Here is a good ending story about a Opticron-fail… :eek!:
It's well known, that optical well designed optics is mostly also mechnical very sturdy, so that a bump or low touch down seldom gets to a optical damage. (And this is shurely also a part of the price tag of Zeiss, Swaro &Co.)
The last week I was looking in the early dusk for Oecanthus pellucens (a sort of crickets), and the Bubo bubo (a big owl) near a sand pit. The opticron stood on his feet on the back of my car, while opening the tripod. Because of the back-heaviness of the MM4, closing the door was enough for falling down from the back to the ground - and the the ground was concrete, not soil or grass…:eek!: The first thought was 'bye-bye', with pictures of a cracked housing, and scattered glass inside. Than came a loud scream, but the Bubo-bubo didn't looked interested… I took the scope and shook it, but nothing rattled. Wow. Then I set it on the Gitzo, and watched (trembling) the evening scene - a far tree was sharp, if nothing had happened !?
Don't try this at home - falling a scope body from nearly 1m to hard concrete is not a joke for you. I know that there was veeery much luck, the scope perhaps fall on the closed rubber front-lens cover and then touched with the prism-housing (there is the scratched place on the rubber).
Thanks Opticron for engineering a solid housing a solid construction of the optical system. ;-)
happy regards
Manfred
It's well known, that optical well designed optics is mostly also mechnical very sturdy, so that a bump or low touch down seldom gets to a optical damage. (And this is shurely also a part of the price tag of Zeiss, Swaro &Co.)
The last week I was looking in the early dusk for Oecanthus pellucens (a sort of crickets), and the Bubo bubo (a big owl) near a sand pit. The opticron stood on his feet on the back of my car, while opening the tripod. Because of the back-heaviness of the MM4, closing the door was enough for falling down from the back to the ground - and the the ground was concrete, not soil or grass…:eek!: The first thought was 'bye-bye', with pictures of a cracked housing, and scattered glass inside. Than came a loud scream, but the Bubo-bubo didn't looked interested… I took the scope and shook it, but nothing rattled. Wow. Then I set it on the Gitzo, and watched (trembling) the evening scene - a far tree was sharp, if nothing had happened !?
Don't try this at home - falling a scope body from nearly 1m to hard concrete is not a joke for you. I know that there was veeery much luck, the scope perhaps fall on the closed rubber front-lens cover and then touched with the prism-housing (there is the scratched place on the rubber).
Thanks Opticron for engineering a solid housing a solid construction of the optical system. ;-)
happy regards
Manfred