useful than a fully up or fully down with just one position in the middle, about which I often wonder, 'does anyone use this position?'.

Anyway it is a nice detail of adjustability that I wanted to report here.

Lee
 
I have just realised that I overlooked a small feature of the eyecups of the two Imagics and the Traveller 8x32, which, as a spectacles-wearer I have found very helpful

All three have eyecups with 4 available positions which means I (as a specs-wearer) can use a postion a little up from the fully-down position, which I find perfect. Folks who don't wear glasses have two positions available too.

I find this arrangement far more useful than a fully up or fully down with just one position in the middle, about which I often wonder, 'does anyone use this position?'.

Anyway it is a nice detail of adjustability that I wanted to report here.

Lee
I cases like this I have put a rubber 'O' ring between the bottom of the eye cup and the body of the bins so filling up the gap
 
I cases like this I have put a rubber 'O' ring between the bottom of the eye cup and the body of the bins so filling up the gap

Hi Pete

Yes me too, and I was doing this yesterday with a bino that didn't have the adjustability of the Opticron eyecups.

Lee
 
Hi Lee,

All three have eyecups with 4 available positions which means I (as a specs-wearer) can use a postion a little up from the fully-down position, which I find perfect.

Interesting observation, thanks for sharing!

My Nikon ED50 twist-up eyecup only "stops" in the fully-down and fully-up position, which to me, wearing glasses, was a bit inconvenient, though I'll admit that it stayed in intermediate positions more or less fine due to friction.

When the plastic eyecup ring broke, I designed a 3D-printed replacement, adding an intermediate stop because I thought it would make sense. After reading your post, I think maybe I should have gone for two intermediate stops ... sounds like this would be even better, at least with a zoom eyepiece.

Regards,

Henning
 
Hi Lee,

Interesting observation, thanks for sharing!

My Nikon ED50 twist-up eyecup only "stops" in the fully-down and fully-up position, which to me, wearing glasses, was a bit inconvenient, though I'll admit that it stayed in intermediate positions more or less fine due to friction.

When the plastic eyecup ring broke, I designed a 3D-printed replacement, adding an intermediate stop because I thought it would make sense. After reading your post, I think maybe I should have gone for two intermediate stops ... sounds like this would be even better, at least with a zoom eyepiece.

Henning

Hallo Henning

Up until a couple of years ago I had no problems with wearing spectacles and using binos and hadn't done for decades. Then I had a small change in my prescription and I chose frameless lenses for better all-round visibility and found that I needed my bino eyecups lifted a little from the fully down position.

Some of my binos have eyecup with 'click-stops' in the right place, others have enough friction so they will stay in the right place but with others I need to fit rubber o-rings to get the right position.

If you are printing your own eyecups then in case of future changes to your spectacles it would be a good idea to have as many positions as your design will allow.

Bis bald
Lee
 
Hallo, Lee,

If you are printing your own eyecups then in case of future changes to your spectacles it would be a good idea to have as many positions as your design will allow.

That's an interesting observation ... I hadn't really thought about the cause of my eyecup setting preference yet, I had merely noticed that "fully down" was not giving me the best picture.

Here's what the ring looks like on the Nikon ... the three grooves on the inside are the click stops. In the extreme, I could make this look like a corrugated tin roof and have like 20 stops :)

Nikon Twist-Up Eyepiece Ring.jpg

However, the 3D printed part fits very tightly and has quite a bit of friction, so it's not really necessary to add stops at the moment as it will stay in any position. The advantage is more that you can just turn it to the first click stop by feel, and have it in the defined intermediate position.

Regards,

Henning
 
Henning

When you set the eyecups to an intermediate position by friction, just take care they are set to the same height, otherwise you might not be viewing on the optical axis and so see more chromatic aberration and other undesirable optical effects.

Lee
 
Hi Lee,

When you set the eyecups to an intermediate position by friction, just take care they are set to the same height, otherwise you might not be viewing on the optical axis and so see more chromatic aberration and other undesirable optical effects.

I'll watch out for that on my Nikon 8 x 25, which has similar eyecup rings ... the Nikon ED50A for which I printed the redesigned ring is actually a monocular spotting scope :) I'm afraid my post was slightly off topic here in the binocular section of the forum!

Regards,

Henning
 
Hi Lee,
I'll watch out for that on my Nikon 8 x 25, which has similar eyecup rings ... the Nikon ED50A for which I printed the redesigned ring is actually a monocular spotting scope :) I'm afraid my post was slightly off topic here in the binocular section of the forum!

Regards,

Henning

Yes it was Henning but your post alerts other visitors to the binoculars section that printed components for eyecups might help them out if they have real difficulties.

Lee
 
In cases like this I have put a rubber 'O' ring between the bottom of the eye cup and the body of the bins so filling up the gap

I've found exactly the same problem with my Bushnell 8x42 Elite ED bins, and solved using a rubber band. An O-ring is a much more elegant solution.

I'm now wondering if my new bifocal-spectacles with very high refractive index lenses were the problem.
 
Hi Malcolm,

I'm now wondering if my new bifocal-spectacles with very high refractive index lenses were the problem.

Good point. I've occasionally wondered if it would be worth it to get a pair of monofocal glasses specially for birdwatching, but haven't really fully understand what the effect of varifocals might be. I'd think that slight differences in glasses-to-eye-to-eyepiece positioning might have an impact on focusing. Maybe the lower field of view also tends to be "unattractive" as it should be less than sharp normally.

For a while, I used binoculars without my glasses, but that leaves my astigmatism uncorrected, so the picture is not as sharp as it could be.

Regards,

Henning
 
Hi Malcolm,



Good point. I've occasionally wondered if it would be worth it to get a pair of monofocal glasses specially for birdwatching, but haven't really fully understand what the effect of varifocals might be. I'd think that slight differences in glasses-to-eye-to-eyepiece positioning might have an impact on focusing. Maybe the lower field of view also tends to be "unattractive" as it should be less than sharp normally.

For a while, I used binoculars without my glasses, but that leaves my astigmatism uncorrected, so the picture is not as sharp as it could be.

Regards,

Henning

Henning

I have used varifocals for about 10 years and have no problem with them. When you look straight ahead you are looking through the long-distance part of the lens and if you lift your binos up to your eyes when doing this, your binos automatically arrive in the right place.

On all of my varifocal glasses, the reading part in the lowest part of the lens only functions for about 400mm and the middle distance part functions for computer monitor or car dashboard distance and you just don't use these parts for normal nature observation with binos.

Lee
 
Opticron Natura 8X32 BGA ED

I have just realised that I overlooked a small feature of the eyecups of the two Imagics and the Traveller 8x32, which, as a spectacles-wearer I have found very helpful

All three have eyecups with 4 available positions which means I (as a specs-wearer) can use a postion a little up from the fully-down position, which I find perfect. Folks who don't wear glasses have two positions available too.
..........
Lee

Thought I would add the newest version of the Opticron Natura 8X32 BGA ED to Lee's list.

The eyecups have 3 available positions which means positions of full down, one intermediate position and full up. There is less travel distance between full down and the intermediate position than there is from the intermediate position to the full up position.

Additionally, the focus rotation is counter clockwise from close to infinity.
 
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